Reading Insights Through One Another in Qualitative Data Analysis

• In Event: Qualitative Data Analysis and Its Influence on Educational Practice and Policy

Abstract

The objective of this theoretical and methodological paper is to provide an alternative way of thinking data analysis other than that which is offered in conventional humanist qualitative inquiry. Rather than equating “coding” with “data analysis” in a project that fails to interrogate knowledge producing practices, the approach taken by the author in this paper is to think with multiple theories (Jackson & Mazzei, 2012) toward the production of different analytic questions and knowledge using Karen Barad’s (2007) concept of diffraction as a methodological practice of reading “insights through one another” (p. 25). A diffractive reading of data through multiple theoretical insights moves qualitative analysis away from habitual normative readings (e.g., coding) toward a diffractive reading that spreads thought and meaning in unpredictable and productive emergences. Barad makes a distinction between diffraction and reflection, a practice viewed as sound methodology for many qualitative researchers. She takes the metaphor from the notion of diffraction as a physical phenomenon, for instance, when ocean waves pass through an opening or obstruction and are spread differently than they would be otherwise. She stated that, “whereas the metaphor of reflection reflects the themes of mirroring and sameness [e.g., coding], diffraction is marked by patterns of difference [e.g. analysis after coding]” (Barad, 2007, pp. 71-72). As a consequence of this, a diffractive strategy takes into account that knowing is never done in isolation but is always effected by different forces coming together, or in Barad’s words; “knowing is a matter of part of the world making itself intelligible to another part of the world” (p. 185). This means that in a diffractive process of data analysis, a reading of data with theoretical concepts (and/or multiple theoretical concepts) produces an emergent and unpredictable series of readings as data and theory and policy and practice make themselves intelligible to one another. Such an approach to qualitative data analysis has the potential of producing different knowledge and producing knowledge differently (St.Pierre, 2000) for educational policy makers and practitioners.

References
Barad, Karen. (2007). Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham: Duke University Press.
Jackson, Alecia Y. & Mazzei Lisa A. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across multiple perspectives. London, UK: Routledge.
St.Pierre, Elizabeth Adams (2000). The Call for Intelligibility in Postmodern Educational Research. Educational Researcher, 29(5), 25-28.

Author

• Lisa A. Mazzei, University of Oregon