![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
blatherskiteContinuing my reading of the Heath/O'Hair risk handbook led me to a few insights into why I am so frustrated by the cultural studies people. For those who aren't familiar with this strain of academic, an overly brief summary: cultural studies focuses on how social institutions (i.e., aspects of a culture) influence and constrain the way members of that culture think. That's an awfully important topic, and one that has often been badly served by its community of researchers.
In Chapter 4 of the book, Tansey and Rayner describe an important model, namely the "grid/group typology" of Douglas, and in so doing, inadvertently provide clear evidence of why cultural studies theory is treated so dismissively (often inappropriately so) by academics from other disciplines. In this typology (defined as a "classification into types"), Douglas proposed a thought tool that she presented as a graph with two axes:
The grid axis, with values ranging from low to high, actually has nothing to do with any conventional meaning of the word "grid" (e.g., graphs, tables, and other orthogonal presentations of information) but rather refers to the degree of internal and external constraints upon a group or its members.
The group axis, also with values ranging from low to high, doesn't actually refer to the nature of the group, but instead refers to the degree of allegiance or attachment to the group.
The resulting combination of two values (low and high) along each axis produces a graph with four areas, each of which defines a solidarity—another obscure and misleading word. It's never clear to me whether such obtuse word choices is a deliberate attempt to seem profound (rather than letting a profound idea speak for itself) or simply the results of the very human temptation to get so carried away with a good idea that we can't be bothered trying to frame it so others will understand. In any event, by choosing unclear descriptions and obscure word connotations, Douglas pretty much ensured that confusion would follow and that these two characteristics of people and groups, which are actually spectra (a continuous range of values) rather than discrete categories, would become four stereotypical descriptions rather than what they should be: important tools to aid our understanding. A later commentator (Ostrander) eloquently clarified the typology as being a way to describe the limits placed on whom one interacts with (the group aspect) and how one interacts with them (the grid aspect), but even that description is the equivalent of trying to fix a fallen wall through liberal applicaton of spackle.
Had Douglas defined the typology clearly using words such as "Degree of attachment to group" and "Degree of constraints on action", its importance would have been clearer and its application less vulnerable to misunderstanding. Any good editor would have spotted the problem and proposed a solution such as this one, and would thereby have helped others apply an important insight with less risk of error.
Given the incoherence of the Douglas formulation, it's hardly surprising that the resulting typology has been badly misunderstood and misapplied, and Tansey and Rayner provide a lengthy discussion of how this has occurred. But rather than admitting that the model is simply ill-considered, poorly framed, and badly in need of editorial revision, they defend it against attacks and blame those who have used the typology incorrectly rather than placing blame where it belongs: with Douglas, for choosing such a boneheaded terminology. One of their defenses illustrates and reinforces the continuing divide that separates those who think scientifically and quantitatively from those who think sociologically and qualitatively. In citing a study that appears to refute the Douglas typology through (what seems to me, not having read the original article) a scientifically compelling approach, Tansey and Rayner spend so much time attempting (clumsily in my opinion) to discredit the critic and avoid responding to valid criticisms that they miss the more important point: that quantitative and qualitative research should be seen as complementary rather than oppositional.
I suspect a good substantive editor would have raised that point too and helped the authors move beyond "my field is right, yours is wrong" dualism. But in a book that generally has at least one howling editorial blunder per two-page spread, it's clear to me that no good editor was given the chance to fix such problems.
In Chapter 4 of the book, Tansey and Rayner describe an important model, namely the "grid/group typology" of Douglas, and in so doing, inadvertently provide clear evidence of why cultural studies theory is treated so dismissively (often inappropriately so) by academics from other disciplines. In this typology (defined as a "classification into types"), Douglas proposed a thought tool that she presented as a graph with two axes:
The resulting combination of two values (low and high) along each axis produces a graph with four areas, each of which defines a solidarity—another obscure and misleading word. It's never clear to me whether such obtuse word choices is a deliberate attempt to seem profound (rather than letting a profound idea speak for itself) or simply the results of the very human temptation to get so carried away with a good idea that we can't be bothered trying to frame it so others will understand. In any event, by choosing unclear descriptions and obscure word connotations, Douglas pretty much ensured that confusion would follow and that these two characteristics of people and groups, which are actually spectra (a continuous range of values) rather than discrete categories, would become four stereotypical descriptions rather than what they should be: important tools to aid our understanding. A later commentator (Ostrander) eloquently clarified the typology as being a way to describe the limits placed on whom one interacts with (the group aspect) and how one interacts with them (the grid aspect), but even that description is the equivalent of trying to fix a fallen wall through liberal applicaton of spackle.
Had Douglas defined the typology clearly using words such as "Degree of attachment to group" and "Degree of constraints on action", its importance would have been clearer and its application less vulnerable to misunderstanding. Any good editor would have spotted the problem and proposed a solution such as this one, and would thereby have helped others apply an important insight with less risk of error.
Given the incoherence of the Douglas formulation, it's hardly surprising that the resulting typology has been badly misunderstood and misapplied, and Tansey and Rayner provide a lengthy discussion of how this has occurred. But rather than admitting that the model is simply ill-considered, poorly framed, and badly in need of editorial revision, they defend it against attacks and blame those who have used the typology incorrectly rather than placing blame where it belongs: with Douglas, for choosing such a boneheaded terminology. One of their defenses illustrates and reinforces the continuing divide that separates those who think scientifically and quantitatively from those who think sociologically and qualitatively. In citing a study that appears to refute the Douglas typology through (what seems to me, not having read the original article) a scientifically compelling approach, Tansey and Rayner spend so much time attempting (clumsily in my opinion) to discredit the critic and avoid responding to valid criticisms that they miss the more important point: that quantitative and qualitative research should be seen as complementary rather than oppositional.
I suspect a good substantive editor would have raised that point too and helped the authors move beyond "my field is right, yours is wrong" dualism. But in a book that generally has at least one howling editorial blunder per two-page spread, it's clear to me that no good editor was given the chance to fix such problems.