The development & deployment of social activity method (SAM)

Paul Dowling

Dowling, P.C. (2009). Sociology as Method: Departures from the forensics of culture, text and knowledge. Rotterdam. Sense.Dowling, P.C. & Brown, A.J. (i/p). Doing Research/Reading Research: Re-interrogating education. Second Edition. London: Routledge

Misrecognition takes a few lines but its exposure takes many. In this detailed case study of misrecognition I shall, perforce, have to explicate what Harker and May (1993) have silenced. (Bernstein, 1996; p. 182)

Independent of failures in their empirical power, all theories reach an inbuilt terminal stage when their conceptual power ceases to develop. This is when the generating tension of their language fails to develop more powerful sentences. I am inclined to believe this is when the possibilities of the initiating metaphor is [sic] exhausted. And some metaphors get exhausted sooner than others. At this stage of inner termination, defensive strategies are often employed: disguised repetition, concern with technicalities becomes a displacement strategy, omnipotence to preserve a position acts as a denial strategy, restricting the intellectual ‘gene’ pool by controlling disciples. This is only a temporary strategy as it leads eventually to the enlargement of the ‘gene’ pool through dissent (or treason?) (Bernstein, 2000; p. xiii)