Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies: A Critical Realist Perspective 9781409402220, 2010049352, 9781315603124

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
Preface and Acknowledgements
List of Abbreviations
1 Introduction
2 Contemporary Migration
3 Theoretical and Epistemological Issues in Qualitative Research:
The Case for Critical Realism
4 Critical Realism, Social Research Methodology and Qualitative Migration Research
5 Conclusions: Critical Realism, Qualitative Migration Research and Politics Making
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies

This book is wholeheartedly dedicated to Maria

Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies A Critical Realist Perspective

Theodoros Iosifides University of the Aegean, Greece

First published 2011 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Theodoros Iosifides 2011 Theodoros Iosifides has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Iosifides, Theodoros. Qualitative methods in migration studies : a critical realist perspective. 1. Emigration and immigration--History--20th century-Research--Methodology. 2. Qualitative research. I. Title 304.8'0721-dc22 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Iosifides, Theodoros. Qualitative methods in migration studies : a critical realist perspective / by Theodoros Iosifides. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-1-4094-0222-0 (hardback) 1. Emigration and immigration--Research. 2. Emigration and immigration--Research-Methodology. I. Title. JV6013.5.I58 2011 304.8072--dc22 2010049352 ISBN 9781409402220 (hbk) ISBN 9781315603124 (ebk)

Contents List of Figures and Tables     Preface and Acknowledgements    List of Abbreviations   

vii ix xi

1

Introduction  

1

2

Contemporary Migration   

5

3

Theoretical and Epistemological Issues in Qualitative Research: The Case for Critical Realism  

45

4

Critical Realism, Social Research Methodology and Qualitative Migration Research  

127

5

Conclusions: Critical Realism, Qualitative Migration Research and Politics Making  

231

Bibliography    Index   

239 263

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List of Figures and Tables Figures 3.1 3.2

The morphogenesis of structure, culture and agency   Levels of realist theorising  

85 88

3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4

Domains of reality   Basic features of social causality according to critical realism   Morphostasis and morphogenesis   Some possible Structural, Cultural and People’s Emergent Properties (SEPs, CEPs and PEPs) related to migration  

53 67 86

4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

Central features of intensive and extensive research   Examples of critical realist social research   Some guidelines on how to conduct realist qualitative research   Some hypothetical examples of qualitative case study research in migration studies  

130 138 145

Tables

89

205

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Preface and Acknowledgements The idea of writing this book has been developed over the last few years and has been the outcome of my experiences of teaching, researching and taking part in various debates regarding social science epistemology, methodology and applied research practice on migration-related phenomena. Prior interaction with colleagues in Greece and abroad, my students – undergraduate and postgraduate – and academic texts of all sorts, along with my personal dissatisfaction with contemporary metatheoretical convictions of qualitative methods, partly shaped my ideas contained in this volume. These ideas were also shaped by my involvement in qualitative (and quantitative) research practice on migration-related issues and processes. This involvement convinced me of the value and inherent advantages of qualitative methods for the investigation of social complexity and identification of real causal processes that occur in the social world. It also convinced me that the metatheoretical commitments underpinning much of today’s qualitative research in general, and qualitative migration research in particular (e.g. various versions of interpretivism, social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism) circumscribe rather than enhance its inherent strengths and advantages and need to be replaced by alternative commitments, notably those of critical realism. This is the line of argument I advance throughout the book. I would like to thank Routledge Publishing for granting me permission to reuse the following tables and figures: ‘Domains of reality’ (Table 3.1), ‘Intensive and extensive research: a summary’ (Table 4.1) and ‘Levels of realist theorising’ (Figure 3.2). I also thank Cambridge University Press for allowing me to reuse Figures 10, 11, 12 and 17 from Archer 1995 (Table 3.3 and Figure 3.1). I am extremely grateful to many people who have engaged in conversations with me and supported me in various ways all these years. First of all, I owe many thanks to the Department of Geography at the University of the Aegean, Lesvos, Greece, for granting me a one-year sabbatical leave, without which this book would not have been completed. I am also grateful to many colleagues based in this department or in other institutions for their valuable insights and comments regarding issues discussed in the book. More specifically, I thank Apostolos Papadopoulos, Electra Petracou, Ioannis Chorianopoulos, Thanasis Kizos, Manos Spyridakis and Sotirios Koukoulas. I would also like to thank Dr Ekaterini Nikolarea for helping with the English language editing. I express my gratitude to my students and especially to participants in my research endeavours, who were always a source of inspiration and reflection. Finally, I owe many thanks to Neil Jordan – a social science

