Paying attention to this reflexive methodology stems from Peng Changgui's strong recommendation when he came to Hong Kong at the beginning of the year. Xiao Peng is really hard to disturb. Knowing that I was interested in this book, he went to the Central Commercial Bookstore and bought me one. Xiao Peng and I are both keen on qualitative research. In today's era when quantitative analysis monopolizes the hegemony of academic research, and everyone throws himself into the embrace of scientism and new religion like a moth, Xiao Peng still insists on the road of qualitative research, trying to reflect social reality through case analysis. His spirit is really commendable. Xiao Peng has a flexible mind and a wide reading range. He belongs to that kind of lateral thinking student, who reads everything, is extremely sensitive to new ideas and inspires Hang Seng. In the past two years, I have read a lot of books under his recommendation. If it hadn't been recommended by Xiao Peng, I might have missed the book Reflection Methodology.
The afterlife is awesome.
However, although there is a book, it has been on my desk and I have no mind to read it. I opened it several times, either because I was too distracted to concentrate, or because I was too hard to read the translated text. I just can't read it anyway.
Reflexive methodology is a theoretical work of methodology, involving a large number of words and concepts with strong philosophical color, which can be described as "difficult and obscure". Reading this theoretical work requires a state of mind. The so-called state of mind, first, purifies the various secular concepts of the mind and meditates; Second, it takes a lot of time to read coherently and avoid fragmentation; Third, you must read and take notes repeatedly on some key points in order to truly understand the author's meaning.
Taking advantage of my visit to Australia last month, I specially picked up this book and took it away. I watched it carefully several times during my travels and in my spare time. The whole book is labeled and I feel very rewarding after reading it.
"Reflexive" means reflection. Reflective method, as a research method, was gradually formed in recent 20 years. So far, different scholars have different understandings of this word and related method definitions. Generally speaking, reflexivity, or reflection, is a way to constantly evaluate the relationship between "knowledge" and production, and a way to treat knowledge with a critical attitude. This method requires researchers to pay serious attention to different types of linguistic, social, political and theoretical elements and their interweaving and influence on the interpretation of research results when processing research data, so as to provide readers with a framework for establishing theories instead of looking for so-called "truth".
At the beginning of this book, the two authors point out that it is of little value to limit the discussion of "quantitative" and "qualitative" research methods to the debate about which is more scientific or which is more conducive to theoretical construction, or that similar topics are not discussed in depth. Scholars in the field of social studies know very well that even the most rigorous quantitative analysis cannot guarantee a "scientific" conclusion. So, should we continue to look for more scientific qualitative research methods, or simply accept the limitations of qualitative research methods from another angle and find another way to solve the problem?
Qualitative research methods have been criticized as "unscientific". The main reason is that this research method relies on observation, interview and interpretation of materials to reconstruct events, and these activities may have a great impact on the "credibility" of reflecting real and objective facts and the universal significance of the research conclusions arising therefrom.
Indeed, when researchers collect and process data, various factors such as personal subjective consciousness and emotions and the surrounding environment will affect the authenticity and credibility of the data. In fact, not only the subjects and researchers themselves will affect the materials provided and the processing of materials due to the limitations of personal feelings and subjective cognition, but also the language used by researchers in writing reports will have different degrees of influence on readers' understanding of research results. This is because most descriptions of social phenomena use everyday language. Even if some professional vocabulary is used, the paper report will never be as abstract as the mathematical formula of natural science. One of the so-called scientific principles is to use a single and consistent technical term to avoid misunderstanding or ambiguity caused by different understanding of vocabulary. The reader of social research literature is not a blank sheet of paper. Different readers' understanding of the same research result does not necessarily follow the strict "scientific" meaning, but according to their own different experiences, resulting in different understandings.
In order to meet the requirements of "credibility" and scientificity, traditional qualitative research methods have developed many specific methods to deal with empirical data. For example, the text of the interview is coded and classified, the data content of multiple sources is cross-compared, and an open, unstructured or semi-structured questionnaire is adopted to avoid misleading or guiding problems, so that the research conclusions drawn on the basis of processed data really have universal abstract significance.
