Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Methodology)

Abstract

This chapter derives from the movieDr. Strangelovecues for exploring questions about the quest for methodological insularity and purity in socio-legal research. Steven Lukes’ classic three-dimensional model of power provides an intellectual focus for the core exploration of relations between epistemology and data generation, the two key elements that we usually identify with methodology. The discussion culminates in an affirmative argument for the value of approaching methodology as jazz, the creative popular music that grounds reliable, humane sense in Kubrick's movie and provides an apt analogy for much of the leading scholarship in the LSA tradition.

Citation

McCann, M. (2007), "Dr. Strangelove (or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Methodology)", Sarat, A. (Ed.) Special Issue Law and Society Reconsidered (Studies in Law, Politics, and Society, Vol. 41), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 19-59. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1059-4337(07)00002-6