Project Title The 2013-2014 UK Floods: a critical appraisal of two ‘disaster’ research proposals.

Written for Somerset County Council, November 2014.

Author Henry Lennon (PhD researcher), Sheffield Hallam University.

Outline In response to your recent inquiry, this project outlines two research proposals investigating the management and response of the recent floods that hit the UK over the 13-14 winter period, with particular focus given to their underlying ontological and epistemological origins and current uses. Although you stipulated desire for both of these proposals to favour the objectivist-(post)positivist approach, several problems have been identified. Thus, as the first proposal introduces a conventional objectivist-(post)positivist approach, its problems in relation to the second proposal, the constructionist-interpretivist (discourse-analytical) approach, will be discussed. The second approach addresses the ontological and epistemological limitations of the objectivist-(post)positivist proposal, and although there are also limitations, these are surmountable for the disaster and questions being studied.

Recommendations The project advises that the objectivist-(post)positivist approach is unsuitable to study the disaster due to problems regarding: 1. Researcher neutrality and data/actor positionality; 2. Predictive and phenomenological complexity; 3. The action orientation (rather than mere referentiality) of language. These problems are underlined by reliance on discovering/asserting causal laws reflecting a world simply ‘out there’ rather than one constituted through human action. The latter approach, informed by constructionist ontology and interpretivist epistemology, is instead recommended to investigate how the disaster was situated within the conventions, structures, and practices of the key actors/institutions involved. This focus enables critical engagement with constructed versions of the disaster, thus exploring sense-making procedures of accountable bodies implicated within the event. This also justifies the rationale to consider how victims themselves constitute the disaster as a phenomenological concern in their discursive accounts.

Terms ‘Ontology’ and ‘epistemology’ unavoidably shape research approaches. Broadly, ontology “...refer[s] to the study of what might exist” (Smith, 2003:155). In social/human sciences, claiming ‘what’ exists, what ‘it’ looks like, what makes ‘it’ up and/or how units interact are all controversial ontological issues (Blaikie, 2000). All theories are ontological insofar that they are “theories of reality” (Lincoln, 2005:230; cited in Lincoln & Guba, 2011) which underpin the researcher’s thoughts and practices. Epistemology involves defining the boundaries and efficacy of knowledge by asking “how do we know?” (Lincoln & Guba, 2011:86). Often ontological assumptions afford/occlude certain epistemological positions (by guiding inquiry towards ‘existing’ objects), and, conversely, epistemological positions necessitate specific ontological assumptions (knowable objects necessarily ‘exist’). Although both entail asking different questions they are both synonymous with critical intellectual movements (Parker, 1989; Marshall, 1992). The research proposals involve discussion of their underlying philosophical positions and how they conceptualise and approach the social world.

Introduction: two-faces of the ‘context’ Disasters are complex phenomena. How they are understood and defined requires reflection on how philosophical assumptions position such accounts and contextualise their implications in practice. Thus, even introducing ‘the context’ involves careful philosophical thought, and accordingly I provide two accounts of what the disaster context ‘was’, with the research proposals following each in turn. Broadly they are both concerned with asking what disasters ‘are’ and how they can be studied.

‘The context’: an objectivist-(post)positivist view Disasters are low incidence, high impact events that are afforded less priority and resourcing in policy and planning, hence their effects being essentially avoidable in future (McConnell & Drennan, 2006). Lindell (2013:797), summarising Fritz (1961), discusses how disasters are often concentrated in time and space, leading to the harm, disruption, and the impairment of subdivisions of society.

Floods are the most common disasters (Das & Sarker, 2014; Feng & Luo, 2009). The European Union defines floods as events where overflows of water submerge land which is usually dry (Directive 2007/60/EC). The National Audit Office (2011) estimate that floods in the United Kingdom [UK]) cost around £1.6 billion pounds in 2011. The Environment Agency (2009) add that around 5.2 million (1/6) properties are currently at risk from local water sources (rivers, sea, and surface water) with increasing exposure for lowland (e.g. reclaimed) properties/areas (such as the Somerset Levels). Flooding often leads to transport and infrastructure problems (e.g. railways/roads/runways delays/closure, energy/utility disruption) (Feng & Luo, 2009), however often they can have more protracted consequences for affected local people, ranging from physical (e.g. property damage), financial (e.g. lost earnings, insurance rises), to psychological (e.g. stress, anxiety). By January, the

2 | P a g e winter 2013-2014 flood killed seven people due to sudden unanticipated overflows (House of Commons Library, 2014). Thus, disaster studies focus upon improving future practice by minimising uncertainty (Feng & Luo, 2009) and identifying risk points, thus facilitating affirmative and preventive measures (Williams, 2008:1116; Lindell, 2013).

