Poststructuralist Methodology Research Articles

Budgeting Options Using the Ratchet Principle for Indonesian Bureaucracy: A Poststructuralist Approach

ABSTRACT This research investigates the existing structure of Indonesian regulations for constructing bureaucrats’ cognitive behavior by carrying out budget ratcheting and praxis. It then analyses the dominant factors influencing Indonesia’s Bureaucracy’s decision to adopt the ratchet principle. It underlines that the Indonesian bureaucracy prefers praxis due to national styles and regulations. Furthermore, the authors reveal that the Indonesian bureaucrats preserve their outcome to save face by leniently ratcheting the budget for this current one. This article uses a post-structuralist methodology demonstrating that praxis is nested in bureaucrat behavior. Then, we conduct in-depth interviews to capture the thinking behind the Indonesian bureaucrats’ cognition. We found four factors influencing the Indonesian bureaucracy’s choice to use praxis: commodification, regulatory ambivalence, undecidability, and expediency. Therefore, this study highlights that budget executors never produce optimum performances due to a misalignment between the budgetary measurements and the execution. In short, the budget’s executors conduct praxis in their cognitive behavior because they have no other choice. This study’s findings have consequences for the political economy, meaning Indonesia’s government must re-engineer most budgetary regulations to control all the behavioral agents. Simultaneously, this re-engineering could drive and empower the bureaucrats’ behavior by transforming their readiness and commitment to change.

Beyond Caster as object? Examining media constructions of Caster Semenya through decolonial thinking

ABSTRACT The popular media coverage of South African track and field star Caster Semenya showcases how colonialist discourses shaped the sexed, gendered, and racialised meaning of her public biography. Yet, when researchers study Semenya as their research ‘object’, does this act of inquiry reproduce the knowledge constructs of Western coloniality as well? In this article, we consider both issues by conducting and reflecting on our poststructuralist analysis of popular media coverages of Semenya’s athletic career, with specific attention to her dealings with gender-verification testing. We examine the discursive construction of Semenya’s public biography by popular newspaper outlets in the United States and South Africa from 2009 to 2019, arguing that both geopolitical locales maintained Western social binaries and scientific discourses concerning Semenya’s sexual identity in similar, yet distinct ways. Drawing from the poststructuralist methodology of intertextuality, we reflect on its capacity to deconstruct the colonial discourses shaping the cultural meaning of a non-Western athlete of colour such as Semenya, as well as its relation, as a method of knowledge production, to the epistemological legacies of Western coloniality. We also contend that by approaching Semenya as the ‘object’ of our poststructuralist framework, our analysis implicitly reproduced, rather than challenged, the Eurocentric subject/object framework of modern (Western) epistemology. Thus, our purposes are empirical, methodological, and reflexive as we seek to contribute to critical analyses of the constructed cultural meaning of celebrity athletes while subjecting our own research assumptions and frameworks to poststructuralist and decolonial deconstruction.

Идеология в эпоху «цинического разума» (Трактовка идеологии в работах Славоя Жижека)

The article is devoted to the critical analysis of the concept of ideology developed by Slavoj Žižek, the modern Slovenian philosopher. The author reveals the possibilities and limitations of Žižek’s approach to understanding the phenomenon of ideology and considers the initial presumptions and methodological assumptions that this approach is based upon. The article shows that despite the indisputable originality, Žižek’s theory is not devoid of contradictions, and the interpretation of ideology as an illusion and mystification, which is justified within the framework of Marxist political philosophy, loses its foundations in the context of the post-structuralist methodology. According to I.Demin’s conclusion, Žižek’s philosophical and political thinking falls prey to the scheme that Peter Sloterdijk defined as “mutual tracking of ideologies”. Criticism of ideology here implies criticism of one ideo logy from the standpoint of another, or criticism of “bad” ideology from the standpoint of “good” ideology. The “criticizing” ideology is not clearly articulated, but implicitly assumed. The fact that the “critic” of ideology prefers not to reveal his own bias constitutes an integral part of the strategy of ideological criticism, as opposed to scientific criticism. Ideology as the principle that structures social reality obtains an allencompassing character in Žižek’s interpretation, since it underlies all human actions and human thinking. However, if there is no way to separate ideology from scientific knowledge, to distinguish between ideology, philosophy and religion, it turns out that ideology is everything and nothing at the same time. With this interpretation, “ideology” becomes an unoperationalizable concept for Social and Political Sciences, and therefore useless. At the same time, a number of the provisions formulated by Žižek (on ideological “fastening”, on the role of the enemy figure in the ideological discourse, etc.) may be in high demand in the course of developing an adequate methodological strate gy for studying the phenomenon of ideology, which distances itself from both “naïve” objectivist doctrines and the extremes of the political anti-essentialism and anti-universalism.

