Re-grounding Grounded Theory Method: an anarchist critique of the ‘expert theoretician’
Channel: Jim Donaghey
Date: 2022-11-07

David Fox and Jim Donaghey

Paper presentation for the 1st global conference of the International Grounded Theory Alliance, University of Sheffield 15-16 September 2022

Rather than attempt to adapt Grounded Theory (GT) to indigenist/critical approaches (Bainbridge et al., 2013), we offer an immanent critique of GT at the level of research ethics, methodology and method, based upon an anarchist reading of GT’s ‘first principles’ – particularly its commitment to empirically grounded theoretical development. Akin to indigenist research approaches, anarchist political philosophy and militant ethnography are animated by long-running challenges to distinctions between theory and practice (Ferguson, 2011). This vantage point reveals scope to re-ground GT, especially at the theory development stage. 

The non-exploitative ethics and methodologies of anarchist and indigenist approaches overlap significantly with GT (Gordon, 2006; Smith, 2021), not least in their shared emphasis on immersion in the field, ‘giving voice’ to research participants, and challenging the role of abstract high theory. However, an important difference is the role of the ‘expert theoretician’ within GT. Glaser stresses that the basic contribution of GT is the development of theoretical knowledge – but, towards this end, he argues that non-academic expert knowledge is merely ‘empirical, experiential … descriptive [and] non-theoretical’, while GT practitioners are privileged with the responsibility for developing ‘theoretical knowledge’ (1978, p. 13). This strong distinction between theoretical and practical knowledge is anathema to participatory anarchist and indigenist research methods, but is also, we argue, contradictory to the basic premises of GT itself. 

The hierarchisation of theoretical knowledge that occurs here is open to the very same criticisms that have been levelled at other research approaches by GT practitioners – Glaser, for example, argues that ‘being doctrinaire, and revering “great men” interferes both with sensitivity to the data and with generating those ideas that fit and work best’ (1978, p. 9). We argue that this continues to occur when theoretical development is understood as the exclusive domain of academically trained Grounded Theorists, while reproducing harmful social hierarchies.    

A re-grounded GT approach meaningfully includes research communities as collaborators in an iterative, dialogical exchange including at the level of theory. This is importantly distinct from the traditional GT role of the researcher-as-expert who does the ‘big thinking’ on the research participants’ behalf. This is not to dismiss the role of ‘the researcher’ entirely, but there is a clear need to counterbalance these hierarchical implications, and to retrench a grounded approach to theory development in the fieldwork itself.

Our presentation outlines this immanent critique at the level of ethics, methodology and method.

References

Bainbridge, R., Whiteside, M., & McCalman, J. (2013). Being, knowing, and doing: a phronetic approach to constructing grounded theory with Aboriginal Australian partners. Qualitative Health Research 23(2), 275-288. 

Donaghey, J. (2017). Researching ‘Punk indonesia’: notes towards a non-exploitative insider methodology. Punk & Post-Punk 6(2), 291-314.

Ferguson, K. (2011). Emma Goldman: Political Thinking in the Streets. London: Rowman & Littlefield. 

Glaser, B. (1978). Theoretical Sensitivity. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press. 

Glaser, B. (1992). Basics of Grounded Theory Analysis: Emergence Vs. Forcing. Mill Valley, CA: Sociology Press.

Gordon, U. (2006). Anarchism and political theory: Contemporary problems [PhD thesis]. Oxford: University of Oxford. 

Gullestad, M. (1999, February), ‘The politics of knowledge’, Advancing Cultural Studies International Workshop, Stockholm.

Jeppesen, S. (2004), ‘Where does anarchist theory come from?’, Institute of Anarchist Studies Theory & Politics column.

Said, E.W. (1985), ‘Orientalism reconsidered’, Cultural Critique 1, 89-107.

Smith, L.T. (2000), ‘Kaupapa Maori Research’, in M. Battiste (ed.), Reclaiming Indigenous Voice and Vision, Vancouver: UBC Press, 225-48.

Smith, L.T. (2021). Decolonizing methodologies: Research and indigenous peoples. London: Bloomsbury.