Objectivist-(post)positivist research proposal Objectivism often begins with existence as perceptually self-evident (e.g. Ayn Rand 1905-1982) (Jonassen, 1991; Cronje, 2006). As an axiomatic claim, reality determines and structures phenomenological experience of it (Cronje, 2006:390). Thus, there is potential and indeed aspiration to explore and study reality as it is intended to convey meaning (Pegues, 2007). This view is visible in Auguste Comte’s work (1798-1857), whereby ideas of ‘positive science’ incorporating empiricist methods (scientific inquiry) to study humans and society were adopted (Bourdeau, 2014). Termed ‘positivism’, this epistemology built on the ontological tradition advocating empirical separation between ‘reality’ and the perceiver (cartesian dualism; see Potter, 1996, 2000). This 19th/early 20th century epistemology marged logical positivism and logical empiricism (Friedman, 1999:xiv). Termed ‘neopositivism’, it involved studying the ‘social’ world as other scientists did the ‘natural’ world to discover (underlying) governing laws (Benton & Craib, 2011). Importantly, this epistemology entails that valid ‘knowledge’ derived only from logical or empirical statements, which generally involved using thought experiments (using rationale) and physical experimental methods (using control, manipulation, and prediction) (Friedman, 1999).

Due to its failure to establish a workable verifiable principle, neopositivism was eventually replaced by its contemporary ‘post-positivism’, a ‘milder’ version with more affinity towards different conceptual and methodological procedures than just strictly controlled experiments (Taylor & Medina, 2013). Investigation draws on Karl Popper’s (1959) falsification critique, whereby observational scepticism replaced the previous use of inductive logic (thereby only disproving theories based on deviant cases). Roy Bhaskar’s (1975) experimental reductionism critique lead to more depthful engagement with systems of variables rather than mere relationships between individual ones. The researcher also became more concerned with ‘bracketing’ subjectivities rather than denying it outright (Moustakas, 1994) to promote ‘meta-analytical’ thinking. However, conventional scientific methods, statistical analysis and qualitative research as optional ‘first stage’ exploration remain the methodological default (Bevan & Kessel, 1994; Phillips, 1997), exemplifying desire to develop scientifically legitimated knowledge using ‘neutral observation language’ (Fay, 1975:13) and ‘empirical’ ways of speaking about one’s research conduct (Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984).

This position could consider how the floods were managed and responded to by investigating how macro factors (e.g. hazard exposure, physical and social vulnerability) mapped against specific

3 | P a g e locational/contextual characteristics, their response(s) and recovery (Lindell, 2013). Here, the objectivist-(post)positivist view of an independent ‘world’ to be defined would extract key information to ask:  How were risks defined and measured (e.g. geographical area and risk level compared to actual disaster occurrence/severity);  How accurately were possible victim-groups (e.g. based on socioecomomic, geographical and/or psychological measures) identified and protected (e.g. by resources allocated before/after);  What mechanisms were in place (e.g. additional staffing; third-sector agreements; extra funding), how they were designed (e.g. threshold measurements [e.g. rainfall per day in millimetres] realistic compared to previous data) and implemented (e.g. location compared to predictions);  Were mechanisms sufficient predictors of flood zones (by geographical area), were they deployed efficiently (uses of initiative/did they require prompting [yes/no]);  What factors (e.g. response timing/resource type compared to location) exacerbated the disaster’s effects;  What was the flood impact (e.g. work hours lost, damage to property, lives lost);  How were flood impacts mitigated/reduced (e.g. by improvised government responses, such as by amount of money/staff correlated with location/demographic details). Such an approach would be able to derive potential factors that enabled/exacerbated the flood’s incidence and impact, for example, lack of funding or misplaced deployment personnel. This may help to predict future occurrences and minimise harm/damage. However, such questions soon run into problems: where would suitable data be extracted? How is validity/bias assessed? What is a reasonable disaster response? Can all victims be found? What if predictions were withheld from government bodies? How can loss-of-life be quantified? How can meanings like ‘impact’ be measured without undermining the victim? Such problems derive from alternative critical perspectives identifying with constructionist, discourse-analytical and postmodernist/poststructural ideas (Marshall, 1992; Gergen, 1985).