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commissioning editor with Ashgate Publishing – for his overall support during my work on this book. Theodoros Iosifides Mytilene Lesvos Greece

List of Abbreviations ABSS Agent-Based Social Simulation AR Action Research CA Conversation Analysis CAQDAS Computer-Assisted Qualitative Data Analysis Software CDA Critical Discourse Analysis CEPs Cultural Emergent Properties CMO Context-Mechanism-Outcome DA Discourse Analysis ECM Extended Case Method GDP Gross Domestic Product GPs General Practitioners GT Grounded Theory ID Intransitive Dimension IMGs International Medical Graduates IMISCOE International Migration, Integration and Social Cohesion in Europe IOM International Organization for Migration M/MA Morphogenetic/Morphostatic Approach MAS Multi Agent Systems NAFTA North Atlantic Free Trade Association NICs Newly Industrialised Countries NIDL New International Division of Labour Participatory Action Research PAR People’s Emergent Properties PEPs Qualitative Comparative Analysis QCA Qualitative Data Analysis QDA Realist Qualitative Data Analysis RQDA Structural Emergent Properties SEPs Transitive Dimension TD Transformational Model of Social Activity TMSA USA United States of America

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Chapter 1

Introduction My main purpose in writing this book is to offer a critical realist perspective on conducting qualitative research in migration studies. I place special emphasis on the ontological and epistemological (meta-theoretical) dimensions of qualitative methods with regard to migration-related phenomena and processes and on the advantages that critical realism offers to overcome the problems and fallacies of empiricist, interpretivist and constructionist thinking in qualitative research, including qualitative migration research. Thus, the implications of the book and the issues raised and discussed in it are, in my view, of a wider character; they concern the status of social research methods in general and qualitative methods in particular regarding explanatory power and emancipatory potential. In this work I claim that this status is seriously undermined by the unfortunate connection, on the one hand, between quantitative methods with positivism and, on the other hand, between qualitative methods with various versions of interpretivism, constructionism and relativism. Regarding the latter, this connection is so strong that it became almost definitional for qualitative research in general (see Porter 2007: 80). I strongly challenge this connection in this book and demonstrate that the inherent strengths of qualitative methods can be fully implemented and appreciated when these methods are designed and applied within a critical realist meta-theoretical framework. Within realist frameworks, qualitative methods can become powerful means to investigate social reality in all its complexity and ontological depth and to enhance the causal-explanatory as well as the emancipatory potential of social science research methods and social inquiry in general. I discuss the advantages of a close link between qualitative methods and realist ontological and epistemological principles using as an exemplar the field of migration studies, with which I have been engaged for more than a decade. Migration studies had been, for a long time, dominated by empiricist-positivist approaches and the associated quantitative survey methods. Nevertheless, in recent years there has been a growing interest in a series of aspects related to the migration phenomenon, which are better highlighted and investigated with qualitative methods. Some of those aspects are, among others, processes of migration decision making, identity formation and change through migratory experiences, the role of social capital and social networks in immigrant incorporation, the dynamics of transnational social spaces, ‘ethnic’ discrimination, racism and xenophobia, sociopolitical participation and mobilisation etc. The above dimensions of migratory phenomena are characterised by the centrality of meaning making processes and interpretative understanding of the social world along with practical action within certain and specific structural and cultural contexts, and are researched

