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+How does it work (preparing for appointment with Len)?
+######################################################
+
+:date: 2005-12-28T01:51:00
+:category: research
+
+Len asked me to explain him how should all these theories I quote in my
+dissertation proposal work together and how I am not creating yet
+another Great Sociological Theory.
+
+Of course, that this question hits on the most complicated part of the
+question. How does it all fits together? Am I not creating just another
+grand theory which has answer for everything but understands nothing?
+And if I want to get my theories out of data, and not to impose my
+theories on data, what should I do with the theories which already exist
+and which seem so close to what I see in my data? And isn’t whole that
+founding theories only on data more or less humbug, because there just
+are plenty of theories around and research cannot (and shouldn’t) just
+ignore them?
+
+Somehow it resembles a denomination which is based “solely on the New
+Testament” and they “purged their teaching of all human inventions” (I
+have actually met a pastor who told me these two things about his
+denomination; needless to say, that I have run out of his church
+immediately ``:-)``) — these are usually the most dogmatic and
+legalistic church groups, whereas those Christians who just do not care
+that much about purity of their teaching tend to be quite often most
+relaxed, loving, and free. Isn’t best research also the one which is not
+that much concerned about purity of methodology? Of course, one
+shouldn’t go to the other extreme (in the Church context it would be
+liberalism), and to throw away all good rules, which generations of
+scientist found, as good preventive measures how not to fools
+themselves.
+
+Back to the main question of how to deal with my different theories and
+my data. The basic idea I had was that there are many streams of thought
+which seems to lead to the similar conclusions, although sometimes the
+theories go from very different and strange angles. So for example, both
+Braithwaite (criminologist and founder of the theory of reintegrative
+shaming) and Charon (introduction to the symbolic interactionism)
+mention as an important factor how symbolic interactionist perspective
+does not include static concept of personality, which is a static result
+of our past experience (or it is inborn and thus even more static)
+determining our present action, but it accept that past experiences
+influence our present action through *definition of self based on our
+reactions to the past experiences*. When I read this for the first time,
+I was shocked. In that time I was just discovering (through a
+church-based program of inner healing) how much my understanding of
+myself very much determined (quite often not for good) my behavior, and
+how much I need to learn (and be told) who I am, so that I could see
+world differently and hopefully grasp more of the life. I didn’t expect
+much that I could find in (then still rather dry) sociology something
+corresponding to this very personal experience and new understanding,
+which seem to be too churchly and far from secular science. And yet,
+this was exactly what I read in this criminological textbook!
+
+And when I was reading many newspaper articles about crime in Boston, I
+could see struggle of Black Bostonians to grasp self-image of “the
+ordinary citizen” and to persuade everybody that they are such. I could
+believe that actually Black pastors stepping into this self-image and
+BPD switching their approach of Roxbury & co. from “enemy battlefield”
+to “part of our city, where our fellow Bostonians need help” (my own
+terms, not quotations), that these steps could help to empower and
+mobilize Black communities of Boston to help eliminate crime in their
+midst. And this effort could clearly explain quite angry opposition of
+Rev. Rivers against Jessie Jackson’s trashing of Boston as racist—not
+only that Jessie offended his friend in the effort to improve position
+of Blacks in Boston (both Mayor Menino and BPD representatives), but he
+also directly attacked this new self-image of ordinary citizens and
+pushed them back to the image of poor underserved oppressed Blacks.
+
+Unfortunately, the story continues, this business of changing self-image
+is very long-term process — actually this is just part of the process of
+overcoming Black slavery which (with interruptions) has been continuing
+for past hundred and fifty years and it is far from being finished. When
+the first effort made a huge difference, because improved cooperation
+between BPD and the Black community of Boston made a huge difference in
+the crime statistics, people in power of the City of Boston lost
+interest in supporting this process and it collapsed on insufficient
+funding (totally unsupported hearsay claims that the Boston Ten Point
+Coallition is broke and relations among participants of TPC are falling
+apart). Now, the only hope is that Mayor Menino & co. will get afraid
+again from the Black crime and will find some resources to support
+programs in Roxbury.
+
+Moreover, not only that this example very well works in this
+psychotherapeutical-SI context of self-image, but it seems to be very
+nice example of how the theory of reciprocity describes that “[people]
+perceive that others are behaving cooperatively/shirking […] they
+cooperate/retaliate.”
+
+All this is nice, but obviously this kind of anecdotical thinking is an
+exact example of all wishful thinking which would be rightfully trashed
+by Bernstein & co. And qualitative and interpretative research being
+what it is, I do not see any way how to make this into testable theory
+and how to eventually prove it.