‘The context’: a constructionist-interpretivist view Disasters are not ontologically self-evident ‘facts’. Edwards, Ashmore, and Potter (1995) argue that the realist’s dilemma occurs when invoking bottom-line ‘death’ and ‘furniture’ arguments asserting the obvious, taken-for-granted interpretation of existence. It is dilemmatic because all actions can be deconstructed into discrete semiotic, discursive and experiential components (p.28-29). Thus, disasters are interpreted and constructed into being through social interaction and discursive formation in institutional/lay texts (e.g. news reports weather forecasts, victim interviews) (cf.

4 | P a g e Foucault, 1969) which are packed with deeper ideological and historical features and patterns of interpretation, such as the application of enlightenment philosophy and/or appeal to humanistic values to preserve life. Bankoff (2001) notes how ‘vulnerability’ to disasters is a distinctively western construct, generically used to “gradually render [specific parts of the world] unsafe” (p.21), and often entailing contrastive rhetoric whereby catastrophe risk is offset with the possibility of salvation through humanitarian aid (e.g. medicine, technology). Over time, disasters take different meanings, and candidate disasters are continually reinterpreted in the hurly burly (cf. Shotter, 1993) of debate in the public sphere between and within elite (e.g. politicians, journalists, academics) and lay member (e.g. citizens, local residents) discourse (Hartley, 2002:196). The question is how such debates unfold the meaning of the floods by implicated speakers (victims, politicans, etc).

Such issues challenge objectivist-(post)positivists because they would rely on naive conceptions of external reality. Discursive negotiation, realised through the production and consumption of artefacts that are positioned within broader narratives and traditions are often seen as subjective ‘noise’. Whilst objectivist-(post)positivists attest to ‘report on’ events, what they actually do is reinterpret and reconstruct them in new texts (Bird, 1987), forming a new component of the disaster context.

Social constructionist-interpretivist research proposal This approach derives from Kantian philosophy, that is, by disputing the ontological argument that existence is not a ‘property’ of objects per se (McWerter, 2012). Its legacy promotes agnosticism towards any ‘ultimate’ reality as it is not verifiable by rational/empirical means (Edley, 2001). Ontology is not rejected but shelved in favour of an epistemological approach studying how knowledge of different (equally-feasible) ‘realities’ are situated (Bird, 1987).

In turn, this leads to language-use and cultural life as analytical objects. For example, Wittgenstein’s (1953) focus on ‘language games’ emphasises that “to imagine a language means to imagine a form of life” (§19). Language is not referentially ‘picturing’ the world neatly, but rather, is “the vehicle of thought” (§329), performing the everyday as culturally-shared meanings. John Austin’s thesis (1962) similarly shows that words do more than merely describe states of affairs because they also perform actions (when said and done appropriately) with inherent forces (e.g. declaring, warning, assuring). Such work enriches constructionism (e.g. Gergen, 1985; Burr, 1995; Edley, 2001) because the social world is seen as being constituted through language use. It is ontological insofar that different realities are investigated and acknowledged within different speaker’s accounts, but epistemological in focus because it studies how realities are warranted and used (Potter, 1996).

Many approaches share emphasis on context, sociality, and interaction in favour of (positivist) grand- theorising: conversation analysis (Sacks, 1995), ethnomethodology (Garfinkel, 1967), pragmatics

5 | P a g e (Grice, 1975), literary criticism (Bakhtin, 1981), symbolic interactionism (Goffman, 1959), sociology of science (Gilbert & Mulkay, 1984) and discursive psychology (Edwards & Potter, 1992). Similarly, feminist (Spender, 1980), critical (Foucault, 1969), and post-marxian (Gramsci, 1971; Althusser, 2001) work also emphasise how language shapes understanding of ‘reality’, and in doing so, can be coercively and consensually oppressive. Such work marks the general orientation of constructionist- discourse analysis (although there are differences; Hammersley, 2002).

The proposed approach draws on Potter and Wetherell’s (1987, 1992) analytic package equipped to study rhetorical, discursive and interactive qualities of talk and text (also Edwards & Potter, 1992; Billig, 1987, 1991, 1995; Billig et al, 1988). Focus is also given to studying the functions of ideology, prejudice and oppression: critiquing their construction contributes towards deconstructing them, promoting alternative versions (Wetherell & Potter, 1992). The goal is to produce reflexive knowledge situated in everyday social practices, for as social life is already laden with interpretation (Sacks, 1995), they should be considered. This epistemological position, in the constructionist tradition, is often called interpretivism due to its rejection of ‘objective’ positivism/empiricism (Gough & McFadden, 2001).

