Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) adopted the core methodological consideraJons that have been discussed in this chapter; sociology of science, relaJvism, construcJvism, discourse analysis and interpretaJve repertoires to invesJgate the scienJfic dispute within biochemistry which centred on the complex molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Poper (1996b) reviews their
methodological stance:
“In effect, Gilbert and Mulkay’s analysis extended the general emphasis on methodological relaJvism in sociology of scienJfic knowledge (SSK) to scienJst’ accounts of their acJons and beliefs. Just as empirical relaJvists did not apempt to decide, say, which theory of... was correct... discourse analysts of science did not apempt to judge which descripJon that a scienJst gave of theory choice was correct. They were not looking at accounts of choice in research papers, interview or even scienJfic jokes, for their truth; the interest instead was in how that account was constructed and how it was used to manage interacJonal tasks.”
(Poper, 1996b: 152)
Their 1984 research implemented discourse analysis to observe the sociological processes
surrounding opposing scienJsts associated with the two contrasJng theoreJcal posiJons that had emerged relaJng to ATP. Gilbert and Mulkay (1984) were unsaJsfied with the methodological posiJons and insights of previous sociological research into such areas:
“If this were a typical sociological study…We would proceed by extracJng from our data what we took to be the most coherent and comprehensive version of ‘what really happened’…
…sociologists’ apempts to tell the story of a parJcular social seung or to formulate the way in which social life operates are fundamentally unsaJsfactory. Such ‘definiJve versions’ are unsaJsfactory because they imply unjusJfiably that the analyst can reconcile his version of events with all the mulJple and divergent versions generated by the actors themselves.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay 1984: 1-2)
Gilbert and Mulkay outlined the issues with previous sociological research into SSK related material using discourse as data - focusing on Blissep’s (1972) analysis of the role of poliJcal manoeuvrings implemented by scienJsts within their fields:
“The difficulty with taking any collecJon of similar statements produced by parJcipants as literally descripJve of social acJon is the potenJal variability of parJcipants’ statements about any given acJon.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay 1984: 6)
They then, using Halliday’s (1978) argument relaJng to the variability in language, asserted that:
“If there is a strong connecJon between the form and substance of discourse, on the one hand, and the social situaJon in which discourse is produced, on the other hand, it follows that discourse can never be taken as simply descripJve of the social acJon to which it ostensibly refers, no maper how uniform
parJcular segments of that discourse appear to be. For similariJes between different statements are just as likely to be the consequence of some similarity in the context of linguisJc producJon as of similarity in the acJons described by those statements.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay 1984: 7)
In a series of prior papers Gilbert and Mulkay (1982a, 1982c, 1983) analysed scienJsts’ theory choice. When reviewing the collated research they noted a significant presence of variability:
“Not only do different scienJsts’ accounts differ; not only do each scienJst’s accounts vary between lepers, lab notes, interviews, conference proceedings, research papers, etc.; but scienJsts furnish quite different versions of events within a single recorded interview transcript or a single session of a taped conference discussion.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984: 11)
Due to the high degree of variability found within their collected data they proposed a generalised four-step process to negate issues of variability within qualitaJve sociological research:
“1. Obtain statements by interview or by observaJon in a natural seung.
2. Look for broad similariJes between the statements.
3. If there are similariJes which occur frequently, take these statements at face value, that is, as accurate
accounts of what is really going on.
4. Construct a generalised version of parJcipants’ accounts of what is going on, and present this as one’s own analyJc conclusions.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay 1984: 5)
Prior to this point there was a general inclinaJon within sociological approaches to generalise accounts pertaining to actors and acJons to wider relaJng social categories. In addiJon, there was the belief that the analysts themselves were suitably informed enough to criJcally asses which accounts were deemed of greater reliability and accurate representaJons of the reality of the knowledge areas being analysed. Overriding these principles was the assumpJon that some of the accounts were accurate representaJons of the core social reality behind them. Gilbert and
Mulkay’s perspecJve contrasted with these established principles. Primarily, they did not believe the social scienJst was informed to a level by which they could accurately differenJate the veracity or objecJvity of accounts. Furthermore, they argued that the accounts generated by research must be considered in the context of their producJon (for example, an interview constructed for sociological research). Subsequently these accounts, due to these similariJes in contextual origin, must not necessarily be taken as objecJvely representaJve of the situaJon or topic of discussion. The researcher should exercise cauJon in assuming that commonaliJes within the parJcipants discourse is anything but indicaJve of the same interacJonal context in which these accounts were produced - and to imbue restraint in drawing conclusions beyond this.
