Skip to main content
Log in

Foucault, narrative and the subjugated subject: Doing research with a grid of sensibility

  • Published:
The Australian Educational Researcher Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

This paper introduces the grid of sensibility, a strategy that engages Foucaultian analysis and narrative research to provide a theoretical basis for research on subjugated knowledge. This strategy was devised in response to the specific needs of a study that sought to consider the experiences of subjugated and disqualified young people who had been told they were mentally disordered. The grid of sensibility functioned as a communicative meta-tool that provided a flexible, responsive and connected way to access the ideas and considerations that informed the research process. The grid of sensibility is discussed with reference to this study. The paper outlines the grid of sensibility, how it was applied, and suggests its potential application in other studies seeking to consider the perspectives of subjugated disqualified knowledges.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • American Psychiatric Association (1994)Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (4th edition, DSM IV), Washington DC, Author.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barone, T (1989) Ways of being at risk: the case of Billy Charles Barnet,Phi Delta Kappan, vol. 71, pp. 147–51.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barone, T. (1992a) Beyond theory and method: a case of critical storytelling,Theory into Practice, vol. 31, no. 2, pp. 142–6.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barone, T. (1992b) On the demise of subjectivity in educational inquiry,Curriculum Inquiry, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 25–38.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Barone, T. (1995) Persuasive writings, vigilant readings and reconstructed characters: the paradox of trust in educational storysharing,International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 8, no. 1, pp. 63–74.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Behar-Horenstein, L. S. and R. R. Morgan (1995) Narrative research, teaching, and teacher thinking: perspectives and possibilities,Peabody Journal of Education, vol. 70, no. 2, pp. 139–61.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Caplan, P. (1995)They Say You’re Crazy: How the World’s Most Powerful Psychiatrists Decide Who’s Normal, Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Casey, K. (1995–1996) The new narrative research in education, in M. Apple, ed.,Review of Research in Education, vol. 21, pp. 211–53.

    Google Scholar 

  • Cathro, L. (1995) More than ‘just stories’: narrative enquiry in research,Education Research and Perspectives, vol. 22, no. 1, pp. 53–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Drewery, W. and J. Winslade (1997) The theoretical story of narrative therapy, in G. Monk, J. Winslade, K. Crocket and D. Epston, eds.,Narrative Therapy in Practice: The Archaeology of Hope, Jossey-Bass Publishers, San Francisco, pp. 32–52.

    Google Scholar 

  • Clough P. (1996) ‘Again fathers and sons’: the mutual construction of self, story and special educational needs,Disability and Society, vol. 11, no. 1, pp. 71–81.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Eco, U. (1984)The Name of The Rose, Picador, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1978) The history of sexuality: interview,Oxford Literary Review, vol. 4, no. 1, pp. 3–14.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1980) Two lectures, in C. Gordon, ed.,Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews and Other Writings 1972–1977, Harvester Press LTD., Sussex, pp.78–108.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1983) Preface to the German edition,La Volonté de Savoir, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1984a) Truth and power, in P. Rabinow, ed.,The Foucault Reader, Penguin Books, London, pp. 51–75.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1984b)The History of Sexuality. Volume I: An Introduction, Peregrine, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth, Middlesex.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1994)The Order of Things: An Archaeology of the Human Sciences, Routledge, London.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1996a) An aesthetics of existence, in S. Lotringer, ed.,Foucault Live, Interviews, 1961–84, Semiotext(e), New York, pp. 450–54.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1996b) The return of morality, in S. Lotringer, ed.,Foucault Live, Interviews, 1961–84, Semiotext(e), New York, pp. 465–73.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. (1997) The ethics of the concern for self as a practice of freedom, in P. Rabinow, ed.,Michel Foucault: Ethics, Subjectivity and Truth: The Essential Works of Foucault, Volume 1, The New Press, New York, pp 281–301.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gee J. P. (1991) The narrativization of experience in the oral style, in C. Mitchell, and K. Weilek (Eds.),Rewriting Literacy Culture and the Discourse of the Other, New York, Bergin and Garvey, pp. 77–101.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gosden, R. (1997) The medicalisation of deviance,Social Alternatives, vol. 16, no. 2, pp. 58–60.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gough, N. (1994a) Narration, reflection, diffraction: aspects of fiction in educational intjuiry,Australian Educational Researcher, vol. 21, no. 3, pp. 47–76.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Gough, N. (1994b) Plotting research: educational inquiry’s continuities with detective fiction,Deakin Centre for Education and Change Working Paper, no. 35.

