Hello, so in the midst of falling apart, I am still trying to 'consider my theoretical approach' as my supervisors put it. Apparently, I have to declare one and it's up to me to work out what it is, positivist, relativist, structuralist, interpretivist, empiricist etc etc. This supposedly has baring on my methodology. At a conference recently I was discussing this and some quite senior academics who contested this notion of choosing a theoretical approach. I'd be interested to hear your views on this as anytime I get close to deciding, my supervisors seem to suck in through their teeth as if I have chosen the 'wrong' approach and quite frankly, I'm sick of it.

*Added so you can see I'm not just prickly about the subject*

I can see the positives, it stops the work being solely narrative and so lends it some lasting use as a contribution to new knowledge, it also shows up front where you're coming from....

hmm well if you are undecided if you want to be positivist or relativist, then i do think you need to get yourself sorted. but i wouldn't call this as much of a theoretical approach than rather your philosophy of science. that would be in regards to questions like "how do you think "reality", "truth" can be accessed by researchers? is there such a thing as "reality"? do you think you can say something about reality by doing experiments? or do you think you need to interprete what people say, because reality is only ever "perceived reality", perceived by the people you talk to - so there might be millions of realities out there...?

but if you're really talking about your theoretical approach, well, often it is this that started you off by providing questions. i suppose you do have some research questions in mind. so now, working backwards, you could try to figure out which theoretical background allows you to ask the questions you want to ask.
maybe read what has been written about your topic. are there several theoretical lines? or are they all the same? if they are all the same, you can conveniently just adopt this - or use your own research to further develop this theory. if there are different theories around, chose which one lets you ask your questions best. if there seem to be no theories around, you appear to be studying a "empiricist" subject where theories are considered unimportant. perhaps you can address this in your thesis?

Hmm, interesting, well in my field of research, to take a relativistic approach is running the risk of being uncritical which is a bit of a no-no, my supervisor would snort at both realtivist and positivist POV, so where does that leave me? I like your idea of working backwards since I've long had my objectives clearly laid out. It's difficult, my research marries ethnicity/identity, radio and technology, so there is little consistency in approaches. That said, the only way to study the technology as a non determinist thing I've found is to use the social construction of technology. Some derive that to mean Marxism, which I find inappropriate when used alongside ethncity. See what I mean? It's difficult, and I'm not sure I find being wed to an approach (aside from the use of a philosohpy) as being at all appropriate. That said, maybe there's one just begging to be used. Sometimes I find it hard to see an approach standing out from a text to be identified in the first place.

all that said, well, it is a classical approach to research to first read the theory, from the theory devise your questions, formulate hypotheses, based on existing research or pre-studies for example, test your hypotheses, and then see what your results mean for your theory. but this is not the most common approach in all subjects. my own project is apparently (so my supervisor says) empirically driven. it involves going out there, immersing yourself in the muddy reality, and taking it from there - you might be pushed in unanticipated directions. this approach is more often to be found in anthropology, and all ethnographic research.

See, in my heart, I would love to take an empricist approach, but when I said that to my supervisors they attacked any notion of using an empirical stance in humanities as being entirely discredited. In some senses the research did come from testing a theory, which I then analysed as problematic so have been looking for an adaption ever since. Problem being, with the questions I am asking realting to the research, it doesn't fit neatly into one theory.

hmmm... maybe you should read some bourdieu. what i like about his work - totally apart from content - is the way he marries empirical work and theory. for him - and i'm trying to copy that - research is not about advancing theories (that would be: you only do empirical work in order to prove/disprove theories). nor is it about describing "reality" without theoretical deliberation (that would be purely empiricist - you only really talk about theory because of conventions). the problem about the latter, according to bourdieu, would be that there is always conceptual work at play, even in what seems purely empirical, at the least in the choice of questions and methods. you just don't make it explicit - which is bad science.

so what he rather tries to do, is to use empirical work to think theoretically while at the same time, using theoretical thought to do empirical research. at the end of the day, for bourdieu, dividing theory and empirical work can be a useful analytical construct, but in reality, they are unseparable.

OK, I really like that and it's where I sit with research whereas one of my supervisors is very theoretically driven. All I'm trying to say is theory works in my research to understand and contextualise the findings, it's not driving things. I'll look further into Bourdieu, with the reading i've had to do, I've been a bit all over the place with theory

oh ummh... just a note of warning... bourdieu does not have the best of reputations everywhere. i don't agree with everything he says, either. you might encounter quite some resistance if you come up with bourdieu.

but i do like the way he combines empirical research and theoretical thought

maybe have a look at his "reflexive anthropology".

Well I understand that, hence my love/hate relationship with the social construction of technology

Ethnicity, identity, radio and technology. Hmm. Sounds to me like you are in communication or cultural field. You could look at Geertz on culture. The social constructivist perspective isn't all that bad - it depends what you want to do in your research. Are you looking at meaning making? Information exchange? It's kind of difficult to help you without knowing the kind of questions you are asking. Something you need to think about is the idea that there are two kinds of theoreticla framework - they are linked, but different. There is, for example, the theory attached to your research problem, perhaps you have a framework you hope to use, like, for example Bourdieu's concept of 'habitus'... on the other hand, there is also a methodological literature and this focuses on how you will investigate or operationalise the theoretical framework.

I struggled with this difference for ages. The book "Doing and Writing Qualitative Research" by Adrian Holliday might be useful to you. The thing is you need to situate your ideas so that others know where you're coming from (as you so rightly said at the beginning). Something I learned to work with (struggling with the empirical side) was, in the end, what's the point of theory if it isn't useful in practice. Sometimes, the empirical helps you to make sense of the theory in a good way (She says, having just finished writing up her pilot study).

My research is in technolgy, education and culture... so, potentially similar in some ways to yours on ethnicity, identity and radio, technology... what stage are you at, early, late... wondering how to illustrate the theory? Think of the methodological stuff as a way of showing people why the question and the theoretical framework are important. At the end of the day... the biggest question you're audience will have is "So what, and why should I care?" You need, through your lit review, methodology and empirical work, to show them why what you care about is worth caring about. Just to say so isn't enough.