A little learning is a dangerous thing

Purpose Asking whether we should regard the learning organization as a tautology and, thus, of questionable utility, the purpose of this paper is to assess the ur-definition of the concept furnished by Senge. It seeks to demonstrate, particularly to those unaware of a textual-analytic approach, how claims that have academic authority can have poor explanatory power, with attendant risks. Design/methodology/approach Using a post-structuralist methodology, by illuminating unarticulated assumptions and questioning bald assertions, this paper exposes sub-textual bias and a lack of rigour characterizing the prescription of the learning organization. This legitimizes alternative and more inclusive narratives. Findings This paper finds the learning organization furthering a managerialist interest under the guise of enabling the achievement of employee’s and employees’ desires. As such, it is in the tradition of improvement-offering management fashions. In offering the promise of a sort of liberation for employees, it ignores and facilitates systemic dysfunctions, both internal and external. Originality/value By introducing the suggestion that the learning organization might be usefully interrogated as a paralogism, this paper encourages a critical appreciation of learning, not as an unalloyed good but as a potentially repressive tool. A fortiori, the learning organization.

Региональные политико-институциональные и этнополитические процессы на примере Республики Тыва

The article introduces the problems of political, institutional, and ethnopolitical processes using the case of the Republic of Tyva. The research featured latent and low-formalized structures that affect the regional political regime and political processes in Russian regions. The research objective was to analyze the influence of such latent structures of power and administration on the regional political regime in the Republic of Tyva. As a general methodological principle, the authors used the polyparadigmatic approach, as well as neo-institutional and poststructuralist methodology. The authors performed a quantitative and qualitative political analysis of five research projects based on questionnaires (2016–2020). The projects belonged to the Department of Applied Sociology and Political Science of the Tyva Institute of Humanitarian and Applied Socio-Economic Research. The analysis also included 23 in-depth expert surveys from 16 focus groups conducted in all areas of the republic. Formal institutions in ethno-national regions of Russia turned out to be incongruous to the modernization processes. They proved to have been replaced by clientele and parantella patterns, where institutional relations are just a by-product of money distribution among the dominant interest groups. However, the authors believe that Sh. V. Kara-ool managed to stabilize internal ethnopolitical processes in the Tyva Republic. The research results can help improve local policy in ethnic regions.

«ПОГРЕБЕННЫЙ ВЕЛИКАН» КАДЗУО ИСИГУРО: ПОСТМОДЕРНИСТСКАЯ ДИЛЕММА ПАМЯТИ И ПРОЩЕНИИ

The article focuses on the study of the seventh novel “The Buried Giant” (2015) of the Nobel Prize laureate Kazuo Ishiguro with regard to the problems of remembrance and forgiving that are central to the ethics of memory. Disputes about this novel go both in his country and abroad. The novel was translated into Ukrainian (2018), although the integrated study of the artistic nature of this iconic work has not appeared yet. The goal of our work and the tasks dictated by it is to analyze the artistic idea of the novel in the context of modern ethical and philosophical discourse on memory and forgiveness, which pervades Ishiguro’s works, starting from his first “Japanese” novels centered on the unnamed loss. The interest in memory as ethical issue has recently inspired different branches of the Humanities. The phenomenology of memory and oblivion was considered in the works of S. Radson “Memory and Methodology”, the collective monograph “Memory theory”, in the works of P. Ricoeur, M. Foucault, J. Baudrillard, J. Derrida, P Nora, H. White, M. Merleau-Ponty, and others, and resonated in literature of the second half of the twentieth century after the tragic events of the Second World War. This theme preoccupied Ishiguro throughout much of his writings, starting with his “Japanese” novels “A Pale View of the Hills” and “An Artist of the Floating Worlds”. The goal of the paper determines the need to use two methodologies and methods ‒ a historical and literary study in combination with semantic and poetological analysis of the text, which is based on the post-structuralist methodology, a new awareness of the depth and inexhaustibility of the literary text when it starts to contradict itself. In the novel, the role of memory in the life of individuals is artistically problematized. Memory is revealed not as the cornerstone of human morality and truth, but as a possible choice between healing forgetting and difficult forgiving, that are also inherent in the lives of humanity. The plot is centred on artistic deployment of an insoluble dilemma addressed to us as well: memory or oblivion, and maybe forgiveness? But how is it possible to forget the severe massacre in the past? Does the reconciliation with the terrible past equal treachery and betrayal? In this novel, in contrast to the previous ones, the writer finds a different generic decision, connecting the chivalrous plot and heroic epic with a saturated philosophical-humanistic agenda. This artistic strategy is noticeably different from his former novels. Its meaningful and indirect suggestive narrative unveils the most difficult issues of human responsibility in the history. The tragedy of both the historical and personal experience of mankind suggested this idea for the novel.

