Symptomatic Analysis: Speculations on Significant Moments in Data Analysis

• In Event: Disrupting Representations in Research

Abstract

This paper is based on a post positivist methodological (Lather, 1992) approach to data analysis and considers what it means to “code data”, when, as Pitt and Britzman (2006) assert, “there is no original thing as ‘data’” (p. 386), when coding has become suspect in its ability to extrapolate bits of data into patterns of certainty. This paper shares an approach to data analysis, namely symptomatic analysis, which resists claims of a causal relationship, working with and writing through theoretical speculations and textual representations of significant moments from the data. Drawing on psychoanalytic theory, this analytic endeavour disrupts representation and authority, positioning the researcher as that of interpreter (Davies & Davies, 2007) and meaning making as a project of understanding.

Author

• Melanie D. Janzen, University of Manitoba