Finally, Gilbert and Mulkay advanced the noJon that sociological research failed to address the noJon that, in regard to language, social acJons can hold mulJple meanings. They suggested that social acJons and events can retain mulJple meanings - the same instance can be described in a plethora of different ways, with different sub-aspects being highlighted in each subsequent descripJon. From Gilbert and Mulkay’s perspecJve, research up unJl this point had failed to appreciate and accommodate for this nuance - discourse was treated as a straigh{orward, linear, reflecJon of social (and underlying psychological) reality. This somewhat basic approach neglected to appreciate that discourse is constructed from both the context in which it is produced and also the funcJonal aspects it is intended to perform:
“…It follows that discourse can never be taken as simply descripJve of the social acJon to which it refers, no maper how uniform parJcular segments of that discourse appear to be.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984: 7)
In response to these tradiJonal failings within sociological research, Gilbert and Mulkay promoted the use of discourse analysis as a methodological approach. This analysis focused solely on the parJcipants’ language, accounJng for variability within such discourse and the elements which lead to such differences. UlJmately this placed the discourse itself at the heart of the analysis, observing its sociological producJon and funcJons, thus eradicaJng the previously ingrained sociological noJon of providing discussions centring on the social reality of what really occurred:
“It seems best, then, to conceive of the meaning of social acJons, not as a unitary characterisJc of acts which can be be observed as they occur, but as a diverse potenJality of acts which can be realised in different ways through parJcipants’ producJon of different interpretaJons in different social contexts.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984: 9)
The unstable nature of direct observaJon strengthens the proposal that the methodological priority of the analysis of parJcipants’ discourse holds more value. As such Gilbert and Mulkay centralised the use of discourse as a producJve analyJcal tool (1984: 13), focusing on their parJcipants’ discourse as a topic as opposed to merely a resource:
“…the social world is not composed of a series of discrete, one-dimensional acJons which can be more or less accurately represented. Once we begin to conceive of the social world in terms of an indefinite series of linguisJc potenJaliJes which can be realised in a wide variety of different ways and which are conJnually reformulated in the course of an ongoing interpretaJve process, the simple procedure of siwing good from bad accounts becomes enJrely inappropriate…no degree of crawsman’s experJse can enable the sociologist to sort out the interpretaJve dross within the parJcipants’ discourse from what is sociologically valuable.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984: 10)
Gilbert and Mulkay’s form of discourse analysis was founded on the appreciaJon that discourse is both highly variable and context dependent. The analyJc focus of their study into ATP scienJsts was to invesJgate how these parJcipants contextually organised and systemaJcally structured their discourse to communicate accounts of beliefs and acJons. Two specific contexts were addressed - formal and informal. ‘Formal’ encompassed such elements as published research papers and the content of established academic journals, whilst ‘informal’ included aspects such
as interviews. What emerged from the study was that the scienJst parJcipants’ discourse was systemaJcally different across the two contexts - through implemenJng the ‘interpretaJve repertoire’ classificaJon approach (discussed in secJon 2.3.2).
Gilbert and Mulkay proposed that within formal contexts the scienJsts deployed the use of what they termed the ‘empiricist repertoire’ within their discourse. This was characterised by formal language that upheld convenJonal perspecJves of scienJfic culture and work, whereby the scienJst remains personally detached from the outcomes of the research and objecJvity is paramount. In contrast, the ‘conJngent repertoire’ was predominant within informal contexts - where objecJvity is removed and scienJfic pracJce is re-framed as a social acJvity. The scienJst invokes more individual features relaJng to scienJfic acJviJes, research and knowledge claims - aspects such as personal opinions and interpretaJons. More generally, the pracJce of science is characterised as being a funcJon of social factors, such as the interpersonal relaJonship between colleagues and sub-cultures within different fields. The empiricist repertoire isolates the scienJst away from the process of science and the experimental process, whereas the conJngent
repertoire places them at the centre of these endeavours as a social-being informed by personal moJvaJons and beliefs.
Awer establishing the criteria that constructed these repertoires Gilbert and Mulkay invesJgated how their parJcipants uJlised them within their discourse. The scienJsts used the empiricist repertoire to support their own stance and scienJfic beliefs, implemenJng objecJve scienJfic terminology to validate their own posiJon. Opposing theories and counter research was presented using the conJngent repertoire - whereby such elements were depicted as being weighted with social elements and personal agendas. Subsequently, counter-ideologies were presented as distorted and highly subjecJve in contrast to the scienJst’s own objecJve and “pure”
scienJfic endeavours. In this manner the parJcipants were able to use the two repertoires as discursive resources to validate their own posiJon(s) and dualisJcally undermine opposing scienJsts (and research). ContradicJons that materialised through the use of the two polarised repertoires were reconciled using, what Gilbert and Mulkay labelled, the ‘Truth Will Out Device’.
