ABSTRACT
Professor Ian Parker’s definition of discourse is rooted in Foucault who argued that ‘[discourses] are practices that systematically form the objects of which we speak’. This approach acted as a powerful and necessary critique of those previous schools of psychology that viewed language as being merely a reflection of our thoughts. Parker recommends Freudian ‘free association’ which he admits might produce some strange connotations. Parker then guides us towards mapping the different versions of the social world which exists in the text, from a ‘rational, rule-following discourse’ to an assumed ‘normative developmental trajectory’. Quantitative research is excellent at answering basic questions about what happened at Fukushima and Chernobyl and it is doubtless useful during the process of decommissioning the plants. Ethnography is a research method that seems to be on the wane – a pity since at its most critical it can add immeasurably to our understanding of real and imaginary ‘communities’.
