the intersubjective and pragmatic basis of

The SAGE Encyclopedia ofQualitative Research Methods

Reconstructive Analysis

Contributors: Lisa M. GivenPrint Pub. Date: 2008Online Pub. Date: September 15, 2008Print ISBN: 9781412941631Online ISBN: 9781412963909DOI: 10.4135/9781412963909Print pages: 741-744This PDF has been generated from SAGE knowledge. Please note that the paginationof the online version will vary from the pagination of the print book.

University of British ColumbiaCopyright 2013 SAGE knowledge

Page 2 of 9 The SAGE Encyclopedia of Qualitative ResearchMethods: Reconstructive Analysis

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Reconstructive analysis is the theoretically guided process of explicating the initiallyimplicit components, structures, and/or generative rules of meaning. Jrgen Habermasintroduced the expression reconstructive sciences during the 1970s to distinguishreconstruction from inductive empiricist methods of inquiry. Reconstruction works fromthe implicitly grasped know-how of an insider and internally moves this knowledge intoexplicit form.

The Intersubjective and Pragmatic Basis ofMeaning

Intersubjectivity as Position-TakingIn everyday life, people act meaningfully and understand the meaningful acts of othersthrough forms of implicit and culturally contingent knowhow. Meaning resides mostprimordially through the process of position-taking with other possible subject positionsas constructed contingently within specific cultures. Individuals may take on severalsubject positions at once as well; for example, a woman with children who works part-time while attending school may take on subject positions of mother, employee, andstudent in her various life roles. Position-takingintersubjectivityis a process that hasalways already occurred as soon as it is noticed and is more primordial than objectivityor subjectivity. Uses of language, signs, symbols, and the like depend on more basicstructures of intersubjectivity through which actors automatically juxtapose a cluster ofsubject positions in the experience of their own actions (including thoughts) and those ofothers. A wink, a gesture, and an upward cast of the eyes all convey meanings specificto social contexts because those addressed by such acts automatically position-takewith assumed possible positions from which the acts came, with what their own positionappears to be from the possible positions of the actor, and with any number of third-person uninvolved positions from which the act would be understood if observed. Thesame is true of fully linguistic acts. Misunderstandings and acknowledged ambiguities of



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meaning occur because the subject positions one automatically takes may or may notaccord with those taken by others in the situation.

Typifications and Interactive SettingsPreinterpretations of social contexts are provided by cultural typifications, the mostbasic structures through which position taking occurs. Each such preinterpretationis constituted internally by the juxtaposition of [p. 741 ] multiple subject positionssuch that each person finding herself or himself within the situation can anticipatethe possible subjective states and actions of others as well as the anticipations thatothers have regarding one's own possible states and actions. An encounter with astranger in a hallway, an arrival at a prearranged location with friends, and an accidentalbump with another while walking together are three examples of a huge number oftypifications that every culture provides its members. Typifications enable people toinitiate interactions with each other and to mutually establish more specific interactiveinfrastructurescalled settingsin the process.

Reconstructive analysis will always begin by acquiring an insider's position inrelation to typifications and settings, so that the researcher learns to position-takewith others as her or his participants routinely position-take with each other. Theresearcher must acquire forms of communicative know-how that are taken for grantedby the participants. The next step is to articulate these forms of implicit knowledgediscursively and/or facilitate the process of explication from the side of the culturalmembers. Validation of the resulting formulations must come from their ability to winthe recognition of cultural insiders and from their fit with subsequently experiencedexpressions and actions. Typifications and routine interactive settings can be explicatedby articulating their norms, role sets, power relations, and other intersubjectivelyconstituted features if doing so serves the purposes of a study.

Meaning FieldsAll meaningful expressions are usually experienced as a range of possible meanings,not as a singular unambiguous meaning, by people in everyday life. With an insider's



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understanding of typifications and settings, the qualitative researcher is able to makemeaning fields for particular expressions and acts explicit, representing the rangeof possible meanings that her or his participants experience. A meaning field canbe explicated by assuming the actor's position and expressing the act again severaltimes with more words added to semanticize the differences in possible meanings.Conjunctions and disjunctions (e.g., and, or, or/and, and/or) are used to display therange of possible meanings.

As a very simple example, given a well-understood specific context, typification, andrelationship history, the greeting Hello, Mary, how are you today? said with a smileand in friendly tones could have the following meaning field:

I'm pleased to see you!

