A Measure for Measures by R Pawson

Author:R Pawson [Pawson, R]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9780415026598
Google: eZQOAAAAQAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 1989-01-15T04:39:50+00:00

6.2 THE EXPLICIT USE OF MECHANISMS

Let us turn, then, to those research strategies which utilize generative mechanisms on the basis of forethought rather than hindsight. This book is by no means the first to make the suggestion that social research should begin with the search for mechanisms underlying social regularities. Realism is enjoying something of a vogue in sociology; it has been quite broadly canvassed as the philosophical vindication of a research strategy that will avoid the slide into empiricism or relativism (Keat and Urry, 1975; Harré, 1978; Bhaskar, 1979; Sayer, 1984; Outhwaite, 1988). Diverse as some of the methodological ideas of its authors are, all would undoubtedly follow the first principle of realism— that science is the business of understanding the unobservable structures and mechanisms that stand behind and produce concrete features of social reality. As you might expect, however, this rallying cry has not quite meant the same thing to all persons, and so it is important to identify those examples of generative thinking which seem to me to be the most productive.

The crudest interpretation of the injunction to seek for generative mechanisms is for analysts to proclaim the importance of their own work in terms of their ability to grasp the essence of a phenomenon whilst others are labouring away inappropriately at the level of outward appearance. Personally I feel there is much more to realist analysis than this appearance/reality distinction. Nonetheless one cannot get away from the feeling that even in the hands of its most sophisticated exponents realism represents little more than the justification for asserting that certain analytical priorities should apply in social analysis.

For instance Harré’s interpretation of realism allows him to assert that the vital generative causal mechanism is the human individual’s self-direction. The empirical analysis which is recommended on this basis thus concentrates on the everyday reasoning which underpins action. For instance, Marsh et al’s (1978) research on football ‘aggro’, which is in this tradition, is concerned with ‘teasing out’ the rules which direct aggression on the terraces and, underlying this, the further set of rules which exist to govern how such actions should be spoken of. The only significant change from the traditional ‘hermeneutic’ orientations of this ‘new’ perspective lies in the metatheory telling us why reasons and motivations should be the focus of concern, namely that they are now labelled ‘unobservables’ because of their explanatory function as ‘generative mechanisms’. In short, for ‘realism’ here, read ‘ethnography/ ethnomethodology’.

The same sleight of hand is applied, albeit on a completely different plane, in Keat and Urry’s version of realism. In this case they claim, on behalf of Marx, that his method was basically realist. Thus,

The term ‘class’ is used by Marx in a realist manner. It refers to social entities which are not directly observable, yet which are historically present, and the members of which are potentially aware of their common interests and consciousness. The existence of class is not to be identified with the existence of inequalities of income, wealth, status or educational opportunity.

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