To understand the management and response of the floods, priority could be given to understanding the practices of empowered actors, critiquing how accountability and legitimacy are utilised to defend conduct and obscure those that have the epistemic right (Sacks, 1995) to claim expertise (i.e. victims). Commonly, criticisms refer to communication breakdown, structural ambiguity/confusion, and under- resourcing (Donahue & Tuohy, 2006; cited in Williams, 2008), which are often resisted when vested (empowered) individuals/groups/organisations argue that they have ‘learned the lessons’ of the disaster (Tierney, 2006). For example, the Environment Agency (2009) emphasised their protection of more than 800,000 homes, advocating revision to their blameworthiness, and thereby undermining those who were flooded. So determining the status of such events, their ‘real’ cause, or their impacts/implications (e.g. ‘nationwide’, ‘expensive’, ‘avoidable’) is problematic when omitting how such claims are used contextually by the speaker. Similarly, seeing the disaster as a discrete physical event’ is problematic because it is constructed from many intertwined processes, events, and individuals/groups. No ‘data’ contains sufficient power and scope to answer the complexities of the research question, as data is positioned within the events themselves, orienting to other sources using limited, fallible and flawed knowledge in the pursuit of strategies that are historically- and culturally- situated (Bevan & Kessel, 1994). (See endnotes i,ii,iii,iv for examples of such sources.)

Thus for discourse analysts, those same sources of ‘knowledge’ for positivists become the analytical object. Key texts may include the MET Office (2014) definitions of the nation’s geography and meteorology; the Environment agency’s (2009) assessment of ‘risk’; the House of Commons Library

6 | P a g e (2014) report on ‘impact’; or other press releases reinterpreting ‘the disaster’ as it unfolded. We could study how implicated speakers (e.g. politicians, environment/public bodies) manage their accountability by resisting/distributing blame, saving face in the wake of criticism/ridicule, or referring to tangible examples of good/efficient practice. Here we face an impossible challenge of trying to investigate the disaster ‘facts’ if we don’t acknowledge that the key figures have cause to resist criticism (Edwards & Potter, 1992:117). Questions abound as to how they ground their claims towards seemingly ‘objective’ versions, or how victims construct their identities and/or draw on elite rhetoric as a means of realising the counter-discursive strategies available to them (Macgilchrist, 2007).

Key arguments: summary of decision Why does the latter approach offer a feasible alternative? Essentially, disasters are fraught with problems beyond their ‘actual’ or ‘obvious’ manifestation in-situ. Their investigation requires asking questions that must negotiate complex phenomenological and political arenas. A positivist’s treatment of empirical ‘data’ would be judged on the basis of statistical/methodological principles (e.g. effect size, power) but they would be based on flawed conceptions of the role of language and culture in the realisation of phenomenological and societal interpretations of disasters. They would also rely on the sources validity, potentially treating elite accounts as simply ‘true’ or reflective of underlying issues due to their position in society, although this would be overlooked in the analytical search for ‘predictive’ variables and ‘objective’ laws. Victims would, accordingly, be disadvantaged due to their assessment on the basis of verification rather than in-situ sense-making (that will in any case be tied up with repressed researcher questions and sole focus on their answers). Although the qualitative discourse-analytical approach would be limited in its practical scope (due to the depth of focus on sources), it would be analytically-precise as it would be equipped to explain how the floods were constructed in their respective contexts; it would not be caught up in a never-ending quest for validation or prediction. Ultimately, disaster research needs to be more critical of how empowered actors legitimise their actions while continuing to neglect victims and repeat mistakes (Phillips, 1997), and the latter approach can achieve this aim.

7 | P a g e Endnotes

Endnotes i, ii, iii, iv denote aspects of the 2013-2014 flood ‘context’.