Use of the device included highly generalised, unspecific terms such as “with more experimental evidence” which vaguely predict that ulJmately scienJfic evidence will eventually be produced to resolve any current debate or controversy surrounding the phenomenon. Discrepancies in their accounts can be explained using this device which resolved that the scienJfic method will
eventually prevail and seple the disparity that has arisen due to purported incorrect research that is generated as a result of flawed scienJfic beliefs. As Gilbert and Mulkay (1984: 94) explain:
“gradually, it is implied, the realiJes of the physical world will be recognised; and idiosyncraJc, social, distorJng influences will consequently be seen as such”.
Within the study, all of the scienJsts had their proposals denounced by other scienJsts in this manner, with their theories being depicted as distorJons based on objecJve experimental results.
UlJmately this demonstrates that sociological researchers cannot determine the verisimilitude of a phenomena based on the accounts (discourse) espoused by parJcipants. As Gilbert and Mulkay showed, scienJsts abandon pretences of objecJvity in relaJon to the scienJfic process when presenJng and framing research that lays in juxtaposiJon to their own. Subsequently, a “true”
account of the phenomena is prevented from emerging in these accounts. This led Poper and Wetherell (1987: 152) to note that “this seems a very good reason for not taking…discourse as a model of what is the case.” The significance of this for general sociological enquiry extended beyond SSK concerns, as elaborated by Gilbert and Mulkay (1984):
“…[The] basic argument…that tradiJonal forms of sociological analysis of acJon derived in an unexplicated manner from parJcipants’ discourse and that discourse analysis is a necessary prelude to, and perhaps replacement for, the analysis of acJon and belief, is a completely general argument which applies equally well to all areas of sociological enquiry.”
(Gilbert and Mulkay, 1984: 190-1)
Wooffip (2005) outlines how despite the potenJal impact of Gilbert and Mulkay’s methodological approach their research failed to have significant repercussions within wider sociology. He
proposes mulJple reasons for this:
- The proposals were too radical, as the fundamental premise of the research held that
sociological research which was based on people’s accounts was fundamentally flawed. Such a challenging and potenJally revoluJonary concept would essenJally make a large body of sociological work theoreJcally and methodologically redundant.
- Geographically, the conceptual noJons proffered by Gilbert and Mulkay may not have had the same resonance in different research climates beyond their immediate culture.
- Neither Gilbert or Mulkay elaborated on the the key proponents that emerged from their research. There was no follow up research that directly developed the implicaJons that arose
within ‘Opening Pandora’s Box’.
However, the study did lead to further research into the construcJon of discourse and its use within social contexts. For example, over a series of studies into discourse and recollecJons Edwards and Middleton (1986, 1987, 1988) presented evidence to suggest that memory and recollecJons should be analysed from an ethnomethodological and social construcJonist
perspecJve - whereby recollecJon of memories were socially organised enJJes within discursive features.
Poper and Wetherell (1987) produced an extensive argument that undermined prior sociological methodology which had neglected to take into consideraJon the variability and strategic elements that are present in language construcJon. Their publicaJon of Discourse and Social Psychology can be seen as an extension of the principles outlined by Gilbert and Mulkay, demonstrated in the following delineaJon of discourse analysis:
“1. language is used for a variety of funcJons and its use has a variety of consequences;
2. language is both constructed and construcJve;
3. the same phenomenon can be described in a number of different ways;
4. there will, therefore be considerable variaJon in accounts;
5. there is, as yet, no foolproof way to deal with this variaJon and to siw accounts which are ‘literal’ or accurate’ from those which are rhetorical or merely misguided thereby escaping the problems variaJon raises for researchers with a ‘realist’ model of language;
6. the construcJve and flexible ways in which language is used should themselves become a central topic of study.”
(Poper and Wetherell, 1987: 35)
The above list emphasises certain aspects that were absent from Gilbert and Mulkay’s (1984) research which focused more on the variability of the scienJsts’ accounts rather then analysing fully the construcJon and funcJon of those accounts. Furthermore, as illustrated in Wetherell and Poper’s (1992) study of racist discourse within New Zealand, discourse analysis can be used as a tool to examine how ideologies are embedded within cultures and reproduced via discursive pracJces. In addiJon, the applicaJon of the interpretaJve repertoire has been criJcised for being difficult to apply as a discursive tool (Silverman, 2001).
Despite these purported limitaJons - beyond Gilbert and Mulkay’s work, interpretaJve repertoires have been used in a number of studies relaJng to the discourse of scienJsts and their pracJces.