(or/and) Let's talk a little.Much context familiarity, both with the stream of previous action and with the cultureand site of interest, must be attained to articulate meaning fields for specific acts. Askilled researcher takes note of meaning fields mentally when coding data or otherwiseanalyzing them; it is neither necessary nor possible to explicitly reconstruct meaningfields for all items in a data set, but it is necessary to be aware of them in the same waythat one's participants are.

Criticizable Validity Claims and the ValidityHorizon

Categorical DistinctionsLudwig Wittgenstein's work on meaning clarified its nature to reside in implicit, culturallycontingent competencies for responding to it. The competency to respond includesthree formal modes simultaneously at one's disposal: (1) as would be appropriatefor one familiar with the culture who was just addressed by the act (second-person



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position), (2) as the actor herself or himself had just acted as when one mimics orotherwise reproduces the act of another for some purpose (first-person position), and(3) as one who describes the act from an uninvolved observer perspective (third-personposition). Hence, given a shared typification and setting, the act Hello, Mary, how areyou today? is understood if one can respond in the modes exemplified by I'm justfine, how are you? (second-person response), Hello, Mary, how are you today? (first-person reenactment), and He said hello and asked me how I am today (third-persondescription). These three formal categorical distinctions are fused together in a momentof holistic understanding and differentiated in one direction or another by the actualresponse (both in action and thought) that comes next.

Meaning-Constitutive Validity Claims, theValidity Horizon, and the Identity ClaimThese three distinctions, based on what Donald Davidson called the basic speechsituation of having [p. 742 ] two or more subjects within an assumedly sharedpreinterpreted context, form the basis for three basic attitudes fused as potentialitieswithin the understanding of meaningful action: an expressive attitude, a norm-conformative/nonconformative attitude, and an objectivating attitude. Habermasidentified these three attitudes and pointed out that with every act, an actor demarcatesherself or himself with three world relations: a relation with the actor's own innerstates, a relation with an assumedly shared domain of social norms, and a relationwith a world to which there is multiple access from assumedly shared third-personperspectives.

Reconstructive analysis can be used to articulate the cultural milieu through whichactors take on world relations and demarcate their identities. The first step is tobecome cognizant of the array of validity claims that constitute meaningful acts. Everyexpression of meaning is constituted by a cluster of claims falling into four categories:subjective, normative, and objective validity claims and the identity claim. An act suchas Hello, Mary, how are you today? is constituted in part by claims such as thefollowing: I am feeling friendly toward you (subjective claims referencing the intentionsand feelings of the actor), I am acting toward you appropriately (normative claims



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referencing a shared social order and culture), and We have just met for the first timetoday, we are people who know each other from previous meetings (objective claimspertaining to objective or objectivated features of the interactive context). In addition,this act carries claims about the identity of the actor, perhaps as follows: I am a politeand friendly woman and a good friend.

Every meaningful expression can, in principle, be reconstructed as a horizon of validityclaims falling within the three categories of subjectivity, normativity, and objectivity,and it can be arrayed along a continuum of foreground to background relations. Thisis called the validity horizon, and it is the most precise articulation possible for ameaningful expression. In our example of greeting Mary, foregrounded claims wouldinclude the subjective claim of feeling friendly toward Mary and happy to see her,intermediate-level claims would include the subjective desire for friendly interactionof uncertain duration as well as a normative claim that Mary ought to respond to thisgreeting, and backgrounded claims would include the objective claim of previousfamiliarity with each other.

Validity horizons will reveal backgrounded claims that occur frequently in the typicalactions of cultural insiders such that an entire worldview or ideology is instantiated andreproduced in routine social interactions and practices. In addition, the identity claims ofactors will draw on cultural milieu supplying identity components in structured relations.Components related to gender, sexual orientation, race, class, and many other thingsare often within culturally specific relations of opposition, contrast, and hierarchy thatmaintain power relations in a social order. Reconstructive analysis, therefore, can beused to reveal forms of cultural power as well as deep-seated ideologies and beliefsthat are embedded within a form of life.

