Methodologies and Theories within Academic Research

Abstract

This paper enters into scholarly debate and discussion about data, methodologies and theories within academic research. It proposes that critical and cultural theories and methodologies are not some isolated intellectual game. It explores how they are that, but they also offer us ways in which we can identify those things that we most take for granted in our society. Once we have identified their existence, then we can begin to see how they are constructed. We question cultural metanarratives and confront normative but constrictive ways of knowing. In doing so, we identify those who benefits from these ‘givens’ and those who are locked out from the central aspects of culture through the unthinking application of such ‘givens’. Reading against the dominant cultural texts enables scholarly critiques of cultural metanarratives. It can be seen that such questioning is disruptive in the sense that it calls upon us to undertake scholarly research that takes knowledge forward. In doing so, we must clearly challenge that which we take for granted. For example, language embodies that shared cultural view in a flawed way. The flawed ways in which language establishes that shared cultural view is the best that we can do to share meaning. Language is a social ‘given’ or ‘norm’ that constructs the individual as well the culture. Meaning (fact) is never ‘fixed’ and stable: It is always in interpretation. Thinking thus acts to displace social reverence for ‘fact’ showing it to be a cultural invention necessary to the maintenance of social orderliness and order.