Doing Research in Cultural Studies

Abstract

I would like to thank my first adviser,Veikko Pietilä, who, a long time ago, first nourished my interest in the philosophy of methods or methodology. I would also thank my peers during the early days of my graduate study in Finland for good discussions and supportive friendship; thanks particularly to Heikki Heikkilä for long discussions and e-mails on Hannah Arendt and dialogue. My interest in methodology became to occupy the centre stage during my doctoral studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. My greatest intellectual debt is to Norman Denzin, who first suggested the idea of this book and has supported it throughout the process. If any of this makes any sense, it is thanks to Norman, whereas all the nonsense is entirely my responsibility. I also want to thank my dissertation committee members, Clifford Christians, C.L. Cole, Lawrence Grossberg and Paula Treichler for sound advice and for introducing me to areas of scholarship, such as dialogism, science studies, and 'materialist' cultural studies, that I had not known before, and that all form a part of this book.Thanks also to John Nerone and Leslie Reagan for introducing me to the study of history, and to Sandra Braman on insights on 'chaos' and to James Hay on insights on 'space'. I greatly enjoyed, as well as benefited from, in an academic sense, the collegiality of my fellow students in Illinois. Special thanks to Lori Reed for her continuing support and witty remarks on everything from feminist politics to connections between Gilles Deleuze and Deepak Chopra. In England I want to thank Annabelle Sreberny for several good discussions and Gillian Youngs for directing me to a couple of sources. I also want to thank James Stanyer for useful editorial comments on the first two chapters.Warm thanks to all my students, who have taught me, particular thanks to Jon Asmundsson and Lina Khatib for being inspiringly good students and for discussions on the 'real'. I am grateful for Terhi Rantanen for phonecalls that have kept me sane, and for providing me with a bed and great company during my visits to the London libraries. In many parts of this book, I keep reminding of the importance of the 'material' aspects of social reality. In this spirit, I want to thank the various institutions and foundations that have made the research that form the basis of this book possible. I want to thank the Academy of Finland, Finland-US Educational Exchange Commission (Fulbright Commission), Finnish Cultural Foundation, Georg and Ella Ehrnrooth Foundation. Thanks also to Scandinavia Foundation, and last, but not least, the Graduate College and Institute of Communications Research at the University of Illinois for funding my doctoral research. I also want to thank the University of Leicester for research leave, which enabled me to complete the first draft of this manuscript. My overall greatest gratitude is to my partner in life, Jouni Paavola, who has read, edited and debated each and every one of the chapters of this book in their various incarnations. I also wa...

Symbolic spaces in dirty work: academic service as authentic resistance

“…Saukko 2003). The need for such understanding is especially clear when we take into consideration the somewhat disenchanting notion that what seems authentic resistance on the surface may be nothing but a self-illusion or a conformist act.…”

“…Viewing the self and social life as reflexive, multi-faceted, and polysemic and viewing institutions as going concerns ought to lead us away from thinking of concepts, practices, and experiences in terms of rigidity, determination, and fixed order. An interactionist agenda for cultural studies, built on pragmatism and contingent validities can allow us to transcend the limitations of critical contextualism and textualist optimism (Saukko 2003) and thus…”

“…Classical cultural studies scholars have been criticized for unduly romanticizing the lived experiences of their informants, and consequently for pushing forward their theoretical agenda and political fantasies at the expense of the phenomena object of analysis (Morris 1990;Nightingale 1992;Saukko 2003;Stabile 1995). Critical contextualist and textualist optimistic versions of resistance seem particularly guilty of this.…”

“…As Saukko (2003) as explained, it is fundamental for a qualitative study inspired by the perspective of cultural studies to shed light on the diversity of data and the contingency of the experiences under analysis. Instead of discounting contradictions as unimportant deviations from the norm, it is important to shed light on them.…”

“…According to Saukko (2003) there are at least three types of resistance in cultural studies: critical contextualism, textualist optimism, and contingent resistances. For example in the ethnographic work of Willis (1978) British working class boys' practices of resistance at school highlight the subversive potential of their challenges to the academic and societal status quo.…”