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with qualitative methods such as qualitative interviewing, biographical/narrative approaches, focus groups, participant observation and so on. Nevertheless, in many cases, the epistemological and methodological framework, within which qualitative methods are applied to migration studies – and to other fields – is based on the adoption of a relativist stance and fails to account for the complexities of the relations between structure, culture and agency. Thus, as mentioned before, the basic aim of this book is to offer a critical realist alternative, both to empiricism and relativism and to indicate the high explanatory potential of realist qualitative research on complex and multi-dimensional phenomena and processes such as those related to migration. The book consists of five chapters, including this brief introductory one. Chapter 2 starts with a concise coverage of key developments of migratory movements (mainly but not exclusively labour migration and refugee movements) in the twentieth century globally, with a special emphasis on Europe and North America. More specifically, and after a brief note on pre-modern migrations, it covers key developments during industrialisation and capitalist expansion and development, before and after the World War II and in the contemporary era. This part of the chapter demonstrates the complexity and multi-dimensionality of migrationrelated processes and phenomena indicating the theoretical and methodological challenges that migration research constantly faces. The chapter continues with a critical exploration of the main theoretical frameworks for explaining migration, notably micro-level, structuralist, transnationalism and social capital theories along with synthetic attempts to account for the complexities of the phenomenon. The latter attempts are viewed as more promising in comparison with other theoretical frameworks as they are capable of accounting more constructively for the linkages between structural and agential factors, avoiding reductionism and of engaging in multi-level and multi-dimensional analysis. Moreover these attempts are more consistent with realist principles of theorising migration-related processes and phenomena. Chapter 2 ends with a concise discussion of various epistemological and methodological approaches to migration research, notably methodological individualism, holism/collectivism, structuration and social realist approaches. Furthermore, and in close relation with the above issues, the quantitative-qualitative debate in researching migration is highlighted. Lastly, the chapter includes a relatively brief analysis of key themes in migration research, related mainly to social structures, migration policies, migration-related processes and to the dynamics of identity formation and change. On the whole, the Chapter sets the factual, theoretical, methodological and thematic scene for the more detailed elaborations regarding the design and application of realist qualitative methods to migration studies. Chapter 3 fulfils two highly interrelated tasks. The first task concerns a relatively detailed discussion of the critical realist meta-theoretical approach in social science. This approach covers the most basic issues raised within the realist framework which are related to transitivity and intransitivity, reality stratification, causality, complexity, emergence, theorisation and explanation. Moreover

Introduction

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the appropriateness of qualitative methods in accounting for these issues is emphasised. The second task of the chapter is to provide a critical analysis of alternatives to realist paradigms, especially to various forms of interpretivism and social constructionism that inspire much of today’s qualitative research practice. Throughout the chapter, hypothetical or real examples of qualitative research in general and of qualitative migration research in particular are utilised for strengthening the arguments made regarding the advantages of adopting a realist rationale in researching social phenomena and processes. The focus of Chapter 4 turns to social research methodology within realist principles and more specifically to qualitative migration research practice. The chapter covers issues related to realist social research methods, realist qualitative research, key principles of qualitative migration research design, main qualitative methods and data analysis strategies in migration studies, research ethics, validity and multi-methodological approaches. This chapter contains a detailed analysis of the kind of qualitative research I advocate and the reasons why this kind of qualitative research is more productive, illuminating and useful than its interpretivist or constructionist counterparts. Throughout it, the chapter is filled by hypothetical or real examples of qualitative migration research which are either explicitly realist or consistent with realist principles and shed light on the great explanatory power of qualitative approaches conducted within realist metatheoretical frameworks. The final chapter (Chapter 5) concludes the book by summarising its main rationale and arguments and accounting for the scientific and socio-political relevance of realist qualitative migration research.

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Chapter 2

Contemporary Migration 2.1 A Brief History of Migratory Movements in the Twentieth Century 2.1.1 Pre-modern Migrations Migratory movements and geographical mobility of peoples in general, have characterised human societies almost since their beginning or, at least, since historical periods for which there are some sort of data about human life and activities. Environmental changes, difficulties in adaptation to harsh ecological conditions, social conflicts and antagonisms of various types, exploratory enterprises and even an alleged human ‘roving instinct’ (King 1994: 1) may be viewed as factors causing constant migratory movements in pre-historic and early historic times. According to accepted theories, the spread of humans throughout the world originated in movements from Africa to Asia and then to Europe, while Oceania and America were later destination areas (Guinness 2002). King (1994: 7–8) refers to key migratory movements in the pre-modern era such as the migration of Aryans (2000–1700 BC), migration and colonisation in ancient Greece and when ancient Greece was under the Roman rule, Islamic expansion from 640 to 1250 AD and the invasion of Muslims from the Mogul empire to central Asia (1200–1700 AD), Islamic migrations to Africa related to the development of the slave trade and other commercial activities and Slavic migration from 600 to 900 AD. Approaching the modern era (that is from 1492 onwards when Columbus ‘discovered’ America), migratory movements are closely linked to the gradual formation of global and/or regional labour markets and to the setting of the preconditions for the establishment and deepening of capitalist relations of production. From its beginning, capitalist expansion was based on the use of migrant labour (forced, voluntary and semi-voluntary) through colonialism and the related development of the slave trade and of indentured (‘coolie’) labour mobility (Castles and Miller 2003). European colonisation of large parts of the globe led to migratory movements of Europeans to Africa, Asia, the Americas and Oceania (Castles and Miller 2003). During the phase of ‘mercantile capitalism’, from 1500 to 1800 European ‘emigrants generally fell into four classes: a relatively large number of agrarian settlers, a smaller number of administrators and artisans, an even smaller number of entrepreneurs who founded plantations to produce raw materials for Europe’s growing mercantilist economies, and in a few cases, convict migrants sent to penal colonies overseas’ (Massey 2003: 1).

