Rumbling on performativity_Frits Simon

understood on the basis of recognisability, as much as plausibility of the research is
only to be understood when there is something comparable to find in the experiences.
Verisimilitude is not a search for some unique essence in shared experiences and
context of the researcher and the reader, but an interpretive sharing of experiences
and reflections by the researcher and reader. Getting acquainted with these experiences
might make a difference for the reader.
By emphasizing transferability the evaluation of the quality of the research is transferred
to the reader who evaluates the research in terms of historical, moral, political and
ideological plausibility, besides its vitality (Koch, 1998). The research should exhibit
interpretive sufficiency, representational and authentic adequacy (Denzin, 2014),
which comes down to possessing an amount of depth and detail which elicits a critical
consciousness of the reader, avoiding stereotyping, encompassing a polyvocal moral
discernment and promoting social transformation. As mentioned before differences
exist between a complex responsive process and an auto-ethnographic approach
regarding the possibilities of intended social transformation. However, to manipulate
for instance a large population or an organization based on the research findings,
being a criterion suggested by Verschuren (2009), is not in order for both approaches.
If the research has no transferable value, then the research may only have had a
therapeutic effect on the researcher. As such the research would belong to mental
health care instead of to the field of OMS. The needed transferability can be seen as
ongoing iterations of taking responsibility, however never indented as if this is done
from a spectator’s perspective or an objective point of view (Mowles, 2011).
In a more practical sense careful documentation (Alvesson, 2009), member checking
(Anderson, 2006a), and a reflexive account of the research process (Koch and Harrington,
1998) including used techniques (Chang, 2008) would help to legitimate auto-ethnographic
or more general radically reflexive research. These more practical provisions
would permit controllability of the research.
On evocative and realistic writing in radically reflexive research
Another criticism on auto-ethnographic research and by that on research from a
complex responsive process-approach is that research would be too emotional instead
of being analytical, implying that the research should go beyond instead of staying
close to individual experiences (Delamont, 2007). However, in accepting this criticism
one would silence anxieties, the human bodies in conflict and the uncertainty of
human life in exchange for a sterile, impersonal and objectivistic perspective (Burkitt,
1999; Holman Jones et al., 2013b).
From a reflexive perspective it can be argued that by abstracting from local and personal
situations it is suggested that the abstractions are more real than its sources
(Alvesson and Sköldberg, 2009; Sandberg and Tsoukas, 2011; Stacey and Griffin, 2005;
Tsoukas and Hatch, 2012). Instead of reifying abstractions emotive and intuitive
2. Research from a complex responsive process-approach | 51