Al Wei Sen and other two authors pointed out that since both subjective and objective factors exist, we might as well understand their influence on the research conclusion from another angle. We might as well openly admit their existence, our own feelings, and that the object of study is also the subject shaped in a certain social, political and cultural form. The problem does not lie in personal subjective consciousness, nor in the influence of personal emotions and social, political, economic and cultural traditions. The key is how to deal with the influence of various factors called "noise".
The traditional way to deal with these noises is to exclude them from the research conclusion as far as possible. This is also a common method when processing research data. In the case study, various information sources are particularly emphasized to test the authenticity of the statement, so as to restore the true face of the event and explore the "truth" behind the phenomenon.
However, the reflexive method puts forward different opinions: researchers may wish to regard these factors as the original material components of the research materials and then consider how to construct the theory under the influence of these factors. To achieve this, it is not arbitrary, but in accordance with the procedure of "reflexive method", with a rigorous and cautious attitude, carefully sort out and interpret the research data and find out the influencing factors behind it.
It can be seen that the reflexive method does not exclude "noise", but analyzes various factors as part of the research data. The research conclusion is no longer the so-called "scientific" truth, but the research result after reflective criticism and reconstruction is opened to readers, and a theoretical framework with multiple explanatory meanings is established on this basis, which urges readers to decide the significance of the discovery to theoretical construction. In other words, the processing of research data should jump out of the box of looking for so-called "credibility" or scientificity in the past and turn to "consideration of perception, cognition, theory, language, intertextuality, politics, culture and other environments" (page 9 of Taiwanese translation, page 6 of the original English version).
This is not only a bold proposal, but also a research guide with great philosophical significance.
This not only reminds me of Sandel, a famous political science professor at Harvard University. In his famous "Justice" course, Sandel illustrated the change of American understanding of the relationship between religion and national politics. 1960, American Democratic presidential candidate Kennedy gave a speech in Houston, Texas. Kennedy believed in Catholicism. At that time, some voters were worried whether Kennedy would incorporate Catholicism into the national policy of the United States once elected. In response to this concern of voters, Kennedy vowed to consider only the national interests of the United States and ignore the pressure of external religions.
46 years later, in 2006, barack obama, an American Democrat, made a speech and tried to become a presidential candidate. This time, he also faced the problem of religious belief. However, Obama did not shy away, but made it clear that it was wrong to insist that political laws should not have religious elements.
Sandel compared the inaugural address of US President Barack Obama with that of President Kennedy more than 40 years ago. He pointed out that Kennedy assured the American people in his speech that his religious beliefs would not affect his ruling ideas and administrative decisions as the US president. What about Obama? On the contrary, he solemnly told the American people that the United States itself is a country with a deep religious complex. In that case, why shouldn't the American people boldly admit their religious beliefs? The American people should be proud of the value system established by their own beliefs as a program of action, rather than trying to exclude the influence of religion. Of course, Obama's approach should pay attention to how to balance the relationship with other value systems and beliefs to ensure the interests of other groups, because religion is not only a language source that can cause * * *, but also the moral promotion provided by religion to solve some social problems.
Professor Sandel used this example to illustrate the change of social understanding of the relationship between religion and politics. More than 40 years ago, it was generally believed that the ruler of a country should separate religious belief from state governance. After more than 40 years, people realized that religion can solve many major problems. In particular, it is an unavoidable fact that the beliefs of governors and members of society are often the product of religion. Obviously, a person who believes in a certain religion cannot completely ignore his own beliefs in his actions and become a moral "blank".
The above examples are of profound significance for us to understand the relationship between researchers, research objects and readers who use research results. Since no one can be completely divorced from the society as an abstract "person" in the real sense, and since everyone has his own subjective feelings and lives in a certain ideology, social norms and cultural system, how can the individual's observation and conclusion of society and the actions taken be completely "scientific" and rational? Deliberately pursuing the so-called "scientific" research results is undoubtedly assuming that all individuals involved in the research may be divorced from real life and abstract completely "blank" people. Is this assumption true? Or, is this assumption in line with the scientific spirit? The critical research method further raises the question: even the theory of pure natural science is not influenced by a certain ideology or philosophical belief?
