Efectos reproductivos y en el desarrollo

The quantitative, positivist paradigm has previously dominated consumer research (Woodruffe, 1996; Shankar and Goulding, 2001; Maclaran et al., 2009). This stems from marketing’s early links with economic criteria, e.g. profitability, cost minimisation, marginal returns and logistical efficiency (Hirschman, 1986), leading to ‘…a harmonious union with positivist theories...’ (Szmigin and Foxall, 2000, p.188).

A small, well-established group of American academics in the 1980s are largely credited with driving qualitative, interpretive consumer research (ICR) (Shankar and Goulding, 2001). In 1986, Hirschman reported that in the previous three decades, only one non-positivistic study was featured in the Journal of Marketing (Szmigin and Foxall, 2000). Moving forward, by 2000 ‘…interpretive research can be found published in only a few places; primarily the Journal of Consumer Research and specialised conferences’ (Szmigin and Foxall, 2000, p.187). Today, interpretive consumer research continues to grow in popularity, particularly within Europe. Several emerging research communities have made inroads into embracing these new

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perspectives, including TCR (Mick, 2006; Maclaran et al., 2009) and CCT (Arnould and Thompson, 2005).

Consumer researchers Shankar and Goulding (2001) propose the lack of acceptance around interpretivist research is because positivists have more to agree on; their belief in one single ‘truth’ means that most of their arguments can be reduced to methodological issues such as reliability or sampling accuracy. In contrast, interpretive researchers ‘…have to entertain complex philosophical debates about what constitutes reality, argue against relativistic criticisms, debate epistemological questions, before even getting to methodological issues’ (Shankar and Goulding, 2001, p.8).

The research purpose dictates the type of research required. As this research seeks to explore lived experience, qualitative study is better suited. Accordingly, qualitative research aims to:

“…gain an in-depth understanding of a situation [by gathering and understanding] data which provide a detailed description of events, situations and interaction between people and things, providing depth and detail (Patton 1980). It is concerned with

things that really happen [as] researchers and people experience them.”

- Carson et al., 2001, p.65 (own emphasis added) Crotty (2007, p.28) similarly focuses on the nature of the research:

“…the world addressed by positivist science is not the everyday world we experience. As Husserl points out, the scientific world is an abstraction from the ‘lived’ world; it has been distilled from the world of our everyday experiences, distances us from the world of our everyday experiences….”

(Own emphasis added) The interpretive researcher’s goal is to gain an in-depth understanding of an individual’s life world (Thompson et al., 1989). To achieve this, methodologies are used that '…describe and explain persons’ experiences, behaviours, interactions and social contexts without the use of statistical procedures or quantification’ (Fossey et al., 2002, p.717). Therefore, this research entails a qualitative approach.

146 4.2.2. Interpretivism and induction

This study applies an interpretive framework to generate the outcomes of the research. It builds upon the epistemological choice of social constructionism, and alongside the qualitative theoretical perspective, suggesting that ‘…interpretations of the world are culturally derived and historically situated’ (Gray, 2014, p.684). Interpretivism requires the researcher to understand the in-depth meaning of social action in a given context. This includes thought towards the viewpoints of different actors’, researcher involvement, contextual understanding and data interpretation (Bryman and Bell, 2011). Moisander and Valtonen (2012, p.103) state:

“…a good interpretive framework liberates the imaginative powers of researchers and enables them to see the everyday marketplace reality in new ways… a crucial task in the process of doing cultural marketing and consumer research”.