Can korfball facilitate mixed-PE in the UK? The perspectives of junior korfball players

ABSTRACTKorfball was invented in a mixed Primary School in Amsterdam in the early 1900s [IKF (2006). Korfball in the Mixed Zone. KNKV; Summerfield and White (1989). Korfball: A Model of Egalitarianism. Sociology of Sport Journal, 6, 144–151]. The main catalyst for the development of korfball was a need for a competitive mixed sport that relied on cooperation and meant boys and girls could participate on a level playing field [Summerfield and White (1989). Korfball: A Model of Egalitarianism. Sociology of Sport Journal, 6, 144–151]. Previous research into gender in physical education (PE) has found that young people gain gender-related understandings through PE [Azzarito (2009). The Panopticon of PE: pretty, active and ideally white. Physical Education & Sport Pedagogy, 14(1), 19–39; Azzarito and Solomon (2009). An Investigation of Students’ Embodied Discourses in PE: A gender project. Journal of Teaching in PE, 28, 173–191; Azzarito and Solomon (2010). A Reconceptualization of PE: The intersection of gender/race/social class. Sport, Education and Society, 10(1), 25–47; Chalabaev et al. (2013). The Influence of Sex Stereotypes and Gender Roles on Participation and Performance in Sport and Exercise: Review and future directions. Psychology of Sport and Exercise, 14, 136–144; Wright (1995). A Feminist Poststructuralist Methodology for the Study of Gender Construction in PE: Description of a Study. Journal of Teaching in PE, 15, 1–24]. [Thorne (1993). Gender Play: Girls and Boys in School. Rutgers University Press] argues that to remove binary thinking and notions of hegemonic masculinity and femininity, PE lessons should promote equality between girls and boys, reflect cooperation and teamwork between all, and demonstrate to students that gender inclusivity is achievable.This paper will consider findings from a larger ethnographic study, in order to discuss how junior korfball players understand gender within their individual PE settings. It will also seek to discover whether players believe gender discourses can be negotiated in PE through the use of korfball. Players frequently referred to the limitations of their current PE experiences and suggested that the mixed element of korfball could provide opportunities for boys and girls to come together in PE. Players described how the structure of the korfball game reflects a need to use both sexes, which could improve mixed PE lessons. Players also discussed preconceived ideas about boys’ games and girls’ games, which led to problematic actions and interactions in current mixed PE settings. Findings suggest that embodied practices which demonstrate the abilities of girls, as well as boys, could lead to resistance of dominant discourses which reinforce gender difference and the physical inferiority of girls. They might provide a space which alters dominant discourse often reproduced in PE and sporting environments.

Saving lives with caring assessments: How Tanzanian nurse-midwives and obstetricians negotiate postpartum practices.

To explore the nurse-midwives' and obstetricians' experiences delivering postpartum care assessments and how it was constructed through personal, social and institutional discourses. The Tanzanian Government has prioritised maternal and child health as an urgent healthcare issue. Nurse-midwives and obstetricians are the two main providers of care throughout the prenatal and postpartum periods. A qualitative design guided by a feminist poststructuralist methodology. Ten nurse-midwives and three obstetricians from three Regional Hospitals in Dar es Salaam participated in individual semi-structured in-depth interviews. Assessment emerged as a significant theme with three subthemes. Nurse-midwives shared their beliefs and values about assessments that focused on the safety of mothers and babies. They felt proud working with mothers and babies and shared their frustrations having to deal with inadequate working conditions. Guidelines and practices were part of the institutional discourse that impacted the day-to-day experiences of nurse-midwives and obstetricians. The nurse-midwives held the belief that it was vital to complete a comprehensive assessment to identify danger signs, keep mothers and babies safe and look for any abnormalities. They were concerned that mothers were being sent home too early. Nurse-midwives' experiences in the provision of postpartum care portray that these health providers work heartedly to make sure that the mothers and their newborns receive the best care they can provide. The health system is challenged to address the needed supplies and equipment for reproductive health in particular postpartum care services. Institutional health discourses significantly affect the practice of nurse-midwives and obstetricians to deliver timely and effective postpartum assessments. Immediate and ongoing postpartum assessments conducted by nurse-midwives and obstetricians can save lives. This study presents the first theme of the study: Caring assessments save lives.

