CRITICAL SOCIAL RESEARCH

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© Lee Harvey 1990, 2011, 2014, 2018, 2019, 2023, 2024

Page updated 8 January, 2024

Citation reference: Harvey, L., [1990] 2011, Critical Social Research, available at qualityresearchinternational.com/csr, last updated 8 January, 2024, originally published in London by Unwin Hyman, all rights revert to author.

A novel of twists and surpises

5.10 The critical social research process
By way of concluding remarks I will review and summarise what is involved in doing critical social research. In offering this sketch there is no intention of reiterating basic methodic practices such as how to enter the field as a participant observer, how to avoid leading questions in a structured interview, how to select a suitable case study, how to sample historical archives, or how to undertake multi-variate analysis. There are plenty of method texts that provide guidance on such issues. This sketch reasserts the view, that underpins the analysis throughout the book, that methodology is not about data-collection methods in themselves but is about the whole process of enquiry.

Doing sociology is not just about selecting and constructing a data collection technique. On the contrary, it embraces conceptualisation of the problem; theoretical debate; specification of research practices; analytic frameworks; and epistemological presuppositions. Data collection is not a self-contained phase in a linear process. Rather, all aspects of the research process are interrelated and all bear on each other. There is no neat linear sequence of events as the idealised research report format would have us believe (that is, theoretical background, hypothesis, design of research instrument, data collection, test of hypothesis, findings, implications for theory). However much the idealised form of research design and presentation might be imposed on other forms of research, dialectical critical social research is not conducive to such manipulation.

Critical social research deconstructs and reconstructs. However, this is not like taking a house apart brick by brick and building a bungalow using the same bricks. The exact nature of the social edifice to be deconstructed is far from clear. Oppressive social structures do not come neatly labelled and ready for dismantling. Ideology serves to obscure the real nature of the oppressive social structure by naturalising it. Reconstruction is, thus, not just rebuilding but reconceptualisation. The nature of the reconceptualisation process emerges only as the illusion of the existing taken-for-granted structure is revealed. There is a shuttling back and forth between what is being deconstructed and what is being reconstructed. The nature of both emerge together. In short, critical social research is a dialectical process that cannot be broken down into successive, discrete stages.

So what do you do as a critical researcher (as opposed to what do you say you did when reporting the research)? You have to start somewhere and there is no better place than with the observation, concern, frustration or doubt that provoked the enquiry. Ask yourself why things are as they appear to be? But frame the question, not by asking 'what are the causes?' or 'what does this mean?' but rather by asking 'how come this situation exists?'. Think 'how has this come about?' and 'how does it persist?'. Ask 'how come nothing is done about it?' or 'how come no-one notices' or 'how is it that people accept what clearly is not in their interest'? Ask such questions and from there get a clearer picture of what you are really asking about.

Start to broaden the enquiry. Make connections between myths or contradictions that emerge from the empirical enquiry and broader stereotypes or ideological constructs. (Assumptions about girls' toys reproduce gender stereotypes. Why do these gendered myths persist? Even people who are aware of this stereotyping still buy gendered toys. Why does this anomaly occur?) Relate the myths and/or contradictions back to the empirical data, on the one hand and to broader social structures on the other. (Gendered toys are bought because children want them? Why? Because their friends have them? Because they read about gendered toys at school? Because they see advertisements for gendered toys on television? What role does the media play in reproducing gender stereotypes? How does marketing targets customers? How is gender created in the way advertisers refer to 'already constituted' subjects?).

Do not just assume relationships as the enquiry develops but undertake further empirical enquiry. (Watch the advertisements, look at school reading books, ask manufacturers about marketing strategies.) Ask broader questions of the data (Do manufacturers stick to the same gendered toys because they are easier and safer to market? Why don't people demand alternatives?) Begin to reveal the nature of ideological forms, how they impinge upon the area of enquiry, and whose interests are served by them. (The elision of toys and the psychology of femininity; nurturing roles and social status.) Gradually bring the specific and the societal, the immediate and the historical together in a totalistic analysis.

Avoid sweeping away the enquiry with grandiose but impotent explanations that implicate 'socialisation', 'patriarchy', 'capitalism', or 'racism'. Don't treat the world as though it is full of 'cultural dopes' (Garfinkel, 1967). Critical social research is praxiological so it is necessary to examine in detail how people collude in their own oppression, how they are persuaded to reproduce historical social structures. Critical social research is close and detailed study that shows how historical oppressive social structures are legitimated and reproduced in specific practices. Critical social research thus raises consciousness, subverts the legitimating processes and provides clear analyses of the nature and operation of the oppressive structures.

So, doing critical social research is about asking 'how come?'. It involves a broad perspective. That does not mean that every study has to start with very wide view and attempt an analysis of 'capitalism' or 'patriarchy' or 'racism'. On the contrary, it is far better if a particular and specific question informs the study from the outset and is the focus of the enquiry throughout. The wider, totalistic, perspective refers to the process of locating the empirical study as part of broader structural and historical processes. It is in contradistinction to studies that focus inwards in minute detail and detach and analyse the subject of study as an entity in itself.

Critical social research must be detailed if it is to be revealing and convincing. Empirical evidence is crucial. Such evidence may arise from asking people questions, or by watching and participating in what people do, or by reviewing what has happened in the past, or by analysing cultural products. Data may be aggregated or treated as unique testimony. It does not matter whether one computes the percentage of toys that are gendered by being packaged in pink; ask children what they want for Christmas; watch them at school and at play; discuss toy purchases with parents; decode advertisements for toys; or do a semiotic analysis of children's television. Do any or all of these things as appropriate to advancing the enquiry. But make sure that techniques are undertaken within a critical methodology. What is important is that nothing is taken-for-granted and that what is, or has been, done or said is related to historical developments and social structures.

Having done the study and gained an understanding, the production of a report is your chance to share that understanding with others. The 'traditional' approach to reporting empirical work should be avoided. This traditional approach to research reporting tends to a structure which idealises the research process as a logical sequence of discrete phases. It suggests an introduction that provides an overview of the context, a literature review, the identification of the theoretical concern of the research, the specification of hypotheses, a central block of 'results', an analysis of the results, the implications for theory and suggestions for further research.

Instead, the critical social research report should be presented as coherent argument; a story with a plot. The details included in the final report should be interwoven into the fabric of the plot. Critical social research is primarily concerned with analysis and reporting of substantive issues rather than the artificial logic of the research process. The substantive issue is the central focus of the work and any critical social research report must indicate what central question is being addressed. A central plot must be identified and this plot sustained throughout. In effect, the core argument remains as a skeleton that is filled out by empirical details. The details are not gathered together into an inaccessible block, which is subsequently interpreted for the reader, as in the conventional approach. There is no pretence, in the story approach, of inductive generalisability based on an 'objective' central block of data whose absence would be like tearing out the heart of the account and thus render the report useless. In the story approach, the data and the theory can be shown to have mutually influenced each other, the dialectical process emerges as the research angle is revealed in the plot.

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