“With Constructivist Grounded Theory You Can’t Hide”: Social Justice Research and Critical Inquiry in the Public Sphere

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (2) ◽  
pp. 165-176 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Charmaz
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Constructivist Grounded Theory ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
Justice Research ◽  
The Public ◽  
Critical Questions ◽  
Social Justice Research ◽  
The Public Sphere

This article addresses how constructivist grounded theorists grapple with conducting their research and use the method for social justice research and critical inquiry in the public sphere. To explicate how using this method ensues, I sought reflections from four researchers explaining why they adopted the method and how they used it. I also reviewed more than 40 constructivist grounded theory studies concerning research in the public sphere to illuminate the authors’ methodological strategies and decisions. These researchers’ reflexive stance toward their preconceptions, positions, and research actions supports exploring critical questions and fosters using grounded theory strategies to answering them.

The Power of Constructivist Grounded Theory for Critical Inquiry

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 34-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathy Charmaz
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Grounded Theory ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Methodological Individualism ◽  
Constructivist Grounded Theory ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
Critical Questions

The pragmatist roots of constructivist grounded theory make it a useful method for pursuing critical qualitative inquiry. Pragmatism offers ways to think about critical qualitative inquiry; constructivist grounded theory offers strategies for doing it. Constructivist grounded theory fosters asking emergent critical questions throughout inquiry. This method also encourages (a) interrogating the taken-for-granted methodological individualism pervading much of qualitative research and (b) taking a deeply reflexive stance called methodological self-consciousness, which leads researchers to scrutinize their data, actions, and nascent analyses. The article outlines how to put constructivist grounded theory into practice and ends with where this practice could take us.

Abraham Heschel

2021 ◽  
pp. 198-216
Author(s):  
Susannah Heschel
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
New York City ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Intellectual ◽  
West Side ◽  
Reinhold Niebuhr ◽  
The Public ◽  
Prophetic Voice ◽  
The Public Sphere

The friendship between Abraham Joshua Heschel and Reinhold Niebuhr was both personal and intellectual. Neighbours on the Upper West Side of New York City, they walked together in Riverside park and shared personal concerns in private letters; Niebuhr asked Heschel to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. They were bound by shared religious sensibilities as well, including their love of the Hebrew Bible, the irony they saw in American history and in the writings of the Hebrew prophets, and in their commitment to social justice as a duty to God. Heschel arrived in the public sphere later, as a public intellectual with a prophetic voice, much as Niebuhr had been for many decades prior. Niebuhr’s affirmation of the affinities between his and Heschel’s theological scholarship pays tribute to an extraordinary friendship of Protestant and Jew.

Becoming activist: the mediation of consumers in Animals Australia’s Make it Possible campaign

2019 ◽  
Vol 172 (1) ◽  
pp. 48-60
Author(s):  
Jane Mummery ◽  
Debbie Rodan
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Animal Welfare ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Law Reform ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethical Consumers ◽  
Human Animal ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Advocacy Organisation

In 2008, the Australian Law Reform Commission journal, Reform, called out animal welfare as Australia’s ‘next great social justice movement’ in 2018; however, public mobilisation around animal welfare is still a contested issue in Australia. The question stands as to how to mobilise everyday mainstream consumers into supporting animal activism given that animal activism is presented in the public sphere as dampening the economic livelihood of Australia, with some animal activism described as ‘akin to terrorism’. The questions, then, are as follows: how to mobilise everyday mainstream consumers into supporting animal activist ideals? How to frame and communicate animal activist ideals so that they can come to inform and change the behaviour and self-understandings of mainstream consumers? This article is an investigation into the possible production and mobilisation of animal activists from mainstream consumers through the work of one digital campaign, Make it Possible. Delivered by the peak Australian animal advocacy organisation, Animals Australia, and explicitly targeting the lived experiences and conditions of animals in factory farming, Make it Possible reached nearly 12 million viewers across Australia and has directly impacted on the reported behaviour and self-understandings of over 291,000 Australians to date, as well as impacting policy decisions made by government and industry. More specifically, our interest is to engage a new materialist lens to draw out how this campaign operates to transform consumers into veg*ns (vegans/vegetarians), activists and ethical consumers who materially commit to and live revised beliefs regarding human–animal relations.

Amos and ‘Ghana in the Eyes of God’: a Public Theological Response to Bribery and Corruption

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-300
Author(s):  
Patrick Kofi Amissah
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Religious Leaders ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Bible ◽  
Independent Judiciary ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Miscarriage Of Justice

AbstractThe purpose of this article is to draw upon the condemnation of bribery, corruption and miscarriage of justice to be found in the book of Amos for the sake of a public theology. The occasion for such is a bribery scandal that hit the Ghanaian judiciary. An investigative journalist presented evidence to substantiate the hitherto unsubstantiated perception that some judges in Ghana take bribes to skew judgement. The scandal is deepened through many of the judges being Christian. They attracted widespread criticism from religious leaders, both Christian and others, as well as from the wider society. The public sphere of a fair and independent judiciary was thus compromised. The argument draws upon an assessment of Amos 5:7; 10, 12 and 6:12. These texts are examined in the light of this judicial bribery and corruption scandal and thus provide an example of how the Bible can play a part in a public theology and nurture of social justice.

