ABSTRACT

In many social science academic programs, there seems to be a prevalent divide between the teaching of theory and method. Jackson and Mazzei exemplify one way of thinking with theory outside of positivism in their aptly named text Thinking with Theory in Qualitative Research. They demonstrate the use of theory and data interactively, folding the two into each other to glean new insights into both the data and the theory. To practice thinking with theory, Jackson and Mazzei argue that coding data removes the researcher from the data, in a stance that purports to provide objectivity in research. The trouble with coding data for categories and themes, they argue, is that we seldom produce any new knowledge. In thinking with theory, the concern is no longer what bodies or things or social institutions are, but with the capacities for action, interaction, feeling and desire produced in bodies or groups of bodies by affective flows.