Layered bureaucracy and the construction of subjectivities: Interpretive dimensions of the research approval process

Abstract

Institutional controls and legal enmeshments have become increasingly problematic for social scientists in recent years. For sociologists, whose disciplinary ethic is defined by rigid standards of confidentiality and admonishments to “do no harm”, the dilemma appears to be one of accepting legislative protections based on the natural science model of good science or enduring the consequences of compelled disclosure of data and participant identities in court. Some critical and interpretive sociologists offer a third option — a return to a moral framework for the discipline, one that focuses on the ways power and ideology influence institutions.In this paper, I examine how street-level politics and the enmeshment of the scientific paradigm within the various contributing (layered) bureaucracies influence the shape of university research and challenge the ideal of a moral framework. I use personal experience to demonstrate how subjectivities, or narrative identities, are continuously negotiated and redefined during the research approval process to produce bureaucratic acceptability, scientific legitimacy, and legal accountability. The analysis has broader implications as it demonstrates how the biases that equate good sociology with scientific method can ultimately shape research decisions and create additional challenges for those who seek to change the discipline

Citation

Ansay, S.J. (2002), "Layered bureaucracy and the construction of subjectivities: Interpretive dimensions of the research approval process", Denzin, N.K. (Ed.) Studies in Symbolic Interaction (Studies in Symbolic Interaction, Vol. 25), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 327-346. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(02)80055-2