According to this truth, shouldn't we reflect on the controversy faced by methodology in management research? The past half century has been an era when scientism gained hegemony. This tendency is not surprising at all. This is the inevitable result of the rational expansion of modernization. Under the rational hypothesis, scientism tries to exclude the influence of individual subjective consciousness and emotion on the research object, research process and research materials, because these factors are not "scientific", which will affect the scientificity of conclusions and are "noise" in research materials.
The pursuit of science is certainly true. Especially in academic research, a series of standard procedures must be followed for textual research and cross-evidence collection of materials. In this sense, research methods, especially specific operational techniques, must conform to the norms and procedures of scientific research.
The challenge of qualitative research method is that the empirical data from the same source are likely to be inconsistent. For example, the same person tells the same thing, not only the content may change with different audiences, but also the time will be different. In the interview, the above situation often occurs. The traditional view is that if strict scientific requirements are followed, researchers must expand the sources of evidence and conduct cross-validation. If evidence of the "truth" cannot be obtained, this material would rather not be used.
If we re-understand the meaning of science itself, we may find other ways to deal with the above data. Real science is not subjective speculation, but based on solid observations and facts and a series of assumptions among observed variables. These assumptions should be logical and can be repeatedly verified by others.
Human society and natural environment are different. One of the biggest differences is that people are the product of their own consciousness. So social research and natural science research should be different. The most obvious example is that the theory of natural science is exclusive, that is, once a theory can better explain a natural phenomenon, it will replace other theories that explain this natural phenomenon. This is what Cohen called "normative substitution". This principle does not apply to the field of social phenomena. A social phenomenon can have different theoretical explanations, each of which has its own unique perspective value.
It can be seen that when studying social phenomena, the real scientific attitude is to admit the diversity of reality and consider the characteristics of different research methods. Only in this way can we ensure creative interpretation of social phenomena and prosper social research. Nowadays, quantitative analysis is increasingly monopolizing social research, and we need other methods to create theories, such as cultural anthropology, history, language and so on. Some methods can ensure the universal significance of conclusions through scientific rationality. For some phenomena, such as historical interpretation, a phenomenon comes from many different interpretations, and there may be only facts without "truth". Even the theory itself, is it not the product of language?
When a person is faced with six clocks that give different times, the traditional "scientism" thinks that there is only one accurate time, and that is the truth. The responsibility of researchers is to find the correct time from these six different clocks.
The reflexive method thinks that these six different times may have their own reasons. What we want to find out is not the "real" time, but why different clocks give different times, and what is the meaning behind these different times? How do the differences between clocks and watches contribute to our understanding of time and the significance of time in different forms?
Perhaps, there is no so-called "truth" at all, only the "facts" or imagination that individuals choose to keep in their memories.
If the reader has read the Japanese movie master Kurosawa's work "Luo Mensheng", it is not difficult to understand that sometimes there is no truth at all. What exists is only the explanation of the phenomenon, which varies from person to person.
It can be seen that the value of social research conclusions is not necessarily to provide the so-called "truth", but to provide people with different perspectives to explain and understand social phenomena. Only by allowing this rich and diverse perspective can people truly understand society and themselves. Only by allowing a variety of different research methods can social research be more colorful.
This book is rich in content. Here, I just briefly quote the five criteria put forward by the two authors to measure high-quality research. Its original English text (original page 276) is as follows:
1. Empirical evidence and reliability (empirical evidence and reliability)
2. Be open to the extreme importance of the dimension of social phenomenology (be open to the extreme importance of the dimension of social phenomena).
3. Critically reflect on the political and ideological background and problems in the study of norms (critically reflect on the political and ideological background and problems in the study).
4. Be aware of the fuzziness of language and its limited ability to convey pure empirical knowledge, and the rhetorical nature of the way to deal with this problem (aware of the fuzziness of language and the limited ability to convey pure empirical knowledge, and aware of the rhetorical nature of the way to deal with this problem (representative-authority problem))
5. Theoretical development based on the above problems (theoretical development based on the above problems)
(Note: The translation is from the theoretical perspective of qualitative research: a reflective methodology translated by Chen Renren, page 3 16).
Although the two authors point out that these suggestions are aimed at qualitative research methods, I still think these standards are generally applicable to all management research.
There is not much ink in this book about how to use the specific operation of reflexivity research methods. Probably, the concrete practice needs the joint efforts of social researchers.