Interpretivism is often seen as a direct alternative to positivism, but both approaches work to the same end; to understand human beings (Ozanne and Hudson, 1989). Carson et al. (2001, p.9) identify key differences between the two paradigms:

• In positivism the researcher is independent but in interpretivist research the researcher is involved

• In positivism large samples may be used whereas interpretivist research uses small numbers

• In positivism, testing theories pervade whereas interpretivist-type research focuses on generating theories or ‘theory building’

Interpretivist methodologies can attain comprehensive understanding of human behaviour, drawing upon the researcher’s frame of reference. The interpretivist paradigm’s heritage includes Weber’s notion of Verstehen, the hermeneutic-phenomenological tradition, and symbolic interactionism amongst others (Fossey et al., 2002; Bryman and Bell, 2011). An overview of these three areas includes:

• Weber’s notion of Verstehen: Webber (1864 – 1920) suggested that human sciences should be concerned with understanding (verstehen)

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to uncover meaning, and then explaining and establishing causal relationships as per natural sciences traditions (King and Horrocks, 2012). This embraces both interpretivism (understanding) and positivism (explanation). Thompson et al. (1989) also state that interpretivists can identify patterns in behaviours, but the complexity and changeability of the world is too great to attempt to identify causal relationships. Consequently, instead of attempting to explain causal relationships with an objective outlook, interpretivism practices more personal processes to understand a situation (Carson et al., 2001). This goes some way to explain why ‘…Researchers typically do not enter the field with identified relationships to test; the research design evolves within the changing environment’ (Szmigin and Foxall, 2000, p.191).

• The hermeneutic-phenomenological tradition: Hermeneutics is grounded in theology, and has been brought into the social sciences to become associated with interpretive theory and method of understanding human action, from the perspective of the social actor (Bryman and Bell, 2011). Langdridge (2007) explains that the process involves focusing on the historical and cultural contexts as understood by the participant and the researcher, moving in a circular fashion (the hermeneutic circle).

• Symbolic interactionism: This ‘…views the self as fundamentally social – the self is developed and maintained through social relationships – so that changes in the self-concept occur across the lifespan’ (Braun and Clarke, 2013a, p.185). It is a micro-level, sociological perspective that focuses on the processes by which individual’s understand their world (Woodruffe-Burton, 2001). Blumer (1969) identifies three basic views of Symbolic interactionism:

o 1) Individual’s act based on the meanings they have for particular objects,

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o 2) The object meaning derives from social interactions that the individual has with others and society,

o 3) Meanings are created and recreated through interpretative processes used by the person in dealing with the objects encountered.

Solomon (1983, p.323) asserts that people interpret the actions of others, therefore the way an individual relates/reacts to an object is determined by their environment, known as ‘learned symbolic value’ . Essentially, these areas understand and explain behaviours, taking in to consideration the social self, historical and cultural contexts, and the meanings given to objects within these contexts at a particular time. This research aims to consider these wider contexts and how these impact the lived experience of the individual.

Interpretivism has been compared to the production of art, due to its involvement of creativity, improvisational and imaginative elements (Spiggle, 1994; Moisander and Valtonen, 2012). However, this should be guided by the use of theory, to avoid the risk of romanticising or mystifying the process of interpretation (Thompson, 1997). In this study, the approach to theory is inductive; theory is generated as a result of the study of primary data that allows the construction of explanations about what has been observed (Hackley, 2003; Bryman and Bell, 2011; Saunders et al., 2012). Interpretive, exploratory study lends itself to inductive reasoning, looking at ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions, rather than ‘what’ (Carson et al., 2001). Research that takes an inductive approach also tends to be concerned with contextual aspects that may influence the data (Saunders et al., 2012, p.146). With this research, investigating the experiences of indebted individual’s, ensuring the emphasis is on the ‘how’ and ‘why’ is key at this stage, particularly within wider contexts of the individual’s lives. Subsequent studies may be undertaken to look at ‘what’ aspects, after the initial exploratory stages.

Carson et al. (2001, p.12) recognise that induction allows the data to guide the research process and theory building; a notion that has been undertaken throughout this project. They go on to discuss how induction is strongly

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linked to reflection; of particular past experiences, on the formulation of abstract concepts, theories and generalizations. Phenomenology is characterised by the inductive approach, as it ‘…does not start with a theory, or with a consideration of theories’ (Gallagher and Zahavi, 2012, p.11). The following section explores the concept of Phenomenology.