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Low productivity of plantation and mining production in the Americas and urgent needs for cheap and abundant labour, led to the development of the slave trade, mainly from various areas of Africa (Massey 2003, Castles and Miller 2003): The slave trade was organized in the notorious ‘triangular trade’: ships laden with manufactured goods, such as guns or household implements, sailed from ports such as Bristol and Liverpool, Bordeaux and Le Havre, to the coasts of West Africa. There Africans were either forcibly abducted or were purchased from local chiefs or traders in return for goods. Then the ships sailed to the Caribbean or the coasts of North or South America, where the slaves were sold for cash. This was used to purchase the products of the plantations, which were brought back for sale in Europe. (Castles and Miller 2003: 53)

It is estimated that between 1600 and 1900 10.24 million slaves from Africa were transported to the Americas (Lovejoy 2000). After the abolition of slavery in the British Empire (1833) and especially in the USA (1863–1865), labour availability was guaranteed through the development of the system of indentured (‘coolie’) labour. Castles and Miller (2003: 55) point out that ‘[A]ccording to Potts (1990: 63-103) indentured workers were used in 40 countries by all the major colonial powers. She estimates that the system involved 12 to 37 million workers between 1843 and 1941, when indentureship was finally abolished in the Dutch colonies’. The system was abolished gradually from 1878 in Malaya to 1920 in Fiji and India, while in the Dutch colonies indentured labour was abolished in 1941 (King 1994). 2.1.2 Industrialisation, Capitalist Development and Internal Migration Due to the exploitation of the colonies and of migrant labour of various types, capital accumulation accelerated in the major areas of the global core after the eighteenth century (Castles and Miller 2003). This acceleration, along with the deepening of capitalist relations of production to urban and rural areas, was simultaneously based on and caused by massive internal movements of peasants to the dynamic, predominately urban, areas of manufactured production. Different countries and areas in Europe followed various paths of industrialisation, urbanisation and internal population mobility as regards time and characteristics. Thus, in Britain, where industrial development accelerated rapidly after the end of the eighteenth century, internal migration resulted in balancing urban and rural population in 1850 (Mousourou 1990: 13). In other countries, urbanisation reached the same levels much later, notably in Germany in 1890, France in 1930, in the Soviet Union in 1960 and in Greece just in 1970 (Mousourou 1990: 13). Nevertheless in many other countries and areas the rate of urbanisation and internal migratory movements was faster. Thus:

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By 1801 nearly one-tenth of the population of England and Wales was living in cities of over 100,000 people. This proportion doubled in 40 years and doubled again in another 60 years. As the process of the Industrial Revolution spread to other countries, the pace of urbanisation quickened. The change from a population of 10% to 30% living in urban areas of over 100,000 people took 80 years in England and Wales; 66 years in the USA; 48 years in Germany; 36 years in Japan and 26 years in Australia. (Guinness 2002: 38)

