ABSTRACT
This chapter will provide examples of critical research done using situational analysis (SA). SA, a method for qualitative analysis, is an extension of grounded theory in its constructionist interactionist incarnations. It also draws deeply on feminist theory, Michel Foucault, Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, and science and technology studies to generate its critical cartographic capacities. SA can be used with interview and ethnographic materials, and particularly encourages inclusion of extant visual, narrative and/or historical discourse materials as well. Analytic emphasis is on grasping the often messy complexities in the data and relations among the heterogeneous elements constitutive of the situation as a whole, broadly conceived. As a relational ecology, SA is particularly useful for multi-site research, and feminist and critical inquiry. A recent development from within interactionist sociology with critical and cultural dimensions, SA is also part of what I have called ‘the (re)turn to the social’ across the social sciences, humanities and beyond (e.g., Bourdieusian field theory, Foucaultian discourse studies, Deleuze and Guattari’s rhizomic and assemblage analyses, and actor–network theory). The critical capacities of SA are enhanced first through its pragmatist roots through interactionism and grounded theory. Second, SA’s relational emphases attend carefully to relative power among the elements in the situation of inquiry, including analysis of ‘implicated actors’ (human or nonhuman) who are not acknowledged as full participants by some other actors. These and other distinctive framings enhance SA’s critical edges, making it a method useful in studying, race, ethnicity, gender and other axes of difference. In addition, because the making of SA maps can be conducted collaboratively with participants in the situation being studied, SA can be an appropriate method for decolonising, indigenous and postcolonial research situations.
