ABSTRACT
The aim of this final chapter is to draw together and make more explicit both the frameworks and the mode of analysis so as to suggest their wider relevance. Although they have been developed here in relation to specific subject matter – women workers in Lancashire, UK during the second third of the twentieth century – the approach could just as well have been elaborated in relation to other substantive material. The value of a relational analysis, which helps to elucidate the configurations and patterning of social relations and to throw light on the interlocking or intersectionality connecting together different social processes, is not restricted to the use to which it has been put here. Rather, it has much to offer any analysis of social life, whether contemporary or historical, local, national or global, a single case or comparative study. Moreover, the mode and method of approaching subject matter suggests a view on the construction of theory and knowledge and a route towards explanatory analysis that might revitalise a sociology still somewhat limping after the critiques of postmodernism and post-structuralism. The problems that these brought so sharply into focus – unreflective grand narratives, uni-causal and universalistic explanations, the nature of ‘reality’ of subject matter – are real issues for all the social sciences and humanities, sociology and feminism included. But, rather than burying our heads in the sand or abandoning the quest for systematic analysis and explanation, we need to take on the issues, come to terms with them and move forward.