Rapid urbanisation, mainly due to internal migrations, resulted in 135 urban centres over 100,000 people in Europe in 1900, while in 1800 the number of urban centres over 100,000 was only 23 (Bade 2003). Nevertheless, internal migration during the era of Industrial Revolution was not a peaceful process. It was a process according to which people from rural areas seeking to improve life standards and find employment opportunities were moving to cities. Urbanisation has been related to rapid and often extreme violent social changes, both in rural and urban areas, associated with the, often forced, generation of those conditions that transformed traditional peasants into industrial labourers. It entailed the destruction of traditional agrarian economies and communities as well as subsistence agriculture, due to the proliferation of market relations; it often faced significant social resistance both in rural settings and in urban areas after internal mobility had occurred. In the exemplary case of Britain, this process of internal migration, industrialisation and urbanisation is inextricably intertwined with the ‘enclosures’ in rural settings (Castles and Miller 2003) and with the infamous ‘poor laws’ in urban centres (Brundage 2001). ‘Enclosure’ refers to the transformation of communal, ‘open’ lands (mainly grazing fields) into arable lands under private property. Enclosures do not have to be equated with just dividing and ‘fencing’ former communal fields; they can correspond to more fundamental processes such as establishing private property rights, dismantling communal rights, overcoming land segmentation and enhancing consolidation of property (Neeson 1993). Thus ‘enclosure involved the removal of communal rights, controls or ownership over a piece of land and its conversion into ‘severalty’; that is a state where the owner had sole control over its use, and of access to it’ (Kain et al. 2004: 1). Despite considerable social resistance, enclosures succeeded, causing rural depopulation, rapid deterioration of life chances in rural areas and extended population movements towards urban centres. Nevertheless, new internal migrants from rural areas did not automatically conform to the requirements of the new industrial system of production in cities. Thus, once again, capitalism had to rely on new forms of forced labour in order to enhance accumulation (Castles and Miller 2003). This was accomplished with the passing of ‘poor laws’ in England and the associated establishment of poor workhouses (Brundage 2001). The main purpose of the laws and the system of workhouses was to discipline potential industrial labourers who were mainly wanderers and beggars in the cities, and who resisted being engaged with the

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new types of dependent work. Thus, laws of this kind were passed to ‘control the displaced farmers and artisans, the ‘hordes of beggars’ who threatened public order. Workhouses and poorhouses were often the first form of manufacture, where the disciplinary instruments of the future factory system were developed and tested’ (Castles and Miller 2003: 56). Conditions in the poorhouses were deliberately appalling in order to increase the attractiveness of – in many cases equally appalling – working conditions in factories (Crowther 1981). In reality, the workhouse and poorhouse system was a tool for imposing involuntary forms of labour on internal migrants, continuing the proto-capitalist ‘tradition’ of forced and unfree labour use. 2.1.3 International Migration before World War II The period of intense industrialisation in Europe and internal population mobility within it, coincided broadly with mass migrations from Europe to the Americas elsewhere (Entzinger and Fermin 2008). From 1815 to 1930 about 50 million immigrants arrived in the Americas, 32.6 million of which to the USA, 4.7 million to Canada, 3.5 million to Australia, 4.3 million to Brazil and 6.4 million to Argentina (Baines 1991: 8). Other destinations included South Africa and New Zealand (King 1994). The nine more significant sources of these migration movements, as regards number of immigrants, were Britain (11.4 million), Italy (9.9 million), Ireland (7.3 million), Austria-Hungary (5 million) Germany including Prussian Poland (4.8 million), Spain (4.4 million), Russia – including Russian Poland – (3.1 million), Portugal (1.8 million) and Sweden (1.2 million) (Baines 1991: 9). This type of pre-war mass migratory movement, mainly towards the ‘new world’ shaped, to a great extent, the subsequent global socio-economic and political developments as it set the socio-demographic and economic preconditions of North American power domination in the twentieth century. It is more than evident that those transatlantic mass movements of people played the most important role in the emergence of a new global order, replacing the old, dominated by the British Empire. Furthermore, migration ‘discourse’, along with the realities of massive movements, was a constitutive element of ‘nation building’ for countries such as the USA and Australia (Castles and Miller 2003). The main causes of those movements may be summarised as follows: –– Rural out-migration during the period of industrialisation resulted in rapid urbanisation due to internal migrations but simultaneously, and especially in the early twentieth century, to transcontinental mobility mainly to the Americas and Australia. The lure of vast ‘open spaces’ in North America was an important motive for this mobility (Ventura 2006). –– Industrialisation in North America led to an increased demand for labour accommodating a large proportion of new immigrants in the area (Ventura 2006). –– The demographic dynamism of Europe, at that time, was one of the most

