ENSAYOS DE TRANSPORTE DE SEDIMENTOS Y COLMATACIÓN DE UN VERTEDERO

Providing a description of epistemology is inherent in the theoretical perspective of every research project and therefore in its methodology (Crotty, 1998). Crotty (1998) defined epistemology as a “way of understanding and explaining how we know what we know” (p.3). Consistent with my worldview, a constructionist epistemological position allowed the views and experiences of participants to be heard and shared. This position fits nicely with my beliefs that there are multiple realities. That is, different people have different life experiences and different views of the world. As there are different views of the world there are therefore different ways of researching the world (Crotty, 1998).

Constructionism sits well with the diffusion of innovation theory. As mentioned in Chapter Two, the diffusion of innovation theory helps identify the complexities involved when an organisation adopts a particular innovation including the political, social, cultural, technological and economic characteristics (Greenhalgh et al., 2005). It was these complexities that I

Epistemology Constructionism Research Theory Diffusion of innovation Theoretical perspective Interpretivist Methodology

Single qualitative Instrumental case study

Method

Focus groups, individual interviews, document audit

sought to understand by listening to the views and experiences of participants and by gaining an understanding of the multiple realities.

There is a range of epistemologies including objectivism, subjectivism and constructionism. Objectivism encapsulates the notion that meaning exists outside consciousness including the positivist and post-positivist paradigms inherent within quantitative inquiry. Burr (2005) is critical of objectivity as being impossible since we all encounter the world from some perspective or other. Crotty (1998) stated that in subjectivism, the object makes no contribution to meaning and therefore meaning is created out of nothing. However, Crotty (1998) also argued that even in subjectivism we all make meaning out of something. Creating meaning out of nothing is impossible since meaning is created from our own collective unconscious based on previous experience, values, and beliefs. Larsen (2013) provided further clarification by noting that subjectivists believe that norms and values are special constructions that have little meaning outside of a specific context.

Constructionists contend meaning (or truth) cannot be described as either subjective or objective (Crotty, 1998; Tom, 2012). The world we experience and the people we find ourselves to be are first and foremost the product of social processes and people construct ways of understanding between them (Burr, 2005; Lock & Strong, 2010). Crotty (1998) defined constructionism as the view that “....all knowledge, and therefore all meaningful reality as such, is contingent upon human practices, being constructed in and out of interaction between human beings and their world, and developed and transmitted within an essentially social context” (p.42). Constructionists expect to see different things, examine them through different lenses and come to different conclusions. In this sense, “multiple and even conflicting versions of the same event or object can be true at the same time” (Rubin & Rubin, 2005, p.27).

It is through the daily interaction between people in the course of social life that our version of knowledge becomes fabricated. There can be no final description of the world and reality may be inaccessible or inseparable from

our discourse about it (Burr, 2005). Nor is it possible to make comment about the nature of reality if we cannot be in direct contact with it (Harper, 2012). Therefore, all knowledge is provisional and contestable. I sought to understand these different world views in order to determine the impact of the Primary Health Care Strategy on primary health care nurses in Tairawhiti.

4.3

Ontology

Ontology sits alongside epistemology to inform the theoretical perspective. It is “concerned with ‘what is’ with the nature of existence” (Crotty, 1998, p.10). Subjectively experienced contextual factors influence interpretations of the world. As such, there are diverse ways of knowing, distinguishable sets of meaning and separate realities. One cannot speak of truth but must accept the existence of many alternative constructions of events in that the way things are is really the sense we make of them (Berg & Lune, 2012; Burr, 2005; Crotty, 1998; Rubin & Rubin, 2005). Realism and relativism are both ontological notions (Crotty, 1998).

Burr (2005) stated that realism “asserts that an external world exists independently of our representation of it” (p.22). Representations might include perceptions, language, and thoughts. Conversely relativism argues if such a reality exists it is inaccessible to us, the only thing we have available are representations of the world and therefore they cannot be judged against reality for truthfulness (Burr, 2005). Within this position, social science cannot uncover the truth about people or society.

Crotty (1998) argued that constructionism in epistemology is compatible with both realism and relativism in ontology. A researcher might be epistemologically and methodologically relativist but it does not necessarily make them ontologically relativist (Harper, 2012;Lock & Strong, 2010). What this means is that “they are relativist about what we can know about the world but they are not relativists about whether there is a world at all” (Harper, 2012, p.91).

Truth is defined as the best informed and most sophisticated construction on which there is consensus. Therefore, the findings of this study will exist because of the interaction between the researcher and participants in creating a constructed reality that is as informed as it can be at this particular time in this particular setting. Consequently, researchers must acknowledge their intrinsic involvement in the research process and view their piece of research as a co- production between themselves and the people they are researching (Burr, 2005).