Class Notes 2

Qualitative Methods – 9/3/2013

For next week—exchange the photo essay with your buddy and come up with an interpretation of the essay.

            There are always the interpreter, the text, and the interpretation. We must gauge to what degree we can interpret the text—what competencies do we have to deal with it? We must also ask whether the text is a competent text. In cases like ours, they very well might not be competent, and thus there are limitations to the text. Finally, we must acknowledge the framing of the interpretation. In qualitative research, we are supposed to enter texts without presumptions, but this is almost impossible. Therefore, it is better for us to acknowledge what we assume or what we aim to prove. Our write up for the photo essays should take all three of these elements into consideration.

At some point, read Umberto Eco’s Interpretation and Overinterpretation. There are three intentions: the intention of the author, the intention of the reader, and the intention of the text. But how can text have intentionality? The text intends to be competent, and it has requirements that press upon the writer and reader of the text. The writer is disciplined by the intention of the text (one cannot write just anything and have it be a memo).  The reader is also disciplined by the intention of the text; the framing of the reading is set by the intention of the text. Our photo narratives are constraining the reader and the writer by the fact that it is an assignment.

In interpretation, we must make claims. At the lowest level, we give the facts—what exactly are we seeing? The next level is composed of the cultural connections and symbolic fragments. The third level concerns the implications of the text. The argument cannot emerge until you have engaged the text and decided on the appropriate output. Ideally, coherence results from this engagement. If it does not, then either the interpreter or the text are not competent. Every honest piece of research has the potential for failure.

Interpretation example: We see a man dressed as a cowboy (chaps and cowboy hat) on a horse with someone from the army (at least in camo). The man on the horse approaches a group of cows and to herd them to the left of frame, moving from behind them (or at least, moving at them in the same direction he intends for them to go). This is apparently happening on Forest Service land, which can only support a certain number of cows per acre, so it is possible that the cows are being moved because too many have congregated in one place. We also know that this is a mountainous area, which suggests that there may be restricted land usage, which would further suggest that the man in camo in the first photo may have been instructing the man on the horse to move the cows.

Interpretation should being with an explanation of the qualifications of the interpreter. Whenever a claim is made, you must be able to attach it to the text—a textual warrant. We must assume that all of the elements that are in the text are there intentionally, purposefully. When examining the cultural connections within a text, you should pay attention to the roles of the different individuals involved, the role of the environment and context, and the cultural relationships between the disparate elements existing in the text. We must, however, remember to limit our explanations to only that which is warranted by the text. Our arguments must not be self-fulfilling. It is never the case that we will put together an interpretation in a vacuum, and so we must be able to accept that our work will have some sort of presupposed agenda. We must always be able to answer what our textual warrants are, what percentage of the text is accounted for in our interpretation, and how far away we are from the text in our interpretations.

In order to put together accounts of implications, we must be able to note intertextuality—texts within the text. We cannot take anything in the text for granted. It all has consequence until it can be dismissed. When a text has been exhausted of interpretive elements, then it is called theoretical saturation (honestly, there is no such thing). Implications are not in the text, but they are in the intentions of the interpretation. The degree to which the implications can be derived rests on the limitations of the text. When texts fail, it is honorable to mention within your eventual interpretation that you have to look hard for the specific texts you needed.

Narrative

No narrative exists without conflict. There are three fundamental types of narrative: self v other, self v nature, and self v self. Other can be any kind of outside sentience, nature is the non-sentient, and self is one’s interiority. Within the narrative, there must be characters and subjects, and their roles are used to address the cultural location of the individuals. This cultural level imbues the characters with a subjectivity. There also needs to be a setting (the facts of the location) and scene (the application of the setting to the temporality or situation). In other words, the setting is the classroom, but the scene is an evening class with a lecture occurring. This gets into the difference between static and active space. The active space is the dynamic performance occurring within the static elements of the setting. The narrative must also include action. Once moving beyond the cultural understanding of the narrative, we enter into a paradigm. The concept of a cowboy is enough to call into though the paradigm of a cowboy. The character can exist at the level of individual, the cultural subject, the subject, or the paradigm. The action can be an act or a syntagm. The motive resides in the interrelation between the character and the action. The conflict arises out of clash of motives. The conflict generally occurs along the narrative arc, beginning at the initial engagement, raising through the climax, and then down to a resolution.

We should try to find a text that is not (in any way) a narrative. We should also be using notebooks to keep track of our thoughts and notes on elements within the text. The quality of close reading is demonstrated through the ability to account for all of the text.

Start blogging about the things we read.

Continuing the theoretical discussion from last week:

We can acknowledge the self, sign, and system as integral parts of communication. The sign requires the move from sentience to interpretation, and it is the medium of communication. The self can be regarded as aggregate or congregate, independent to dependent, and it is the agent of communication. The systems are separate and embedded, and we note their creation and improvisation, and it is a method of communication. Significance is the potential of the sign to achieve meaning, whereas meaning is the sign in action. Significance is thus global, and meaning is local. Both are rule-governed, social practices of interpretation. There are no literal meanings; both significance and meaning are excessive. We tend to teach signs as lexicographic—having specific, objective meanings—when they actually are encyclopedic. Interpretation and communication are separate processes. Interpretation acts as if—it is an engagement of the will, and it creates an intentional object. Communication, then, is an exchange, which also requires intentionality. One thus cannot not communicate, because one cannot resist interpretation.

The self is a sign, an ideational object that is cued by the material body. The self is composed of identity and subjectivity. Identity includes persistent characteristics of the self, and the subjectivity includes cultural marks and the subject position. The self is sometimes understood as enacted. There is no essential self, only the line of action that emerges from the individual. The self is always actualized in the presence of the other.

The sodality system inserts us into a nexus of relationships, cultural hegemonies, and various social apparatuses. Furthermore, we enter into a system of action, of language, and of intentionality (the grasp of consciousness, the always already). We reside in a nexus of obligation which tells us how we must account for the other.

Communication is thus a set of semiotic practices that entail a relationship between self and other. It is a process, and it is performative, relational, and instrumental. There is a difference between agency and agentry—the cultural depiction of oneself. The diagentive character of exchange is seen in the call for- and answer to meaning.

Whenever we make claims about communication, we must account for all elements of the occurrence of communication: nexus of obligation, relational subject position, line of action, exchange, discursive or actional form, mediating technology, intentionality, improvisational performance, and communicative routine.