Such work ranges across similar idenJficaJon of discursive paperns in scienJsts’ discourse in contenJous fields (Burchell, 2007; Kerr et. al, 1997; Michael and Birke, 1994); how argumentaJve lepers are constructed (Mulkay, 1985); the construcJon of scienJfic jokes (Mulkay and Gilbert, 1982b); scienJsts’ accounts of theory choice (Gilbert and Mulkay, 1982c, 1983; Mulkay and Gilbert, 1983, 1985; Poper, 1984); how scienJfic knowledge is applied (Poper, 1982; Poper and Mulkay, 1982); how scienJsts read and interpret scienJfic texts (Poper, 1987); to accounts of models (McKinlay and Poper, 1987). In addiJon, Myers (1990) extended Gilbert and Mulkay’s work by conducJng a study around how rhetorical and textural resources operate during
controversies. More recently AugousJnos, Russin and LeCouteur (2009) used the same theoreJcal framework to invesJgate how stake and interest were managed through discursive
representaJons of the storm-cell cloning fraud episode.
A more contemporary review of the literature demonstrates a conJnuing use of Gilbert and Mulkay’s (1984) framework - and parJcularly the adopJon of interpretaJve repertoires as a form of analysis across a wide range of issues beyond invesJgaJons towards scienJsts and science.
Recent examples include:
- Selseng and Ulvik (2016) - posiJoning and interpretaJve repertoires in discourse about substance abuse and change
- Rouse and Finlay (2016) - interpretaJve repertoires used in discussing the responsibility for diabetes management by adults with intellectual disabiliJes and supporters of those individuals - Huzzard (2015) - interpretaJve repertoires in discourse of innovaJon
- Golden and Pomerantz (2015) - interpretaJve repertoires used by low-income African American women’s in reproducJve health care
- Karlsson and Olin-Scheller (2015) - internet discourse and the interpretaJve repertoires that construct gender within Harry Poper fan facJon sites
- Jackson and Hall (2016) - interpretaJve repertoires within terrorism
- Garcia-Favaro and Gill (2016) - interpretaJve repertoires within sexism online
- Whiple and Mueller (2016) - construcJve repertoires used by bankers accounJng for the banking crisis
- Hsu (2016) - interpretaJve repertoires present in the discourse of preservice science teachers
Despite this wide ranging literature, as touched upon in Chapter 1, there has been an absence of sustained discursive invesJgaJons into analysing the accounts of scienJsts that builds upon and extends the work of Gilbert and Mulkay (Traweek, 1992; Sampson and Atkinson, 2011; Sampson and Atkinson 2013). The current thesis intends to address this deficit and provide a contemporary update of their original work that extends their theoreJcal focus.
2.4 Overview
The current chapter has provided an overview of the development of sociological approaches towards the study of science and the producJon of scienJfic knowledge. This has encompassed the emergence of SSK and the dynamic change in perspecJve towards these areas of study - with the main focus switching towards scienJfic pracJce being a socially governed, socially constructed pursuit. The relaJvist methodological approach which stemmed from this perspecJve change was a significant departure, and one which informed the basis of discourse analyJcal studies: where the scienJfic phenomenon or claims by the scienJst is completely removed from consideraJon.
The validity of the scienJst’s work is irrelevant - it is the social processes by which they construct, present, orientate their idenJJes, reflecJons and concepts that is of interest. It is this literature, from the historical SSK work through to discourse analysis, that informs this thesis. The overview that has been presented in this chapter, alongside the sociological focus of parapsychology and the history of the field in Chapter 1, is integral contextual detail that is the foundaJon for the project.
Fundamental to the approach and methodology of this thesis is Gilbert and Mulkay’s (1984) study.
The work conducted by Gilbert and Mulkay was central to the progression of discourse analysis and cemenJng its methodological focus. The study integrates well with the SSK philosophy and relaJvist stance of apempJng to uncover the sociological, cultural and poliJcal machinaJons that exist behind scienJfic pracJce and producJon of knowledge claims. Their 1984 analysis did not address the verisimilitude of the phenomena being discussed by the scienJsts and instead focused on the discursive pracJces implemented by the scienJsts to construct versions of reality within
The work conducted by Gilbert and Mulkay was central to the progression of discourse analysis and cemenJng its methodological focus. The study integrates well with the SSK philosophy and relaJvist stance of apempJng to uncover the sociological, cultural and poliJcal machinaJons that exist behind scienJfic pracJce and producJon of knowledge claims. Their 1984 analysis did not address the verisimilitude of the phenomena being discussed by the scienJsts and instead focused on the discursive pracJces implemented by the scienJsts to construct versions of reality within