Image 1 captures Prince Charles’ visit to the Somerset Levels. It can be interpreted as both a sign of empathy/understanding from a symbolic representative of the nation and as an implicit criticism of governmental management owing to his pronounced passion of Cornwall and his visible dismay at the flooding.

i Image 1. Source: BBC News. See http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26028216

Image 2 includes a landscape photograph of the English countryside. Here, the green farmland space is contrasted with the encroaching water that ‘violates’ it. The village located in the centre appears surrounded, without sign of relief.

ii Image 2. Source: Met Office See http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/2014-janwind

Image 3 involves a cartoonist using humour to ridicule the-then Communities Secretary for his (mis?)management and lassie-faire interactions with the Environment Agency. He is represented as incompetent by his axe use to stop water flowing, despite clearly having already passed him by.

iii Image 3. Source: The Guardian. © Steve Bell 2014. See http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/cartoon/2014/feb/11/steve-bell-eric-pickles-flooding- somerset-thames-cartoon

Image 4 includes a flood victim, Daniel, introduced as the “Britannia pub owner”. It is implied, through the debris, that the flood has ruined the heart of the Boston community. We implicitly wonder whether it could have been prevented.

iv Image 4. Source: The Guardian. See http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/dec/06/east-coast- britain-hit-tidal-surge-floods-weather-live-updates

8 | P a g e

References Althusser, L. (2001). Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses: Notes towards an Investigation. In Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. Trans. by Brewster, B. New York: Monthly Review Press, 85-126.

Austin, J. (1962) How To Do Things With Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Bakhtin, M. (1981) The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays. Holquist, M. (Trans). Austin: University of Texas Press.

Bankoff, G. (2001). Rendering the world unsafe: ‘vulnerability’ as western discourse. Disasters, 25(10), 19-35.

Bhaskar, R. (1975). A Realist Theory of Science. 1st edition, Leeds: Leeds Books.

Bevan, W., & Kessel, F. (1994). Plain truths and home cooking: Thoughts on the making and remaking of psychology. American Psychologist, 49, 505.

Benton, T., & Craib, I. (2011). Philosophy of Social Science: the philosophical foundations of social thought. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Billig, M., (1995) Banal Nationalism. London: Sage.

Billig, M. (1991) Ideology and opinions: Studies in Rhetorical Psychology. London: Sage.

Billig, M. (1987) Arguing and Thinking: a Rhetorical Approach to Social Psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Billig, M., Condor, S., Edwards, D., Gane, M., Middleton, D., & Radley, A. (1988) Ideological Dilemmas: A Social Psychology of Everyday Thinking. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Bird, E. (1987) The Social Construction of Nature: Theoretical Approaches to the History of Environmental Problems. Environmental Review, 11(4), 255-264.

Bourdeau, M. (2014) Auguste Comte. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Zalta E. (ed.). from http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/comte/

Blaikie, N. (2000), Designing Social Research (1st edition). Polity Press, Cambridge.

9 | P a g e

Burr, V. (1995) An Introduction to Social Constructionism. London: Sage

Cronjé, J. (2006). Paradigms regained: Toward integrating objectivism and constructivism in instructional design and the learning sciences. Educational Technology Research and Development, 54(4), 387-416. doi:10.1007/s11423-006-9605-1

Das, G., & Sarkar, R. (2014). Flood Disaster Management: A case study of Maynaguri C.D. block Jalpaiguri District, West Begal. Golden Research Thoughts, 3, 1-10.

Donahue, A. & Tuohy, R. (2006). Lessons we don’t learn: a study of the lessons of disasters, why we repeat them, and how to learn from them. Homeland Security Affairs, 2(2). Available from http://www.hsaj.org/?article=2.2.4

Edley, N. (2001) Unravelling Social Constructionism. Theory & Psychology, 11(3), 433-441.

Edwards, D., Ashmore, M., & Potter, J. (1995) Death and Furniture: The Rhetoric, Politics and Theology of Bottom Line Arguments Against Relativism. History of the Human Sciences, 8, 25-49.

Edwards, D., & Potter, J, (1992). Discursive Psychology. London: Sage.

Environment Agency (2009). Flooding in England: A national assessment of flood risk. Available from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/292928/geho0609bqds- e-e.pdf

EU Directive (2007/60/EC). Available from http://eur- lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2007:288:0027:0034:EN:PDF

Fay, B. (1975) Social Theory and Political Practice. London: Allen and Unwin.

Feng, L., & Luo, G. (2009). Practical study on the fuzzy risk of flood disasters. Acta Applicandae Mathematicae, 106(3), 421-432. doi:10.1007/s10440-008-9305-4

Foucault, M. (1969). Archeaology of Knowledge. London: Routledge.

Friedman, M. (1999) Reconsidering Logical Positivism. New York: Cambridge.