The Play of Signifiers

This essay presents a brief introduction to the scholarly methodology known as “poststructuralism.” The first two parts discuss basic concepts in poststructuralist study in general, as well as major concerns involved in poststructuralist study of any text. The focus is on the importance of the materiality of the signifier and how that materiality both plays a part in and disrupts the construction of meaning. The second two parts show more specifically how these concepts and concerns come to bear on the study of biblical texts and related material. The focus is on a poststructuralist methodology that questions and challenges the meanings that readers assign to biblical texts. These four parts are followed by a brief conclusion.

Racial Camouflage: Thinking Race Apart From Sexuality: Commentary on Harris's “The House of Difference”

This article uses Adrienne Harris's (this issue) “The House of Difference, or White Silence” as a jumping-off point to think about the overlap between a queer of color critique and the poststructuralist methodology of relational psychoanalysis that Harris proposes. Although queer of color critiques have not tended to draw on psychoanalysis, they do provide ways to understand the epistemological construction of race. As such, reading Harris in conjunction with Chandan Reddy (2011), this article attempts to find a method for understanding race according to an epistemology that is separate from sexuality. Drawing on Harris's discussion of the unconscious and Reddy's analysis of amendments, this article attempts to make legible some of the nonoverlapping space between race and sexuality.

‘You're no-one if you're not a netball girl’: rural and regional adolescent girls’ negotiation of physically active identities

Despite the widely articulated health implications of physical inactivity, declines in youth participation levels, particularly for adolescent girls, have fuelled social and moral panics about the importance of regular physical activity. Recent attempts to explain these participation trends have focused on the institutional and cultural discourses that are drawn on to construct particular identities and social practices connected with sport, physical education and leisure interests. In this paper we report on the findings of data collected through interview and focus group sessions with 138 females ranging from 14 to 16 years of age across six rural and regional communities in the state of Victoria, Australia. Adopting a feminist poststructuralist methodology and drawing on the work of Foucault, we explore the impact that dominant discourse-power relations operating in the context of rural and regional sport and physical education can have in the negotiation of physically active identities for adolescent girls.

The case for employing Deleuzian philosophical concepts for understanding local economic development

What constitutes economic development in a globalised world has significantly changed in the last twenty years. The literature indicates that economic development lacks a dedicated coherent body of theory. The evidence to date suggests that a positivistic predictive theory may not be possible for economic development; however a constructionist explanatory meta-theory of economic development might be developed by employing poststructuralist methodologies. This paper suggests that one way forward in this impasse of theory and unquestioned orthodoxy might be with works of Gilles Deleuze. Deleuzian metaphorical concepts are inherently spatial and resonate well with economic development practitioners because both are concerned with physical events such as the location of a new branch manufacturing plant, a warehouse or a shopping centre. In this paper, I agrue that conventional or positivistic social science research approaches can only develop, at best, limited relevant theory for economic development. Such a general theory is not ‘particularly’ relevant because positive (or negative) economic growth often occurs regardless of the best efforts of the local practitioners. Deleuzian philosophical concepts provide metaphorical tools that may be useful for visualising spatial economic activities. These tools encourage a practitioner to develop innovative solutions to resolve local economic problems. Rhizomatic thinking has the potential to help a practitioner become more effective.

Another Dodecade: A Dialectic Model of the Decentred Universe of Jeremiah Studies 1996—2008

In the years since the publication of Robert Carroll’s ‘Surplus Meaning and the Conflict of Interpretations: A Dodecade of Jeremiah Studies (1984—95)’, in Currents 4 in 1996, major paradigm shifts in biblical studies have resulted in an unprecedented level of innovation. Increased engagements with the element of chaos in the text and the resultant innovative encounters with this problematic scriptural material include influential contributions from philosophy, cultural and literary theories. The present review surveys the current state of the field of Jeremiah studies by tracing the impact of post-structuralist methodologies of decentring on ways of thinking about and engaging with Jeremiah. It argues that in the aftermath of the widely acknowledged end of the hegemony of historical-criticism as the dominant paradigm of biblical interpretation articulated by Perdue as ‘the collapse of history’, Jeremiah studies has taken on the shape and nature of a dialectic between the principles of order and chaos.

