12 - Research in Social Practice

Summary

In this chapter I present an unconventional analysis of the craft of research in order to characterize how my project is to be understood and its outcomes evaluated. In section 12.1 I address aspects of the craft of research in my project. In so doing, I change the perspective of analysis from the clients in this case to the researcher in this project. But the fundamental standpoint of analysis remains the same since I consider research as a social practice based on the theoretical framework adopted throughout the book. In sections 12.2 and 12.3, I zoom in on the development of theoretical concepts and empirical outcomes that are closely related in a case analysis. These issues are taken up after the case analysis because I insist on the primacy of subject matter over method and theory over methodology (Holzkamp 1983, chapter 9). In view of the importance attributed to the generality of knowledge in conceptions of research, issues about conceptual and empirical generalization are central in these two sections. Especially in a book analyzing a single case, there is no way around addressing these issues in arguing for the validity of my outcomes. In section 12.4, I move beyond issues about the production of knowledge to issues about the uses of research outcomes in social practice. My decentered analysis of the uses of therapy sessions elsewhere and later suggests an understanding of the relations between the production of knowledge and the uses of research elsewhere and later, which differs from the ordinary understanding of the application of research findings.