Evidence 0, only to begin somewhere

Loosely based . . . 

DRAFT

It has been who knows how long since . . . but I keep getting caught in the trap. That is, I have an hypothesis and I can only see evidence supporting it. I have been trying not to see that support in "everything." Thus the following strategy.

Put up some of this so-called evidence and see if each holds up under scrutiny as well as alternative views of "what it is like to write" that I have encountered. To begin with not necessarily the first piece. Also, I wish to make transparent my first thoughts in demonstration of the hypothesis, without referring to authorities outside of my own, if naive, thinking. (Another post in the making.)

Strauss, A., and Corbin, J. (1990). Basics of Qualitative Research: Grounded Theory Procedures and Techniques. Newbury Park, California: Sage Publications. A reputable source for qualitative research methods that goes through the analytic procedures of grounded theory. They, the procedures, are designed to, "[provide] the grounding, build the density, and develop the sensitivity and integration needed to generate a rich, tightly woven, explanatory theory that closely approximates the reality it represents."

"To reach these ends requires maintaining a balance among the attributes of creativity, rigor, persistence, and above all, theoretical sensitivity." (page ???) Theoretical sensitivity is about the "awareness of the subtleties of meaning of data." (page 41) "Theoretical sensitivity refers to the attribute of having insight, the ability to give meaning to data, the capacity to understand, and capability to separate the pertinent from that which isn't." (page 42)

Sources of sensitivity are good technical/reading background and careful, truthful, etc., treatment/representation of the data. Creativity in putting together syntheses (theories) is also important and comes through doing it, through analyses, etc. Science is, after all, innovation, seeing what is and reporting that, and sometimes the seeing/interpretation has a creative face.

What the researcher, de facto writer/presenter of results, is charged with is re-creating the context and content of what s/he "saw" as part and parcel of the pre-requisite and concluding experiences s/he had. What else could it be but to try to have anyone reading or listening have as close to the same experiences, drawing the same or most closely similar mind-pictures and other sensations? Here it is an "explanatory theory that closely approximates the reality [the data as a whole] represents". And we should be left with that reality.

Try looking at this evidence from Strauss and Corbin another way. Is it reasonable to conclude that the authors are trying to have their readers experience something other than what they claim, that claim being that if you want to be a grounded theory researcher/reporter, you should aim to do these things for these ends? I can't see another way.

Like good (human) science teachers, they provide what you need to do to be one. Imagine doing these things or actually having done them, they, the authors, are intent on your having a prescribed and circumscribed experience of being that scientist. And having done in mental or physical reality what it is to be a grounded theorist, you will note these kinds of qualities about you are doing--discrimination, rigorousness, persistence, creation, insight, and so forth.

Another reading of what they are about is difficult to imagine. It appears that clear. This bit of evidence(?), Strauss and Corbin, is out of the literature of research, writing, and doing phenomenology. It would be difficult to twist their procedures and qualities around, because they appear to come from the heart of what it is like to write, and they are a kind of description of what it is to write.

Their advice is at least consistent with the hypothesis--doing grounded (qualitative, phenomenological) research is much if not all of what it is like to write. Aren't the procedures and qualities sensed in doing them writing?

Not lastly, there is this curious bit: this kind of research is intended to come up with an "explanatory theory that closely approximates the reality it [the data] represents." Research-as-writing may come up with a theory; writing itself presents itself as having come up with a reality where readers and reading need to eliminate as much as possible different theories about what it is.

Is _Hamlet_ about street gangs in twentieth century Los Angeles? No, it is not!*

Will other pieces of evidence, such as Stauss and Corbin, be so clearly in support of writing as (doing) phenomenology?
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* I made this up, echoing an example of Ken Wilber on interpretation. Then to illustrate, I googled "Hamlet gang" and got the graphic and link above. My point stands. But a fascinating tangent to this discussion. Check it out.