Grounding Grounded Theory

I finally have finished Ian Dey's Grounding Grounded Theory, and I know that for the next few weeks (and perhaps the rest of my life) I will be processing this text. However, I want to take a big picture appraisal of his text.

He ends his book speaking about the growth of a misunderstanding about what grounded theory is that has been created by the proliferation of software tools for qualitative analysis. He is speaking from the perspective of 1999 looking back at what has happened in the 1990s. Pointing to work by Coffey in 1996, he describes how "the centrality of coding in both software for qualitative analysis and in grounded theory promotes an 'unnecessary close equation of grounded theory, coding, and software'" (qtd. in Dey 271). The mechanics of coding made more simple through computer software combines with the methodology of qualitative analysis that introduced the notion of "coding" to qualitative analysis to the point that "to code" meant "to engage in grounded theory." Any systematic analysis of data via "coding" meant grounded theory. And worse, as Dey notes, this convergence has resulted in "an uncritical attitude toward methodology" (271-2). Although these views equating qualitative analysis (coding) into one methodology (grounded theory) have been disputed, and I don't think anyone now would equate them, Dey speaks of a time when grounded theory became trendy and was used uncritically thanks to these computer software tools. Dey sums up the general problem in this trend: "It seems that anxieties over the convergence of qualitative research around a single methodology, which takes coding as the core of theorizing, may be well-founded" (272). The culprit seems to be the introduction of software tools that make coding and then the relating of categories through the retrieval of data easier. Dey's larger critique is that this process of theory generation and qualitative analysis becomes "mechanistic" and is done uncritically.

What his book reveals is that the we shouldn't blame the software tools for promoting a "mechanistic approach" because the seeds for this approach are there within grounded theory, as articulated by Glaser and Strauss. I'll list some of these tendencies in grounded theory that he says can lead toward a mechanistic and uncritical approach:

1. The inclination to consider coding as an aconceptual process
2. Observation is presented as atheoretical
3. Coding is said to be emergent rather than constructed
4. Theory is something we "discover"
5. Categories are conceived as separate concepts that are later connected
6. Process is analyzed through "slices of time" (rather than through an evolutionary analysis) (273)

He notes that it is fairly ironic and a case of unintended consequences that grounded theory has become reduced to these narrower, mechanistic approaches because of its stress on creativity and openness of analysis. As Dey states in his last lines of the book, "The dangers of a mechanistic approach cannot be avoided merely through exhortation. It requires reflection on the origins of the particular path taken and the problems it leaves unresolved" (273). Thanks to this book by Dey, I hope I will be able to avoid a mechanistic and uncritical engagement with my own research, and I believe he has given me tools to better understand what I will be doing as I start this analysis and the choices open to me and that I make.

The daunting task for me now seems to be to possess the adequate level of comprehension to do this research. It seems very complex. The thought occurred to me that I felt like a basketball player who has just been drafted to a new team, and he doesn't now the plays and the different schemes used for offence and defence. He's sent out on to the court to play, but things are happening so fast he doesn't know what is going on. Before I get out on the court (figuratively speaking), I hope to understand the dynamics at work more and about my choices. Since I am supposed to do a presentation for the May Workshop, I think I will make it on Grounded Theory so that I can use this task to get a stronger grasp on what I will be doing.