'No More Tea, Vicar'. An Exploration of the Discourses which Inform the Current Debates about Sexualities within the Church of England

This article seeks to discover, problematize and deconstruct the powerful discourses that have informed the recent debates within the Church of England (and other churches) in the area of human sexuality, and of homosexuality in particular. Poststructuralist methodology reveals that the sexualities' discourse of the Church of England is structured around themes of purity/pollution and text/authority, which operate powerfully to police the theorization and practice of both individuals and the social body of the church. The instantiation of this discourse in the lives of individuals is illustrated by an analysis of two 'stories': the first, a biographical account of a particular incident in the life of one priest; the second draws on the published record of the difficulties raised by the appointment of Canon Jeffrey John as a bishop. In response to these findings, the author draws on theological traditions developed out of Queer Theory to suggest alternative ways of viewing sexualities, which are both more inclusive for LGBT people, and which may allow the churches to break through their current impasse.

The Trans/Historicity of Trauma in Jeannette Armstrong’s Slash and Sherman Alexie’s Indian Killer

We're carrying a pain that is 400 years old. Alanis Obomsawin The ongoing domestic colonization of North America has a specifically impact on the Native peoples of this land, but what is the or referent to which such an effect can be traced? Is it possible to locate the event of a (post)colonial history that is, as Alanis Obomsawin makes clear in the epigraph, centuries old and, I would add, nations wide? Or, as this paper will argue, does the trans/historicity of Native trauma challenge the very assumption of trauma as rooted in event, where is defined, as it most commonly is, as a singular, recognizable, and chronologically-bounded incident? These questions draw attention to the commonplace understanding of events as singular, recognizable incidents, inviting our consideration of the problematics engendered by recent attempts to theorize the intergenerational colonial subjection of Native North American peoples through the lens of trauma theory-especially that which focuses on individual psychic trauma. Cumulative, collective, intergenerational, and intersubjective, the trauma of Native peoples, when understood as trans/historical, exceeds any attempt to fix its location or define its event, even as it demands our attention to historically specific atrocities. In order to explore the trans/historicity of trauma and, in particular, its unique articulation in Native North American literature, this paper situates two representative novels from the Native literary canon, Jeannette Armstrong's Slash (1985) and Sherman Alexie's Indian Killer (1996), within the nascent conversation between trauma theory and Native experience. By using the word to describe the trauma crafted in Slash and Indian Killer, I run the risk of reinstating, through my own diction, the idea of trauma as transcendent of historical conditions and material realities; indeed, the Oxford English Dictionary defines transhistorical as (Having significance) that transcends the historical; universal or eternal. As a descriptor of the intergenerational trauma of Native communities, the word thus fails to do justice to the complexity of this trauma. Still, I will maintain and nuance it here because of the way in which it gestures toward a trauma that takes place and is repeated in multiple epochs and, in this sense, exceeds its historicity, conventionally understood as its singular location in the past. Also, in its very failure to approach this excess as something other than transcendent or outside of the historical, the word reminds us that the English language circumscribes the way in which we might think about and refer to a event-which-is-not-one. As literary texts, Slash and Indian Killer both express and craft a distinct understanding of traumatic temporality, a term coined by Cathy Caruth (Interview 78). Rooted in a psychoanalytic and poststructuralist methodology, this term refers to the way in which events, because they cannot be known or integrated by the survivor as they occur, are indirectly accessible only as symptom-that is, in their belated return to the survivor as repetitive dreams, flashbacks, and reenactments of the event. Caruth's notion of temporality famously challenges the assumption that the history of trauma involves a one-to-one correspondence of reference and event and ushers in a performative theory of trauma, which understands trauma as dis-located in its reiterative return rather than in its origin-an origin that therefore remains elusive at best. The trans/historicity of Native trauma, as constituted in the work of Armstrong and Alexie, nuances this theory, prompting an exploration of the temporal and spatial dis/location of a trauma that is centuries old and nations wide. A note of clarification is necessary before I proceed: this paper analyzes the specifically literary cultivation of trauma as trans/historical and thus contributes to Jeffrey C. …

An epitaph to Section 28? Telling tales out of school about changes and challenges to discourses of sexuality

This article seeks to develop an understanding of the professional and personal lives of LGBT teachers in relation to the discriminatory statute Section 28, which prohibited ‘promotion’ of ‘the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship’ by local education authorities in the UK (except Northern Ireland). Interviews with a small sample of serving teachers are analysed using a feminist poststructuralist methodology to discover whether the removal of this legislation marks a shift in theorization, policy or practice. Findings are arranged to focus on the workings of official policy, on informal or unofficial classroom and staffroom practices, and on relations with a local community. Analysis and discussion reveal a complex matrix of constituents (space, relationships and other variables) only some of which respond to the (perhaps) superficial stimulus of legislative change. Such change goes only a small way to challenge a deeply embedded discourse of inequality, which may respond only to a more profound epistemological transformation.