  • Gough N. (1998) Reflections and diffractions: functions of fiction in curriculum inquiry, in W.F. Pinar (Ed.),Curriculum: Towards New Identities for the Field, New York, Garland Press, pp.93–127.

    Google Scholar 

  • Hacking, I. (1986) Self improvement, in D.C. Hoy (Ed.),Foucault, A Critical Reader Oxford, Basil Blackwell Ltd, pp. 235–240.

    Google Scholar 

  • Harwood, V. (2000)Truth, Power and the Self: A Foucaultian analysis of the truth of Conduct Disorder and the construction of young people’s mentally disordered subjectivity. Unpublished Doctoral Dissertation, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Knoespel, K. J, (1991) The Emplotment of chaos: instability and narrative order, in N. K. Hayles (Ed.),Chaos and Order-Complex Dynamics in Literature and Science. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, pp. 100–122.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lather, P. (1993) Fertile obsession: validity after poststructuralism,The Sociological Quarterly, vol. 34, no. 4, pp. 673–693.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lubiano, W. (1991) Shuckin’ off the African-American native other: what’s “po-mo” got to do with it?Cultural Critique, vol. 20, (winter), pp. 149–186.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McHale, B. (1992)Constructing Postmodernism, London, Routledge.

    Google Scholar 

  • McKenzie, W., and Monk, G. (1997) Learning and teaching narrative ideas, in G. Monk, J. Winslade, K. Crocket, and D. Epston (Eds.),Narrative Therapy in Practice: The Archaeology of Hope, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, pp. 82–120.

    Google Scholar 

  • Monk, G. (1997) How narrative therapy works, in G. Monk, J. Winslade, K. Crocket, and D. Epston (Eds.),Narrative Therapy in Practice: The Archaeology of Hope, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, pp. 3–31.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pefanis, J. (1991)Heterology and the Postmodern: Bataille, Baudrillard, and Lyotard, Durham, Duke University Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Rosaldo, R. (1987) Where objectivity lies: the rhetoric of anthropology, in J. Nelson, A. Megill, and D. McCloskey (Eds.),The Rhetoric of the Human Sciences: Language and Argument in Scholarship and Public Affairs, Madison, University of Wisconsin Press, pp. 87–110.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sandelowski, M. (1994) The proof is in the pottery: toward a poetic for qualitative inquiry, in J. Morse (Ed.),Critical Lssues in Qualitative Research Methods, Thousand Oaks, Sage, pp. 46–65.

    Google Scholar 

  • Scheurich, J.J. (1995) A postmodernist critique of research interviewing,Qualitative Studies in Education, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 239–252.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • White, M. (1993) Deconstruction and therapy, in S. Gilligan, and R. Price (Eds.),Therapeutic Conversations, New York, W.W. Norton and Company, pp. 22–61.

    Google Scholar 

  • White, M. (1995)Re-Authoring Lives: Interviews and Essays, Dulwich Centre Publications, Adelaide, South Australia.

    Google Scholar 

  • Winslade, J., Crocket, K. and Monk, G. (1997) The therapeutic relationship, in G. Monk, J. Winslade, K. Crocket, and D. Epston (Eds.),Narrative Therapy in Practice: The Archaeology of Hope, San Francisco, Jossey-Bass Publishers, pp. 53–81.

    Google Scholar 

  • Zeller, N. (1995). Narrative rationality in educational research, in H. McEwan and K. Egan, (Eds.),Narrative in Teaching, Learning, and Research, New York, Teachers College Press, pp. 211–225.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Harwood, V. Foucault, narrative and the subjugated subject: Doing research with a grid of sensibility. Aust. Educ. Res. 28, 141–166 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03219764

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF03219764

Keywords

Navigation