as a research participant; (ii) to recognise that social constructionist theory can be used for controlling self-interest in contrast with what we are calling co-construction which foregrounds collaboration and shared ethical meaning-making practices; and (iii) to introduce the concepts of transmaterial worlding and co-inhabitation as onto-epistemological understandings of relationships, movement, meaning-making practices, the influence of power between human and non-human parts of our worlds.
More Than Theory
Social construction is more than a theory of communication, it is a theory of theories. It invites us to explore how realities about people, places, intention and matter are constructed, by whom, to what purpose, and with what affect. Theory and research methods can be understood as products of their era, of their culture, of professional, social, political and economic agendas. If knowledge practices are inseparable from the contexts out of which they emerge, then we must accept that language is never innocent or neutral. Recognising the presence of power relations and which realities have more influence over others is critical to transmaterial worlding as a form of inquiry.
Social construction is a form of qualitative research, more specifically post-positivist inquiry. Given the post-positivist recognition that one always affects the context one is studying, it is important to direct that influence and deliberately set out to constructively and collaboratively change the site of inquiry through the doing of research. Social constructionist researchers not only declare their bias but put it to work and offer rich transparency as rationale, background and learning for the study. This is not simply a trend in research. It connects to concerns expressed by oppressed and colonised groups of people who have been researched and had all manner of falsehoods, intentional or otherwise, written about them, which have often led to the development of policies which have served to oppress these groups further and render invisible issues of concern facing those communities (Clifford and Marcus, 1986; McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; Reynolds, 2019; Simon, 1998; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Visweswaran, 1994). Narratives need understanding in the context of their production. We need to study historical contexts that gave rise to them and to explore how contemporary contexts continue to invest in fostering some stories over others. Stories don't just happen. Someone is promoting and fostering them. Structures such as political parties, newspapers, TV channels and ‘news’ stations are partisan vehicles for those people or institutions with often a hidden vested interest in social relations being maintained or challenged. Some people's cultures, values and local knowledges are reproduced and revitalised through language networks over others and become easily solidified into codes of normalcy which become policy and legislation.
Consequently, social construction does not offer simply a science for studying the social use of language with an attendant method of analysis, it asks why some narratives are in play more powerfully than others and in whose interest. It invites researchers to consider how social groups can participate in language games to challenge destructive practices of power, and what other methods of communication and power are available to those wanting equality and justice, and at what cost to all those with interests. Victims of injustice, their advocates, professionals, academics the world over struggle for their truths to be taken seriously in a world which uses 21st-century technologies to amplify dominant discourses and fan preferred truths to generate simplistic dismissals of what, in another era, would have counted as fact. Theories have been influenced by the unacknowledged ideological assumptions about the superiority of white people, particularly men and their ‘normal’ ways of living in the world. First person and co-constructionist research act as a counter-movement to decolonise research practice (Dillard, 2000; Lather, 1994, 2007; Madison, 2012; Pillow, 2019; Simon and Salter, 2019; Tuhiwai Smith, 1999; Wade, 1997).
Social construction has offered a long-standing critique of ‘truths’ (Foucault, 1979; Gergen and Gergen, 2002; McCarthy and Byrne, 2007; McNamee, 1994; McNamee and Gergen, 1992) as a product of the most powerful people, institutions and cultures. The theory of social construction has been appropriated by the latter resulting in language games with no relational ethics and no reliable ‘truths’ (McNamee, 2004, 2020). ‘Truth’ is not simply subjective but has the potential to be systematically subject to intentional manipulation.
While social construction falls into a post-positivist paradigm, it can be utilised in positivist or post-positivist ways. We make a distinction between aboutness research (Shotter, 1999, 2011) and co-constructionist research (Simon and Salter, 2019). Aboutness research is when a researcher uses the theory of social construction to study or deconstruct what meaning others are making with each other, positions them as an observer outside of a system and creates distance between researcher and that which is being studied. Research participants are not included in the meaning-making processes. It subscribes to an idea that knowledge can be extracted or manipulated for others. In co-construction, the researcher uses the theory and ethical imperative implicit in social constructions that meaning is made with others. The researcher makes their inquiry alongside and with other research participants, exploring discursive practices from within the doing of them. Co-construction involves studying mutual and reflexive meaning-making processes while engaged in the doing of them.
Social Construction as Co-Construction
We propose co-construction as offering a clear ethical term to describe social constructionist research with social justice politics. Co-constructionist research allows us to co-research from an alongside or within position. It encourages us to acknowledge the inevitability and impact of power relations in making something together. Social construction is not owned by those with any one group of people with specific political leanings or social conscience. It is an ideology which can be used to play significant political or interpersonal games to protect those in power and their resources. It is, in itself, neither ethical nor unethical.
Co-constructionist inquiry encourages situated research where researcher and participants collaborate, are transparent and open, and work towards creating a culture of co-production and transformation. It can be a result of negotiated and collaborative inquiry (Anderson, 1997; Anderson and Gehart, 2007; McNamee and Hosking, 2012) reflecting decolonial practice and epistemic witnessing (Pillow, 2019). Research as a listening and witnessing activity can be seen as an act of resistance (Salter, 2017a, 2018; Wade, 1997; White, 2007), can support transformation through personal and collective story-telling, and can be a form of co-production (Linds and Vettraino, 2008; Salter and Newkirk, 2019; White, 2007).
For example, the question, ‘What are they making with each other?’ is different from ‘How am I constructing what they are doing?’ and ‘What are we making with each other?’ When researchers position themselves as observers external to the observed, they must identify how they are co-constructing meaning from what they (think they) have observed. When researching reflexively from within living moments, they can inquire into their inner dialogue, with co-participants and co-respondents, to check meaning. This is co-construction.
Reframing ‘Social’ Inclusivity
We propose that transmaterial worlding can be understood as embracing all forms of communication between and beyond human forms. It steps away from an anthropocentric focus so that ‘social’ extends beyond human, reframes language to include transmaterial multilingual communication and sets all these relations within a critique of institutional discourses and material structures. We integrate the concern of protecting the ecology of the planet. This involves our understanding research as an onto-epistemological activity fluidly situated in a range of emergent transmaterial communicatory activities.
Transmaterial worlding as a form of inquiry requires that we re-think our relations with-in our environment, that we re-position ourselves from in-habiting or co-habiting the world (both separate us from other materiality) to co-inhabiting (Simon and Salter, 2019). Co-inhabitation emphasises not simply collaboration
