narratives of three generations of urban middle-class - eTheses ...

Method of Analysis:
The method of analysis employed in the research is deconstructive discourse analysis
(Macleod, 2002). I will specify the nature of discourse analysis and deconstruction that
has been used to delimit the varying conceptualization of these terms and usages. The
discourse analysis that I employ is heavily focused on the meaning-making tradition of
symbolic interactionism and the Foucauldian understanding of power, language and
discourse, in both restricting and producing these meanings (Foucault, 1990: 95) that
are also historically and culturally specific (Ramazanoglu, 1993: 7). It is in the
employment of an interpretive, reflexive style of discourse analysis that I link the
‘linguistic turn’ to the ‘interactionist’, ‘interpretivist turn’ in sociology. In using the method
of deconstructive discourse analysis to analyze narrative ‘texts’, I take inspiration from
the theoretical bases of Foucault and Derrida that, I argue, can be usefully selectively
drawn into sociology to perform discursive analytic work in line with the ‘interpretivist
turn’ of sociology.
Therefore, although I take theoretical inspiration from Foucauldian and Derridean
project of post-structuralism, like Parker, I distance my theoretical and methodological
stance from ‘fervent Foucauldians or derisive Derrideans’ (Parker, 1989: 4 cited in
Macleod, 2002: 3) in the retention of the Gramscian concept of ideology and cultural
hegemony in understanding gender relations. It is methodologically important to note in
this context that “Gramsci anticipated Michel Foucault’s emphasis on the role of
“discursive practices” in reinforcing domination” (Lears, 1985: 569). Also a “Gramscian
approach allows one to integrate the insights of symbolic interactionism and cultural
anthropology with an awareness of power relations” (Lears, 1985: 573). I argue
102