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important factors of trans-continental mobility. As Moussourou (1991) stresses, the European population reached 266 million people in 1850 from 187 million just 50 years before. Thus, as population increase in Europe followed a faster pace than that in other parts of the world, migration to other continents served as a social ‘safety-valve’ (King 1994: 17). –– Some necessary preconditions for those massive movements were present at that period; they were mainly related to rapid technological advances in transportation and to the functioning of commercial and capital exchange networks between Europe and North America (Bade 2003). Before 1920, migration to North America was free but between 1921 and 1924 the introduction of the ‘quota system’ imposed barriers to prospective immigrants of non-Anglo-Saxon origin, and mass migrations in the area ended with the economic crisis of 1929 (Mousourou 1991: 29). Other types of migratory movement in the pre-war period include intra-European labour migrations from countries such as Poland, Ireland and Italy to industrial centres of England, Germany and France (Entzinger and Fermin 2008) and refugee movements, ‘because of political and religious persecution (Jews fleeing the pogroms in Russia to England but also the USA, Armenians fleeing the massacres of the Turkish army, many of them received by France) and civil conflicts (the Russian Revolution) and world wars’ (Entzinger and Fermin 2008: 19). As far as the first type of migration during the inter-war period is concerned, France was the most popular destination with about 567,000 immigrants entering the country between 1920 and 1930, mainly because of demographic reasons (Entzinger and Fermin 2008). Finally, a total number of about 7.5 million involuntary immigrants were brought to Nazi Germany in order to substitute German conscripts (Castles and Miller 2003: 65). 2.1.4 International Migration after World War II The period after World War II was marked by various types of migratory movements both within Europe and between Europe and other countries. Castles and Miller (2003: 68–9) as well as Entzinger and Fermin (2008: 20–21) stress that the main types were labour, ‘guestworker’ migrations within Europe, migrations from former colonies to former colonial countries and permanent, settlement migrations from Europe to North America and from Asia and Latin America to Australia. The successful reconstruction of Western Europe after World War II and the introduction of the Fordist model of mass production resulted in labour shortages and urgent need for imported labour so that Western Europe could keep pace with accelerated capital accumulation. The main sources of migration towards north-western Europe were the peripheral countries of southern Europe and the Balkans, notably Italy, Greece, Spain, Portugal, Yugoslavia and Turkey (Bade 2003). The main destination countries were Belgium, France, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and

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the United Kingdom (Castles and Miller 2003). By 1975, the percentages of immigrant workers with regards to total population in the preceding destination countries varied from 2.6% in the Netherlands to 16% in Switzerland; the same percentage was 6.6% in FRG, 7.9% in France and 8.5% in Belgium (Castles and Miller 2003: 73). Apart from rapid economic development in the north-west, especially after 1955, labour shortages came about for a variety of other reasons as well, some of which included demographic deficiencies, the extension of educational duration and certain changes in work and life preferences of local populations (Ventura 2006). Changes in work and life preferences occurred because people had greater opportunities for upward social mobility within conditions of accelerated prosperity and full employment (Mousourou 1991). At the other end of this migration system, there are some factors that explain the ‘push’ towards emigration. The most significant of those factors were demographic dynamism, low GDP per capita and high mean income differentials between source and destination areas, substantial social and economic inequality within source countries – resulting both in internal and international movements – structural unemployment and underemployment, poverty and geographical proximity (Mousourou 1991, Bade 2003, Ventura 2006). Labour migrations towards north-west Europe featured primarily their industrial and more or less organised character (Ventura 1994). The main sectors of immigrant employment in destination countries were the mining, iron and steel industries, metallurgy, automobile manufacturing, public works, construction and to some extent, agricultural production in France (Castles and Miller 2003, Ventura 2006). Migratory movements of this type were in most cases highly organised. This entailed bilateral agreements between prospective source and destination countries along with the establishment of special recruiting agencies in source countries. Thus, to give but one example, in 1946 Italy and Belgium signed an agreement which guaranteed a possible recruitment of 2,000 Italian immigrants to Belgium per week (Ventura 1994: 48). But it was the Federal Republic of Germany that made the paradigmatic case of the ‘guestworker’ system in the postwar era. West Germany established recruitment offices in various countries such as Italy, Spain, Greece, Turkey, Morocco, Portugal, Tunisia and Yugoslavia acting as selection agencies of appropriate prospective immigrants. By 1973, 2.6 million immigrants had gone to West Germany (Castles and Miller 2003). Recruitment was based on granting annual contracts to prospective immigrants and on the system of ‘rotation’ (King 1994). By giving the migrants annual contracts which could be renewed or revoked at the whim of the employer, German capital was assured of a flexible labour supply which could be repatriated during a recession – as happened during 1966–67 when the number of migrant workers in West Germany dropped by a third. The constant ‘rotation’ of foreign workers minimised their ability to put down roots in West Germany. Thus the German economy was relieved of the costs of reproduction of labour – the feeding, clothing, and upbringing of

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migrants had already been taken care of by their home countries. By admitting only single workers, social support costs for families were avoided. And by returning them to their home countries through the rotation policy, no costs of non-productive old age were required. (King 1994: 25).

