…?’ emerged in the domain of research methods. Because natural science research had become progressively identified with positivist foundationalism, there had been strong demands for the newly emerging social sciences to adopt positivist methodologies. Such methods were markers of scientific legitimacy. Thus, systematic measurement, statistical tests, and controlled experiments, for example, had become defining criteria of research. However, liberated from positivist foundationalism, imaginations were free to soar. Such wide-ranging creative efforts were often collected under the misleading but useful banner of ‘qualitative research’. One indicator of the magnitude of this growth was the success of Denzin and Lincoln's pivotal volume, The handbook of qualitative research. The book was first published in 1994, but so energetic and innovative were the practices that were inspired, by 2018 the work had gone into its fifth edition.
These adventures in the social sciences were echoed as well across many domains of social practice. In the mental health professions, for example, the authority of diagnostic labeling came under attack, along with the presumption of the therapist or psychiatrist as ‘the knower.’ Why, it was asked, were the understandings and values of the client or patient so frequently dismissed? As feminists added, the power structure of psychiatry leaves female clients in the position of depending on a male authority to know more about their mental lives than they themselves. Similarly, in healthcare, questions were raised about the way doctors were so often deaf to the values and experiences of their patients. In the organizational world, the shortcomings of top-down control became topics of intense discussion. The knowledge of top management could be narrow, and oblivious to the ideas, needs, and values within the organization and the surrounding culture. Such critique opened the way to developing a new range of more collaboratively based practices, the focus of later chapters in this Handbook.
Inclusion and the Energizing of Innovation
While the constructionist dialogues are broadly liberating in their implications, they do not give rise to a ‘new truth’ to which everyone must subscribe. Acknowledged are the multiple perspectives, values, and ways of life created by the peoples of the world, and the rich potentials of sharing. The advantages of this inclusion for the development of professional practices cannot be overstated. There is first a farewell to the ingurgitating conflict among various schools, disciplines, guilds, and the like for ontological primacy. The longstanding conflicts within the world of psychotherapy are illustrative. Early psychoanalytic claims to ‘truth about the mind’ gave way to a succession of battles among schools – Jungian, Rogerian, Behaviorist, systemic, cognitive, and bio-medical among them – for preeminent authority. Similar battles may be found in the fields of education, organizational management, counseling, and so on. Such battles have only been intensified by the demands for quantifiable evidence. From a constructionist perspective, however, schools of practice represent different forms of understanding, with different values, goals, and pragmatic potentials. The chief question then, is not which most accurately reflects the nature of the world, but when, where, how, and for whom might an orientation be useful. Here we replace a tradition of either/or with an invitation to curiosity. For example, are there enclaves for whom classic psychoanalysis is perfectly suited, while others might benefit from positive regard, and still others from a reinforcement regimen? And does this not open the possibility that indigenous healing or spiritual traditions might be ‘just right’ for certain people at certain times? We move, then, from the establishment of self-contained and defensive enclaves of practice, to thriving in an ecology of possibilities (Anderson, 1997; McNamee and Gergen, 1992).
It is just such a context that also invites the crossing of traditional boundaries among disciplines and professions. When one's concerns are primarily pragmatic, there is no single tradition of understanding or practice from which resources may be drawn. In opening a sea of possibilities so are the creative energies set in motion. In program evaluation, for example, one might think beyond traditional measurement practices, to include phenomenological reports, focus groups, and participant observation practices. Or, a practitioner concerned with conflict reduction, might build a new form of dialogue inspired by practices in organizational development, education, and collaborative action research. A therapist whose practice has traditionally relied on verbal exchange may find it inspiring to incorporate Buddhist meditational practices and role playing. In effect, with an open ear to the many voices of the world, a new wave of innovative practices is spawned.
Values in Action
As outlined, in challenging the assumption of value-free knowledge, the constructionist dialogues thrust issues of human value back into the center of social science concern. Where positivist science had seen moral and political values as biasing research outcomes, scholars began to place values at the center of their efforts. Scholarly work could serve as a vehicle for social transformation. One of the most visible results was the emergence of curricula in critical studies – in education, psychology, economics, management studies, sociology, cultural theory, race theory, social work, and nursing among them. These were accompanied by relevant innovations in research methods, including critical discourse analysis, feminist methodology, critical text work, decolonized methodologies, and more. For some scholars, the chief goal of qualitative research is equated with social justice.
As this recognition of the values inherent in otherwise commonplace practices circulated among practitioners, a new source of innovation was unleashed. No longer, for example, were therapists content to embrace a therapeutic practice by virtue of its evidence base. Rather, they pressed on to develop new forms of therapy that might favor a more just, compassionate, or egalitarian society. Practices aimed at supporting and empowering women, minorities, and immigrants, are illustrative, along with practices that legitimated spiritual beliefs, and non-Western ontologies. Both narrative therapy (White and Epston, 1990), and social therapy (Holzman, 2014) indeed functioned as consciousness-raising practices, tracing individual ills to societal problems. In many schools, these ideological energies gave rise to new practices of inclusion, critical pedagogy, restorative justice, environmentalist curricula, and anti-bullying activities. For many businesses, a range of new initiatives began to emerge, variously invested in environmental sustainability, social equality, and the well-being of the laborers who served them. The Business as an Agent of World Benefit initiative is emblematic, in its efforts to support just such activities.
Regenerating Conceptual Tools
The constructionist dialogues liberated both academics and practitioners from the demands of authority, invited appreciation of multiple traditions, and opened the way to cementing values to innovation. At the same time, however, the constructionist dialogues drew from across multiple intellectual traditions – philosophy, literary theory, political theory, rhetoric, symbolic anthropology, micro-sociology, and the history of science among them. Most all these sources were absent from mainstream social science itself. Thus, as constructionist dialogues spilled across the professions, so was a rich repository of new logics and concepts introduced.
The concept of narrative is illustrative. While largely a child of literary theory, the idea of narrative played an important role in constructionist dialogues. As outlined earlier, in representing the world in spoken and written language one must follow the conventions or rules of language itself. There are strong conventions for describing events across time. Informally, these are conventions for telling a good or plausible story; most relevant, the rules of narrative are pivotal to our constructions of the world. The logic of narrative construction has subsequently made its way across the worlds of practice. Narrative therapy (Freedman and Combs, 1996), narrative mediation (Monk and Winslade, 2013), and narrative medicine (Charon, 2006), are among the most obvious derivatives. Closely related, the concept of the storyteller has also made its way into practices of pain management, organizational leadership, educational pedagogy, and peace building.
Yet, while the constructionist dialogues have unleashed energies of innovation in professional practice, the relationship between scholarship and practice is also synergistic. Innovations in
