Notes on :Hammersley, M (2024). Rewriting Social Science: The Literary Turn in Qualitative Research. Qualitative Enquiry 30 (6): 533 – 540. DOI 10.11 77/10778004231165981

Dave Harris

The literary turn is more radical, although it builds on existing tensions. It confuses the purposes of article politics with those of social science

Social science generally used to be presented in the form of journal articles, although qualitative researchers have varied the structure, and also included electronic media. This shows an influence from arts and humanities, as well as the still dominant influence from natural science. Conflicts have sharpened since

There is a focus on individual cases rather than producing general knowledge. Individual cases have always been studied on the assumption that they are typical symptomatic, but now there are studies entirely concerned with describing individuals, communities as well as persons, a reconstruction of reality in the '"context of unique positions in time space and quality"' (citing Redfield 1962), and this converges with personal experience historical writing, biographies and fiction. There has been a turn away from the idea of mechanical causal processes in the social world in favour of an argument about constructed meanings and non-causal relationships: these require a narrative strategy and account of how meanings emerge and this is close to historical work 'or even to storytelling' (534). Social science used to focus on observable behaviour and inferences that might be drawn, but now there is a focus on understandings feelings and identity and a new problem of accessing and representing meaning, hence a turn away from impersonal accounts. Social sciences used to be based entirely on rational cognition explicit inference and now there is the argument that the researchers experience as a person is important including 'intuition, fellow feeling, empathy, or learning the culture of the people being studied' [not the same for me]. The involvement of the researcher and their personal characteristics is now more important leading to an argument that they should be fully included. The challenge to develop more creative or experimental forms emerged in the 80s with people like Gifford or Geertz, and this was the 'literary or artistic turn'.

Clifford's Writing Culture was a response to criticisms of anthropology for its imperialism and for its claims to objectivity [and for assumptions like there was still a field]. Arts and humanities had to be involved. Derrida and Foucault were increasingly important. The focus was on ethnographic writing, the actual texts and how they might be subjected to literary analysis [Derrida and the criticism of Lévi-Strauss would be a good example here]. Conventional ideas of representation were rejected — something literal objective or transparent — in favour of texts as constitutive, constructing their own objects with unstable meanings. Structuralism had seen cultures text and had already led to a blurring of anthropology and the humanities, and some sociology, such as Goffman. Clifford also saw a relationship between '"poetics and politics"', prompted by the political role of anthropology, deepened by Foucault on the relationship between knowledge and power, or Said on Orientalism and the influence of imperialist ideology of Western academic work. There were genre constraints at work in ethnography and these are firms colonial perspectives — so they must be abandoned in favour of experimental forms of writing.

The argument extended to much of social science [marvellous examples on 535 which I've never heard of, all of them apparently advocating literally models not only narrative but connoisseurship, dialogues, fictions based on research data] there was also ethnography and '"arts-based qualitative research"' [never heard of the examples], poetry (Richardson — hurray), collage and dance. The influence of new social movements especially feminism was important. As were philosophical approaches including post-structuralism and these days new materialism and the post qualitative. There was also a political dimension, since conventional methods reproduced 'the dominant white, male, Western, heterosexual, and or ablist culture'(535). Informants voices were controlled by the research and instead we needed 'textual "democracy"'. Indigenous philosophies were influential, and relativism was often implied (Denzin and Lincoln 2017).

Multiple epistemologies reflecting the particularities of time place and culture replaced universally valid knowledge. Claims to knowledge constitute the phenomena not document it, and use the same sorts of textual strategies and forms as imaginative literature — these must be made explicit, using strategies like modernist novels [again brilliant examples]. Knowledge in the West has been shaped by the exercise power and serves powerful interests, so research using conventional knowledge is oppressive, the truth is one perspective enforced by power. Rationalist cognitive styles of knowing are not the only forms, and perhaps not the most important ones, compared to indigenous cultures or marginalised groups. What is of value is ineffable because discourse can never represent it (Derrida) or it is pespectival or mythical, and it is false rationalism to think otherwise. Discontinuity and 'paralogy' are to be favoured instead of the continuous growth knowledge, even the dialectic, and there may be unbridgeable divides between ideologies or research paradigms 'since these are taken to be incommensurable'. (536). Transformative action follows creative acts or inexplicable events, discontinuity

The arguments are not entirely compatible, and can be interpreted in different ways, and depend on sceptical or relativist arguments or on standpoint epistemology. Some depend on researchers critique and are activist, like those from Marxism and critical theory, although these also argue that art and literature should subvert conventional notions of beauty a reality or truth as in Dada or Surrealism. This might add those who think that experimental forms are intended to bring about personal or social change. However, this is really a form of consciousness raising, or delivering '"the shock of the new"'.

There are tensions as well, like contradiction between relativism or scepticism on the one hand and standpoint epistemology other, individual subjective experience of both researcher and researched and constructionist assumptions of structuralist and poststructuralist writers which argue that all experience is 'socio-culturally and politically constituted' (536). The new materialism is also a conflicting perspective, and will certainly undermine conventional notions of critique.

The underlying issue is whether this is still social science and if not what it is. Of course, the term social science is itself problematic, but the underlying goal still might be to produce factual knowledge about the social world, and this one might be now downgraded in favour of authenticity of experience or modes of expression or activism. Even with conventional research, there is an aim to 'persuade readers of the truth of the findings so that rhetoric is unavoidable' (537), and there is some truth in this, although persuasion should still operate within the rules that bear in mind the overall goal — through answers to research questions in this case. Some rhetorical strategies will be illegitimate with this goal in mind.

The whole issue turns on the functions forms are designed to serve. Fictions in science that help facilitate analysis or make presentation to wider audiences easier have long been employed. However recent literary term argues for more than this. However, social science practices are still institutionalised in matters such as the examination of doctoral dissertations were reviewing of articles for the evaluation of proposals by funding bodies. There have been some moves in these areas away from these traditional conceptions but they still all 'rely on that conception for their public rationale', and any departure will erode public attitudes and trust. Social science. These to be any more reliable than any other kind of knowledge. Writing must still aim at collective deliberation to determine validity, sufficient evidence and information to allow appraisal, not the sort of responses prompted by art and literature — increasing religious devotion sympathy for others, erotic excitement or shock. Social science is not superior, but just different.

There is a kind of holism involved in the literary and artistic turn, attempts to somehow capture 'the whole human experience'. Yet a selective approach to understanding is more effective in pursuing deeper understanding. The boundaries around academic social science have been weakened by external demands for impact, or making a difference, and also 'the rise of mass higher education, which is increasingly concerned not so much with initiating students into disciplines, either to prepare them for becoming academics themselves or as a form of liberal education, but with attracting and retaining them for financial reasons and/or preparing them for future occupations outside the universities' [you have it there matey].

In conclusion the recent literary and artistic turn reflects long-standing tensions, and reflects both political concerns and philosophical ideas, but there is 'a motley of assumptions' and differences in oppositions among the ideas deserve more attention. None of the particular alternatives is convincing on their own [with reference to Hammersley 1995, 2008, or 2023]. Fictional devices are fine as long as they serve the overall aim of producing factual knowledge and conveying knowledge to lay audiences, rather than just having an impact. Stuff that does that may be of value, but this value should be judged in its own terms and it should not 'shelter in the domain of social science while simultaneously attacking and undermining it' (538)

NB 2023 is his book on methodological concepts a critical guide.