Description:
Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After the Postmodern Turn
provides an innovative approach to grounded theory useful in a wide array of qualitative
research projects. Extending Anselm Strauss's ecological social worlds/arenas/discourses
framework, situational analysis offers researchers three kinds of maps that place emphasis
on the range of differences rather than commonalities, as found via the traditional
grounded theory approach:
- Situational maps lay out the major human, nonhuman, discursive, and material elements
in the research situation of concern and provoke analysis of relations among them
- Social worlds/arenas maps lay out the collective actors and their arenas of commitment,
framing mesolevel interpretations of the situation
- Positional maps examine the major positions taken (and not taken) in the discourses
Using extensive examples, author Adele E. Clarke covers why and how to do these
maps with traditional qualitative data such as interviews and ethnographic materials. The
book then follows in Foucault's footsteps, offering ambitious chapters on mapping and
analyzing discourse materials-narrative, visual, and historical. Situational analysis
helps researchers examine variations, differences, silences in data, conditionality, and
complexity. It is also very useful for multi-site research projects, which are
increasingly common not only in the social sciences but also in the humanities and related
professional fields.
Situational Analysis can be used in a wide array of research projects
that draw on interview, ethnographic, historical, visual, and other discursive materials
including multi-site research. It is a perfect supplement to any graduate-level
qualitative research course, and will also support professional researchers and
consultants from diverse backgrounds pursuing qualitative projects.
"Through this book, grounded theory has been thoroughly remodeled. Pulling
together diverse traditions in social theory and providing a coherent methodological
translation for them, this renovation is both scholarly and practical. The text is as an
exemplar for updating and reinterpreting research approaches in light of contemporary
philosophical and methodological sensibilities."
-Karen D. Locke, College of William and Mary
"A timely and erudite critique of grounded theory, clearly favoring the
Straussian line, and none the worse for that."
-Antony Bryant, Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.
"With passion and bravura Situational Analysis maps
the structures, discourses, and silences hidden in qualitative research. Adele Clarke
offers the best of both worlds: a theoretically grounded methodology and a
methodologically useful theory. This book is a must read for every researcher
contemplating a study of people doing things together."
-Stefan Timmermans, Brandeis University
Table of Contents:
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Prologue: Regrounding Grounded Theory |
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1. Pushing and Being Pulled Around the
Postmodern Turn |
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2. From Chicago Ecologies to Situational
Analysis |
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3. Doing Situational Maps and Analysis |
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4. Turning to Discourse(s) |
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5. Mapping Narrative Discourses |
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6. Mapping Visual Discourses |
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7. Mapping Historical Discourses |
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Epilogue: FAQs and Conversations |
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408 pages Paperback