It is now widely accepted that qualitative and quantitative research traditions, rather than being seen as opposed to or in competition with each other ( Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995 ; Furlong, 2004) should be used, where appropriate, in some kind of combination (Bryman & Cramer, 1999; Moore et al., 2003). How this combining is to be understood ontologically, and therefore epistemologically, however, is not always clear. Rather than endlessly discussing the relationship between different approaches, this paper explores some of the (...) assumptions of the ontologies that underpin such apparent differences, arguing that approaches which declare themselves to be distinct theoretically are often surprisingly similar methodologically. It is argued that dominant ontologies and epistemologies struggle with the conceptualisation and representation of particularity, difference, process, interactions through time, multiple and de-centred forms of causation, and dynamic structure. Complexity/dynamic systems theory is then introduced and examined for its potential to offer the basis of a different kind of ontology: one which is able not only to accommodate these things, but which is itself based upon them. In conclusion, the implications of this perspective are discussed in relation to the problems that have been identified, particularly in relation to the conceptualisation of 'context'. (shrink)
Against the two dominant strands in the secondary literature on Nietzsche's political philosophy - one attributing to Nietzsche a kind of flat-footed commitment to aristocratic forms of social ordering, the other denying that Nietzsche has any political philosophy at all-Tamsin Shaw stakes out a new and surprising position: namely, that Nietzsche was very much concerned with the familiar question of the moral or normative legitimacy of state power, but was skeptical that with the demise of religion, it would be (...) possible to achieve a practically effective normative consensus about such legitimacy that was untainted by the exercise of state power itself. Although, as I will argue, there are reasons to be quite skeptical that Nietzsche was interested in anything like these questions, Shaw has laid down a clear and invigorating challenge to existing scholarship on Nietzsche's politics, and it is one worth meeting. (shrink)
This paper characterises Deleuze and Guattari's conception of the majoritarian subject in A Thousand Plateaus as a particular – and inevitably transitory – manifestation of sexed and gendered subjectivity emerging with late capitalism from the always mutating flows of creative life and suggests that their notion of the schizo or nomadic subject can inspire feminist solutions to the impasses posed by contemporary forms of sexed, gendered, and sexual identity. Feminism can thus be conceived as a schizoanalytic practice that fosters the (...) kind of alternative subjects for which Deleuze and Guattari call: subjects that move beyond oppressive self–other relations towards a form of subjectivity that can welcome differences as well as the differentiating force of life itself. (shrink)
Informed by the critical humanisms of Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, and Paul Gilroy, the authors argue for an orientation to teaching and learning that troubles the continuing effects of dehumanizing race logic. Reflecting on Paul Haggis's Oscar award winning film Crash from 2004, they suggest that the metaphor of racial 'crashing' captures what happens when we act out from experiences of racial injury instead of being touched by it. They propose a psychoanalytic pedagogy of emotions as a method for (...) reading representation beyond the limits of detached rational critique. Learning from the affect of racial injury as it is made manifest in representation, they suggest, is an important ethical starting point for generating new insights into what it might mean to live within and beyond contemporary legacies of racial hatred. (shrink)