Justice as the sacred in language: Durkheim and Habermas on the ultimate grounds of modernity and critique

2017 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 342-360 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francesco Callegaro
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Critical Theory ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Communicative Action ◽  
Religious Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Theory Of Communicative Action ◽  
Double Movement ◽  
New Directions ◽  
The Public Sphere

The article reconstructs the double movement of departure and return to Emile Durkheim’s sociology that Jürgen Habermas realized in his work in order to define the theoretical paradigm of communicative action and revive the original project of Critical Theory. It highlights, in the first part, how Habermas first used Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of Religious Life to assign a phylogenetic function to ritual practices and explain modernity, from an evolutionist perspective, as the final result of a progressive linguistification of the sacred, having substituted the communion of minds in rites with the communication of reasons in the public sphere. After having discussed the two main objections that Habermas addressed to Durkheim at the time of The Theory of Communicative Action, the second part shows how he recently revised his rationalist framework through a new anthropological reading of The Elementary Forms, aimed at demonstrating, in the context of a more complex account of evolution, why the requirement of justice discloses, even in modernity, the active presence of the sacred in language and orientates the critical work of reason in the search of solidarity. Pointing out the new directions in which the hypothesis of a linguistification of the sacred must be seriously revised, it ends by suggesting how the question of social justice may open the path to a positive cooperation between sociology and Critical Theory.

The Mythical Interface of Turkish Intellectuals' Orientation toward the Armenian Genocide

2015 ◽  
Vol 47 (4) ◽  
pp. 791-795 ◽  
Author(s):  
Burcu Gürsel
Keyword(s):  
Public Sphere ◽  
Quality Characteristics ◽  
Armenian Genocide ◽  
Critical Inquiry ◽  
The Public ◽  
Working Definition ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Definition Of

Still prefaced in many commentaries as a taboo, the topic of the genocide in Turkey has ironically become a talking point de rigueur for anyone who is visible in the public sphere and who lays claims to an identity as an intellectual. “Anyone,” then, will momentarily serve as the working definition of the intellectual, for all intents and purposes, in this inquiry into the grammar among Turkish and Armenian intellectuals both within and outside Turkey. The litany of self-proclaimed firsts in addressing the topic of genocide in any given genre in Turkey is better understood in the light of Barthes' notion of the “inflexion” in myth. Such vocabulary of self-advertisement, of being a historic “first,” creates a curious hierarchy when it comes to the all-important topic of a foundational and denied genocide: it is not that the intellectual brings herself to the service of the topic, but that the topic serves up to the rejuvenation of the intellectual's prominence and controversial value in the public sphere. The emphasis is not on the quality, characteristics, or commitments of the works in question, but on the fact of the intellectual being a “first,” and thus, implicitly, a mythical figure above critical inquiry.

Datafication: threat or opportunity for communication in the public sphere?

2016 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 21-36 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derina Holtzhausen
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Big Data ◽  
Discourse Analysis ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Strategic Communication ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Communication Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere ◽  
Theoretical Foundations

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to consider the threats and potential of Big Data for strategic communication. It explains the concepts of datafication and Big Data and establishes the social and cultural context of Big Data from the way those constructing algorithms superimpose their value systems and cultural references onto the data. It links Big Data and strategic communication through the segmentation devices and strategies both use and propose discourse analysis as a valid method for the critique of Big Data. The importance of strategic communication for the public sphere suggests that Big Data can pose a serious threat to public discourse. Design/methodology/approach – This is a conceptual and theoretical paper that first explains and interprets various new terms and concepts and then uses established theoretical approaches to analyze these phenomena. Findings – The use of Big Data for the micro-segmentation of audiences establishes its relationship with strategic communication. Big Data analyses and algorithms are not neutral. Treating algorithms as language and communication allow them to be subjected to discourse analysis to expose underlying power relations for resistance strategies to emerge. Strategic communicators should guard the public sphere and take an activist stance against the potential harm of Big Data. That requires a seat at the institutional technology table and speaking out against discriminatory practices. However, Big Data can also greatly benefit society and improve discourse in the public sphere. Research limitations/implications – There is not yet empirical data available on the impact of datafication on communication practice, which might be a problem well into the future. It also might be hard to do empirical research on its impact on practice and the public sphere. The heuristic value of this piece is that it laid down the theoretical foundations of the phenomena to be studied, which can in future be used for ethnographic research or qualitative studies. It might eventually be possible to follow personalized messages generated through datafication to study if they actually lead to behavior change in specific audience members. Practical/implications – As guardians of the public sphere strategic communication practitioners have to educate themselves on the realities of Big Data and should consciously acquire a seat at the institutional technology table. Practitioners will need to be involved in decisions on how algorithms are formulated and who they target. This will require them to serve as activists to ensure social justice. They also will need to contribute to organizational transparency by making organizational information widely available and accessible through media bought, owned, and earned. Strategic communicators need to create a binary partnership with journalists of all kinds to secure the public sphere. Social/implications – The paper exposes the role of algorithms in the construction of data and the extent to which algorithms are products of people who impose their own values and belief systems on them. Algorithms and the data they generate are subjective and value-laden. The concept of algorithms as language and communication and the use of Big Data for the segmentation of society for purposes of communication establish the connection between Big Data and strategic communication. The paper also exposes the potential for harm in the use of Big Data, as well as its potential for improving society and bringing about social justice. Originality/value – The value of this paper is that it introduces the concept of datafication to communication studies and proposes theoretical foundations for the study of Big Data in the context of strategic communications. It provides a theoretical and social foundation for the inclusion of the public sphere in a definition of strategic communication and emphasizes strategic communicators’ commitment to the public sphere as more important than ever before. It highlights how communication practice and society can impact each other positively and negatively and that Big Data should not be the future of strategic communication but only a part of it.

Entangled1

2018 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 132-135
Author(s):  
Judith C. Lapadat
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Public Sphere ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
International Congress ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Public Sphere

At the Thirteenth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, we gathered as a community to share perspectives on qualitative inquiry in the public sphere in these troubled times and to advance the causes of social justice. “Entangled” is a poetic montage that pieces together powerful words, phrases, and images that I gathered in sessions, in hallways, and on the lawns at ICQI 2017. This composite of fragments reflects the conference as I experienced it.

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