The promise of post-structuralist methodology: ethnographic representation of education and masculinity

The past decade has witnessed a remarkable explosion of knowledges across the academy, media and political discourse, generating a wide range of representations of men and masculinity. In this paper, we interrogate the failure for an accompanying understanding of the epistemological and methodological implications of the research process in this area of inquiry. More specifically, the paper is located within a particular arena: the schooling of masculinities. The first section critically explores how the ethnographic study, The making of men used identity politics as a methodological theme. The second section continues to draw upon this study by highlighting the emerging methodological tensions between identity politics and a politics of cultural difference. Finally, the third section builds upon this reflexive account, drawing upon our more recent work; it further explores the promise of post-structuralist methodology in relation to emerging paradigms for masculinity research.

Negotiating a physical identity: girls, bodies and physical education

A physically active lifestyle can be empowering for young women in allowing them to resist many of the dominant and limiting discourses around femininity and gender. In finding pleasure in their physical state a positive sense of self is embodied and long‐term engagement in a physical culture can be fostered. However, research repeatedly cites that girls and women move away from physical activity at various stages in their life and within physical education settings they are often defined as ‘the problem’. Whilst the health implications of inactivity are well documented, the reasons for choosing these behaviours are complex, and related to the social, cultural and gender structure of society. This paper investigates the construction of a physical identity within the context of physical education and physical activity. Specifically, it explores the power of discourses around the body and gender as well as ‘lived’ physical experiences in shaping subjectivities for a group of young Australian women. In taking a feminist poststructuralist methodology, the research is concerned with locating discourses and social practices as well as structural and institutional factors that empower or alienate young women in their engagement within a physical culture. The paper draws conclusions about the ways that young women actively negotiate a physical sense of themselves in a wider culture in which their body, their gender and their physical experiences play powerful roles.

Shape-shifting discourses of anorexia nervosa: reconstituting psychopathology.

This article explores how the circuitous relationship between individuals, the media, and discursive systems replicate and reinforce the act of self-starvation in young women. Using a feminist poststructuralist methodology, the focus of this article is on how discourses and institutional practices operate to position young women who take up the subject position of wanting to be diagnosed as anorexic. Utilizing data from online accounts and individual interviews, I attend to the ways in which young women are institutionally positioned as "anorexics" and the effects that those positions have on their behaviors, in addition to reinforcing institutional practices that construct anorexia nervosa. Questions addressed through this inquiry are: How do institutional practices create and continue to constitute "anorexia nervosa"? How do discourses operate to position young women such that they are either included and/or excluded into the category of "anorexia nervosa"? What are the effects and consequences that emanate from these positionings?

Inclusive schooling policy: An educational detective story?

Since the publication of the Salamanca statement (UNESCO 1994), inclusive schooling has formed a growing part of the deliberations of the special education community. Inclusive schooling research in Australia in the main continues to reproduce traditions of the special education field, emphasising the dominant psychological perspectives that have been superimposed on inclusive education discourses. At the fifth International Congress of Special Education (ISEC 2000) held in Manchester, ‘the death knell of the concept of special education’ (ISEC 2000) was announced. The concept proposed by Mike Oliver, Professor of Disability Studies at the University of Greenwich, asserts an end to understandings of diversity dependent on medical, psychological and charity-based discourses. From a recent study of inclusive schooling policy, and drawing from poststructuralist methodology, I suggest an approach to research, policy development and practice that questions traditionalist theorising in the special education field. Reflecting on the implementation of the Inclusion of Students with Disabilities Policy (DECCD 1995) in the Tasmanian government school system, I outline my alignment with Oliver’s view and highlight how questions of epistemology and reconstructions of research methodologies are central to rethinking understandings of difference. I also illustrate a methodological orientation that offers possibilities for a different science to take place, thereby understanding diversity as multiple and contradictory — and beyond the single ‘detective story’ (Gough 1998) of the medical, psychological and charity-based discourses that circulate in schools as the populist conceptions of ‘inclusion’.