Garfinkel, H., (1967). Studies in Ethnomethodology. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, USA: Prentice- Hall.

10 | P a g e

Gergen, K., (1985). The Social Constructionist Movement in Modern Psychology. American Psychologist, 40(3), 266-275.

Gilbert, N., & Mulkay, M., (1984). Opening Pandora’s Box: A Sociological Analysis of Scientists' Discourse. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Gough, B., & McFadden, M. (2001) Critical Social Psychology: An Introduction. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Goffman, E. (1959) The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. University of Edinburgh Social Sciences Research Centre: Anchor Books.

Gramsci, A. (1971) Selections from Prison Notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.

Grice, H. (1975) Logic and Conversation. In P. Cole and J. L. Morgan (Eds.), Syntax and Semantics, Vol. 3 Speech Acts (pp. 41-58). New York: Academic Press.

Hammersley, M. (2002). Discourse analysis: a biographical guide. Available from http://onlineqda.hud.ac.uk/files/Hammersley_guide.pdf

Hartley, J (2002) Communication, Cultural and Media Studies: The Key Concepts (3rd edition). London: Routledge.

Hartwich, O. (2009). Neoliberalism: the genesis of a political swearword. CIS Occasional Papers, 114. See http://www.ort.edu.uy/facs/boletininternacionales/contenidos/68/neoliberalism68.pdf

House of Commons Library (2014). Winter Floods 2013/14. Available from www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN06809.pdf

Lincoln, Y. & Guba, E. (2011). The Constructivist Credo. Walnut Creek, CA: Left Coast Press Inc.

Lindell, M. (2013). Disaster Studies. Current Sociology, 61(5-6), 797-825.

Macgilchrist, F. (2007). Positive Discourse Analysis: Contesting Dominant Discourses by Reframing the Issues. Critical Approaches to Discourse Analysis Across Disciplines, 1(1), 74-94.

Marshall, B. (1992). Teaching the Postmodern. London: Routledge.

11 | P a g e

McConnell, A. & Drennan, L. (2006). Mission Impossible? Planning and Preparing for Crisis. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 14(2), 59-70.

McWherter, D. (2012). Transcendental idealism and ontological agnosticism. Kantian Review, 17(1), 47. doi:10.1017/S1369415411000331

Moustakas, C. (1994). Phenomenological Research Methods. Sage, Thousand Oaks: CA.

National Audit Office (2011). Flood risk management in England. Available from http://www.nao.org.uk/report/flood-risk-management-in-england/

Jonassen, D. (1991). Objectivism vs constructivism: Do we need a new philosophical paradigm? Educational Technology, Research and Development, 39(3), 5-13.

Parker, I. (1989). The Crisis in Modern Social Psychology and how to end it. London: Routledge.

Pegues, H. (2007). Of paradigm wars: Constructivism, objectivism, and postmodern stratagem. The Educational Forum, 71(4), 316.

Phillips, B. (1997). Qualitative methods and disaster research. International Journal of Emergancies and Disasters. 15(1), 179-195.

Popper, K. (1959). The Logic of Scientific Discovery. London: Hutchinson.

Potter, J., (2000). Post-Cognitive Psychology. Theory & Psychology, 10(1), 31-37.

Potter, J.,(1996) Representing Reality. London: Sage.

Potter, J., & Wetherell, M. (1987) Discourse and Social Psychology. London: Sage.

Robson, Colin (2005). Real World Research. A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner- Researchers (2nd edition). Malden: Blackwell.

Sacks, H. (1995) Lectures on Conversation. Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell.

Shotter, J. (1993) Conversational Realities: Constructing Life through Language. London: Sage.

12 | P a g e

Smith, B. (2003). Ontology. In Floridi, L. (ed.) Blackwell Guide to the Philosophy of Computing and Information. Oxford: Blackwell, 155–166.

Spender, D. (1980). Man Made Language. London: Routledge.

Taylor, P., & Medina, M. (2013). Educational Research Paradigms: From Positivism to Multiparadigmatic. Journal of Meaning-Centred Education, 1(2). Available online: http://www.meaningcentered.org/educational-research-paradigms-from-positivism-to- multiparadigmatic/

Wetherell, M., & Potter, J. (1992) Mapping the Language of Racism: Discourse and the Legitimation of Exploitation. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf.

Wittgenstein, L., (1953). Philosophical Investigations. Translated by Anscombe, G.. Oxford, UK: Basil Blackwell.

13 | P a g e