The principal aim of this article is to examine the relations between positioning and belonging in terms of the potential for critique of existing social conditions. The underlying purpose is to inform social scientific engagement with social life in order to illuminate the potential for social transformation via reflexivity. These discussions will be informed by the division of reflexivity into two dimensions: endogenous and referential. It is argued that this enables the social scientist to highlight the pre-reflexive world and render (...) it problematic and demonstrates how the objectivity of the social world is both a presupposition and ongoing achievement of everyday interactions. To that extent, the possibility for social conditions to be otherwise is then open to scrutiny. (shrink)

Research in an emergent field requires the researcher to consider appropriate methodologies. This paper describes research that attempts to discover how new technologies can influence local democratic engagement. It describes an interpretive research project informed by critical social theory that uses an explanatory mixed methods approach, combining two sequential data collection methods. The study incorporates a survey instrument and qualitative interviewing, analysed using Grounded Theory Methodology. The paper will describe the context for the research, the choice of a mixed methods (...) approach and relate this to an epistemology and ontology. The paper does not discuss the research findings but focuses on the research process and methodology and provides reflection on the outcomes and the challenges of the chosen approach. It demonstrates that mixed methods research is appropriate in a narrow and emergent field of study and that it offers methodological flexibility whilst promoting rigour and grounded results. (shrink)