Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

The agonistic approach—aimed at embracing opposing perspectives as part of a qualitative research process and acknowledging that process as fundamentally political—sheds light on both the construction of and the resistance to research identities. This approach involves reflexively embedding interview situations into the ethnographic context as a tool for analyzing how this context conditions and limits positions for research participants, thereby setting the stage for potential agonisms between the researcher and field participants. The author—an ethnic Danish researcher—uses the agonistic approach to examine the identity construction problems and resistance dynamics in interviews with ethnic minority boys at a crime-preventive recreation centre. Applying an agonistic analysis to apparently “uninformative” interview data not only creates insight into local discursive resources, practices, cultural understandings, and power relations but also transforms what initially appears to constitute methodological problems—in terms of “data gaps” from participant resistance—into important, substantial empirical material.

Keywords

political agonisms research identities resistance dynamics

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Adam, B. (1978). Survival of domination: Inferiorization and everyday life. New York: Elsevier/ Greenwood.

Adler, P. , & Adler, P. (1987). Membership roles in field research: Qualitative research methods (Vol. 6). Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

Adler, P.A. , & Adler, P. (2002). The reluctant respondent. In J. F. Gubrium & J. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: Context and method (pp. 515-535). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Åkerstrøm Andersen, N. (2001). Polyphonic organizations (Working Paper 13). Copenhagen, Denmark: Copenhagen Business School, Department of Management, Politics and Philosophy.

Andersen, K.V. (2005). Problembørn, pædagoger og perkere-identitet og ambivalens i mødet mellem etniske minoritetsbørn og systemet [Identity and ambivalence in the meeting between ethnic minority children and the social system]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

Angrosino, M.V. , & Peréz, K.A. (2000). Rethinking observation. From method to context . In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (2nd ed., pp. 673-702). Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage.

Bauman, Z. (1991). Modernity and ambivalence. Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. (1999). Understanding. In The weight of the world: Social suffering in contemporary society (pp. 607-626). Cambridge, UK: Polity.

Bourdieu, P. , & Waquant, L.J.D. (1992). An invitation to reflexive sociology. Cambridge, UK: Policy .

10.

Derrida, J. (1976). Of grammatology (G. Spivak, Trans.). Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

11.

DeVault, M.L. , & McCoy, L. (2002). Institutional ethnography. Using interviews to investigate ruling relations. In J. F. Gubrium & J. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: Context and method (pp. 751-775). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

12.

Douglas, M. (1966). Purity and danger. An analysis of concepts of pollution and taboo. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

13.

Eder, D. , & Fingerson, L. (2002). Interviewing children and adolescents. In J. F. Gubrium & J. Holstein (Eds.), Handbook of interview research: Context and method (pp. 181-201). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

14.

Foucault, M. (1979). Discipline and punishment. New York: Vintage.

15.

Gubrium, J.F. , & Holstein, J.A. (1999). The self in a world of going concerns. Symbolic Interaction, 23(2), 95-115.

16.

Gubrium, J.F. , & Holstein, J.A. (2001). Institutional selves: Troubled identities in a post-modern world. New York: Oxford University Press.

17.

Holstein, J.A. , & Gubrium, J.F. (1995). The active interview. Thousands Oaks, CA: Sage.

18.

Jakobsen, T.B. (2004). Legitimitetens logik. Institutionelle dilemmaer i det sociale klagesystem [The logic of legitimacy. Institutional dilemmas within the social appeal system]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.

19.

Mouffe, C. (2003). Politik og lidenskaber: Hvad er på spil i demokratiet ? [Politics and passion. What is at stake in democracies?]. Distrinction, 7, 119-127.

20.

Scott, J.C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

21.

Scott, R.W. (1995). Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

22.

Smith, D.E. (1990). Texts, facts, femininity: Exploring the relations of ruling. New York: Routhledge .

23.

Smith, D.E. (1996). The relations of ruling: A feminist inquiry. Studies in Culture, Organizations and Societies, 2, 171-190.

24.

Visweswaran, K. (1994). Fictions of a feminist ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

The Agonistic Approach

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References