Criteria Against Ourselves

Abstract

In the social sciences, we usually think of criteria as culture-free standards that stand apart from human subjectivity and value. The author argues in this article, however, that conflicts over which criteria to apply usually boil down to differences in values that are contingent on humanchoices.Thedemandforcriteriareflectsthedesiretocontainfreedom, limit possibilities, and resist change. Ultimately, all standards of evaluation rest on a research community’s agreement to comply with their own humanly developed conventions. The author ends by considering the personal standards that he applies to works that fall under the new rubric of poetic social science.

Exploring Micro-Sociality through the Lens of ‘Established-Outsider’ Figurational Dynamics in a South Wales Community

“…It was necessarily centred on what happened to the family but it was never experiential in the sense of being oriented on how we felt. Of the two broad approaches described by Anderson the other being analytic auto-ethnography , the emotive auto-ethnographies associated with authors such as Ellis (1995Ellis ( , 2002Ellis ( , 2004 and Bochner (2000), amongst others, are essentially introspective accounts of the author s experience. Whilst growing in popularity in some disciplines 5 , it has also attracted a considerable body of criticism, including that it is essentially lazy, literally lazy and also intellectually lazy Delamont, 2007:02).…”

My Story of Sal: A Critical Self-reflective Autoethnography Revealing Whiteness in the Classroom

“…My research method has included noticing an incident with a student Sal, submitting my teaching praxis to questioning, being cognizant of the beginnings of revelations of whiteness, and intervening to become more effective in educating myself and my students. This interventionist approach to research is supported by Bochner (2000), Denzin (2014), Ellis (2000) and Merriweather (2015), who call for work that empowers storytellers to disrupt dominant narratives, prompts individuals to make sense of experience, and leads to personal transformation. In addition to Freire's (1998) insight, I am also drawn to Elliot Eisner's (1991) notion of the educational connoisseur in Chapter 4 of his book The Enlightened Eye.…”

“…The result of this is that researchers can extend the notion of pseudonyms to de-identifying research contexts, while maintaining the "truth" of the story. Denzin's idea can be seen in practice in Bochner (2000), Clough (2002), and Ellis (2004), which include epilogues disclosing an 54 understanding that some of the stories in their narratives might, or might not, have occurred, and that some of the characters might, or might not, be real or at least composites of real people. Nonetheless, the 'truth' in their stories is that something like this happened.…”

An autoethnographic path: from the social constructions of drought towards other possible constructions

“…Es decir, terminó transformándose en una story 8 en la que intenté narrar entre otras cosas, el proceso de construcción y transformación tanto de la tesis como mía 9 . Debo decir, que también en dicha story intenté cumplir algunos otros de los criterios que además de Bochner (2000) propone Richardson (2000), como, ser autoreflexiva y volverme vulnerable. Además al narrar dicho proceso, intenté exponer tanto los problemas a los que me enfrenté, como los caminos que recorrí para atender dichos problemas y justificar cada una de las decisiones que tomé 10 .…”