I an trying to integrate various conceptualizations of the experience of loneliness. To date, there have been many attempts to define the experience, and except for one study, all accounts are positivistic. I want to integrate this literature arguing that the reason that there is no integrative conceptualization is because loneliness is a social construct, and thus is constantly changing and being reconstructed. How would I go about a qualitative study that would read the accounts in a constructionistic interpretative fashion and collate themes into an all encompassing concept? It seems that some kind of qualitative Meta-Analysis or Meta-Synthesis is in order, that would thematise the existing categories that appear in the literature. Is anyone familiar with literature that might assist me?
From your question, one thing that seems clear to me is the problematic nature of methodology employed in the literature. This should be the start point of research on loneliness. Nevertheless, analysing loneliness without situating it within the context of social science concepts makes you to commit the same mistake like the previous scholars- grand theory-the fetishism of concept. Of course, loneliness means different thing to different people. The way rich gay man will experience loneliness is different from the way working class widowed experience loneliness. Can loneliness be studied through the conceptual frame of gender, sexuality, ageing, class, race, income/poverty and other factors? this should be the main focus and may be explored qualitatively. Any attempt to look for integrative literature or encompassing smacks of grand theorizing that explains nothing, and the implication is this: NO SERIOUS CONCLUSION WOULD BE DRAWN FROM THE STUDY.
I bed to differ. One thing that I do as I transform the study from a positivistic one to a social-constructionistc one is change the research question. That is to say that the questio "what is loneliness?" - a positivistic question, si transformed to "Under what experiential conditions under which an experience would be likely to be constructed and construed as an experience of loneliness?
This question does not claim that loneliness is X or Y, but that people who experience experiences that answer to the conditions delineated - be the specifics of those conditions as various as there are people and social constructed categories - then their experience might be referred to as that of loneliness.
Don't you think?
What I have pointed out is still what you are saying , albeit, with different approach. From your response, what is problematic is the methodological gaze in which loneliness was articulated, which is positivistics. This, like i have pointed out earlier is the starting point of issue in the research. In fact, it should be the statement of problem in the study. Respecifying loneliness here suggests that you are moving from positivist to interpretive tradition, which i said is a good idea, but after redrawning loneliness qualitatively, what do you seek to explain? How can your interpretive study offer new insights and nuanced account? How can it contribute to policy measures? If you think in this direction, then, just studying loneliness generally will still amount to grand theorizing (fetishism of concept called loneliness) and will not give u analytical sense to ask useful questions unless u situate it in a social science concepts and perspectives like i have said in earlier comment. Anyway, like Max Weber, said: A SINGLE THEORY OR APPROACH CANNOT EXPLAIN ALL ISSUES. I dont think i have time to continue to re-emphasize again and again. You can do it the way you want to do it. Goodluck
Not sure that looking for an "all encompassing concept" fits with a constructionist (postmodern) worldview. And the ideas of meta-analysis and meta-synthesis don't sit easily alongside qualitative research methods. Perhaps the question might be something like "how is loneliness produced? what does it achieve?" I'm thinking of Kenneth Gergen's ideas about how emotions are performances for particular audiences and for particular purposes. In this way they are socially constructed. If you look at loneliness this way then it becomes clear that the ever-changing contexts for its production and reception mean that there can be no "all encompassing concept" or meta-analysis or meta-synthesis. There are only stories. Perhaps you could interview people and do a discursive analysis of their stories? See Ian Parker for this sort of analysis.
Thank you all.
Your opinions and knowledge are invaluable.
Meta-synthesis ( http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2648.2006.03721.x/abstract;jsessionid=1D5D9CFDBB8D43FDB6BF45D06F8B9484.d01t02?deniedAccessCustomisedMessage=&userIsAuthenticated=false ) seems to be something that may be done in an interpretative approach. Nevertheless, I couldn't find anything that addresses the method being used vi-a-vis positivistic material. Granted, it seems that such a method and inquiry that I am suggesting is more in line with a post-positivistic approach.
Of course all interpretation I may arrive at is only tentative, and never a final interpretation. Nevertheless, if I go through the literature, and try to identify recurring themes, then categorize them, isn't this an interpretative process? When I find diversity, I try to see whether a higher level of abstraction can solve it. How is it different from other interpretative qualitative research?
I'll demonstrate what I mean through an example of loneliness - let us examine different assertions in the literature. Some say that loneliness is the lack of love, some address the lack of belonging, others yet address the lack of intimacy, and some the lack of companionship. While all are viable, I would suggest that they may all be categorized as "relational needs", that there is no way to achieve an exhaustive list of such needs that their deficiency accounts for all loneliness experiences. Nevertheless, such abstraction includes much more than the specificity of existing theories.
What I am trying to achieve is insight into the way the academic milieu socially constructs loneliness, assuming that this may broaden the understanding of the phenomenon.
Does this make any sense?
Which academic milieu and which theoretical underpinnings for their constructions?
I am reffering to philosophical and psychological publications, and the way loneliness is constructed in those publications.
I think Ian Parker (Discourse dynamics: Critical analysis for social and individual psychology, 1992, Routledge for example) might be helpful.
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