Internal CritiqueThe insight that meaningful action demarcates an actor through three basic worldrelations establishes a theoretical ground for conducting sociocultural critique inqualitative research. The demarcation of the self with every act can be fruitfullyanalyzed in accordance with George Herbert Mead's distinction between the I andthe me. The me part of the self is the identity claim mentioned earlier. A chronic



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feature of all meaningful expression (although it is very backgrounded in many acts)is the claim that the actor is such and such kind of person (usually meaning that sheor he is not another possible kind of person). But the I part of the self pertains tothe fact that actors hold themselves and others responsible for their actions. One isnever simply one's roles and identity claims; one is also the author of one's roles andidentity claims. Similarly, one does not simply make validity claims with every act ofmeaning; one implicitly takes on the obligation of providing reasons for these claims ifthey are contested by others or of changing one's position if others give good reasonsfor doing so. Meaningful actions are produced in relation to existential needs for being asomebody (having a me) as well as for being trustworthy, responsible and accountablein relation to at least some reference groups (the I feature of the claimed self).Hence, the validity claims constitutive of meaning are inherently criticizable. Ultimately,this means that people in everyday life themselves are capable of criticizing thenorms, identity repertoires, beliefs, and interpretive structures of their own culture.Reconstructive analysis becomes a form of critical qualitative research when it brings tolight implicit and/or explicit forms of sociocultural criticism made [p. 743 ] by culturalmembers themselves. Internal standards for critique include the relation of norms andidentity repertoires to human needs for self formation, development, and emancipationas well as the relation of beliefs to actual experiences of an objectivated world.

Reconstruction of Semantic and PragmaticStructuresThe validity horizon is the most precise, but never an exhaustive, articulation ofmeaning for singular expressions. Thematic analysis of cultures, discourses, andideologies takes the usually backgrounded portions of typical meaningful expressionsto reveal interpretive generalities within a form of life. Such generalities are alsoembedded within broadly distributed semantic and pragmatic structures that can beinvestigated independently.

Semantic structures are instantiated through culturally distinctive uses of words andphrases whose meanings depend on relations to other categories through relations



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of opposition, contrast, similarity, analogy, metaphor, and homology. Use of the worddude within a particular group will have meaning dependent on how members implicitlycontrast the term with alternative words such as person, man, woman, and guy.Each use of a word such as dude can instantiate a different semantic structure, andinsiders implicitly grasp which structure is in play according to the context of interaction.Reconstructive analysis brings common semantic structures of this type into explicitdiscourse. Ultimately, the meanings carried by instantiated semantic structures can befully articulated as validity horizons; the validity horizons of particular expressive actsare delivered in part by the semantic structures instantiated by the acts.

Similarly, ways of talking and acting deliver meanings in culturally structured forms.Insiders are aware of roles played by themselves and others through at least implicitunderstandings of whole structures of roles that exist in relations of similarity andcontrast. The pragmatics of interactionproxemics, pacing, gesturing, patterns ofeye contact, and so onall deliver portions of the validity horizon through culturallygeneralized structures. Reconstructive analysis can be used to explicate the distinctivepragmatic structures of a form of life as well as the distinctive semantic ones.

Examples of the use of hermeneutic reconstructive analysis include Mark Dressman'sOn the Use and Misuse of Research Evidence: Decoding Two States' ReadingInitiatives; Barbara Korth's Gendered Interpretations Veiled With Discourses ofIndividuality; and Mary-Ann Hardcastle and colleagues'Carspecken's Five-StageCritical Qualitative Research Method: An Application to Nursing Research.

Phil Francis Carspecken

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See also

Further Readings

Carspecken, P. F. (1996). Critical ethnography in educational research: A theoretical andpractical guide . New York: Routledge.



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Dressman M. On the use and misuse of research evidence: Decoding two states'reading initiatives . Reading Research Quarterly vol. 34 (1999) pp. 258285 http://dx.doi.org/10.1598/RRQ.34.3.2

Habermas, J. (1979). What is universal pragmatics? In T. McCarthy (Ed. & Trans.),Communication, evolution, society (pp. pp. 168). Boston: Beacon.Hardcastle M.-A., Usher K., & Holmes C. Carspecken's five-stage critical qualitative researchmethod: An application to nursing research . Qualitative Health Research vol. 16 (2006)pp. 151161 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1049732305283998

Korth B. Gendered interpretations veiled with discourses of individuality .Ethnography and Education vol. 2 ( no. 1) (2007) pp. 5773 http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17457820601159083

the intersubjective and pragmatic basis of

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