Five Easy Pieces: the deconstruction of illuminatory data in research writing

Abstract

Recently, the author completed a paper which examined possible creative strategies in the overall activity of data analysis, some of which were suggested by readings in post‐structuralism (1994, British Educational Research Journal,20, pp. 175‐185). The present paper focuses on the nature of support material in writing about and reporting qualitative research. The application of techniques of deconstruction to the use of such material are employed to see whether this might produce a useful discourse. To achieve this end, alternative or contradictory interpretations are elicited from the data used by researchers in Journal articles to illustrate their propositions. It is suggested that the examples researchers employ to illustrate the logic within their articles often undermine their basic propositions, owing to their ambiguous nature. The assumption underlying this paper is that by freeing ourselves from trying to achieve unitary and plausible accounts of social interactions, we may thus prevent certain underlying conservative forces from prejudicing the interpretations we made in our research writing.