Postmodernism and Social Research

Citation

Joint, N. (2003), "Postmodernism and Social Research", Library Review, Vol. 52 No. 6, pp. 281-282. https://doi.org/10.1108/00242530310482097

Why should librarians or information scientists read a book about social research and the challenging intellectual movement of postmodernism? Neither of these is traditionally in direct association with LIS and there are plenty of other “hard reads” available to those in search of a more theoretical approach. I can at cite at least one good reason: much LIS research now relies on methods derived from social research, and this book raises issues about research techniques that we perhaps take unquestioningly from the social sciences. So any movement that criticises the methods of social research might well require the attention of LIS researchers and even practitioners.

Mats Alvesson’s book stands in a solid tradition of well written, intelligent but pragmatic interpretations of continental European philosophy. It looks at a movement that questions the very foundations of empirical enquiry in social research and uses it as a tool to question that research practice, while arguing that such scepticism can ultimately strengthen the scientific research that is exposed to it. This of necessity implies that the author is sceptical about postmodernism – if he wasn’t, he wouldn’t believe that social research could survive an encounter with a theory that “doubts that any theory, method or novelty can offer a privileged form of knowledge” (Richardson, 2000, quoted by Alvesson, p. 45). Sceptical information scientists can use postmodernism in exactly this way – as an encounter with a philosophy that questions the grounds on which information theory and practice stands in order to improve that theory and practice.

Alvesson’s approach is as follows: in chapter one he gives a general view of postmodernism and shows how he will apply it to four aspects of mainly qualitative social research: structuring the field, collecting data, interpreting (or reading) the produced material and writing up the results. Following on from this overview of his approach, his next chapter sceptically describes the most popular aspects of postmodernism in the social sciences, skimming off some loose associations of ideas for useful applications in research practice. This chapter is useful just as it stands as a short, clear introduction to “po‐mo”. He then addresses five themes central to his use of postmodernism – discourse, fragmented identities, the illusion of language as representation, the loss of foundations and grand narratives, and the power‐knowledge connection. Chapters four and five concentrate on language, after which he turns back to issues of practical research using these theoretical tools (for example, fieldwork practices, interviews, the task of “post‐fieldwork” interpretation and writing). After a postmodern revision of a case study carried out by the author himself, a final chapter brings key points together while pointing out ways for intelligently “pomo‐izing” research work.

This sensible, readable account of an elusive and demanding philosophy (or “intellectual style” as the author terms it) could well be recommended to anyone seeking a relatively pain‐free approach to postmodernism that does not compromise the intellectual integrity of its subject matter. After reading it, your response may well be to revisit existing LIS work from a po‐mo perspective. For example, a postmodern take on recent work on information literacy – say Bruce’s (1992) Seven Faces of Information Literacy and SCONUL’s (1999) seven pillars of information literacy model – can be instructive. Bruce’s phenomenographic approach, in which nothing is assumed about the nature of information literacy, her view emerging from a succession of interviews (personal narratives?) about information literacy, seems to be in tune with the phenomenological roots of postmodernism. The SCONUL model may be less so – in that approach, the grand narrative of user education was incorporated from the start, and a succession of country‐wide interviews were commissioned to see what success factors needed to be in place in order to embody this received model.

The practitioner might reject such a theoretical take on effective, practice‐oriented work. If so, I suggest reading this excellent book and re‐examining some basic concepts of one’s own information theory and practice in the light of it – the process will at least be intellectually stimulating, and at best might lead to a new understanding of what we do and why we do it.