ABSTRACT
Grounded theory is used when researching a social process. Fundamentally, a grounded theory assumes that a theory can be generated by comparing across cases and not through representation of the single case. There are certain strategies that distinguish a grounded theory although there are a number of variants within the approach. These strategies are explored. The ancestry of grounded theory is examined to illuminate the omission, substitution and deletion of certain aspects of the grounded theory method espoused by the different schools. It is these points of difference where the politics of grounded theory is most controversial, contested and critiqued.