The Fordist model of capital accumulation – which was characterised by mass production, mass consumption (and mass migrations as well), industrial expansion, reliance on the ‘depth’ of internal markets as well as on strengthening of worker unions and state welfare policies – proved to be a great success for more than two decades and resulted in booming the economies of north-west of Europe in the post-war era. Nevertheless, due to workers’ increased mobilisation, intensification and routinisation of work, saturation of demand, slow-down of productivity, profits and growth rates as well as the oil crisis of 1973, the model gradually declined (Iosifides 1997a). Fordism’s demise in north-west Europe radically affected labour migration within Europe. Thus, after the UK and Switzerland, the Federal Republic of Germany abandoned official organised migration in 1973, followed by France and Belgium in 1974 (Iosifides 1997a). Yet, changes in official migration policies have not prevented the continuation of migratory movements or even an increase of inflows mainly due to family reunification (Mousourou 1991). Moreover, regulations under ‘guestworker systems’ and migration policy change affected only moderately immigrants’ tendencies for permanent settlement in north-west European countries (Ventura 2006). What definitely had changed for good were the political and economic structural features along with the policy framework that had allowed and caused mass intra-European organised migrations to occur. Another type of post-war migratory movement was related to mobility of immigrants from the former colonies towards the former colonial powers after decolonisation. Political, social, economic and cultural ties (see Faist 2000) between the former colonies and former colonial powers resulted in almost spontaneous mobility among them (Entzinger and Fermin 2008). ‘Especially Britain, France, the Netherlands, and Portugal, and to a lesser degree Belgium, experienced largescale migration from the former colonies. The UK received migrants from (ex-) colonies in the Caribbean and the Indian sub-continent. France received a massive inflow especially form Algeria in the early 1960s’ (Entzinger and Fermin 2008: 21). Thus, up to 1975 about 7 million immigrants from former colonies were present in various European ex-colonial powers (Bade 2003). At the first stages of this move, migration from ex-colonies was virtually unrestricted, but this policy changed partly due to the pressure exercised by racist organisations and far-right parties (Bade 2003). As a result, the 1962 Commonwealth Immigrants Act in the UK imposed restrictions on ‘non-white’ immigrants’ moving into the country (Bade 2003). A significant element explaining this policy shift is related to proliferation of discourses about ‘race’ and ‘race relations’ in Britain associated with the alleged social and cultural non-assimilability of ‘coloured’ Commonwealth immigrants in the ‘host’ society (Carter 2000).

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Finally, a further type of migratory movements in the post-war period was permanent, settlement migration from Europe to North America and from Asia and Latin America to Australia. The distinctive feature of the post-war intercontinental migratory movements was the significant shift in their direction. Now the main destinations were Canada and Australia. As Castles and Miller (2003: 75) stress: Canada followed policies of mass migration after 1945. At first only Europeans were admitted. Most entrants were British, but Eastern and Southern Europeans soon played an increased role. The largest immigrant streams in the 1950s and 1960s were of Germans, Italians and Dutch. The introduction of a nondiscriminatory ‘points system’ for screening potential migrants after the 1966 White Paper opened the door for non-European migrants. (Castles and Miller 2003: 75)

In post-war Australia, immigration was strongly encouraged for economic and demographic reasons, and up to 1973 approximately 3 million immigrants migrated to the country; 1.2 million from the UK and about 1.3 million from other European countries (Mousourou 1991, Castles and Miller 2003). 2.1.5 Contemporary Trends in International Population Movements Economic crises in the wealthier countries after 1974 – due to the decline of the Fordist model of mass production – led to lingering efforts to restore the profit-rate and reverse downturns in productivity. Termed ‘socio-economic restructuring’, those efforts resulted in a series of significant socio-economic transformations which affected the character and directions of global migratory movements in a distinct way. A thorough analysis of the vast restructuring and economic globalisation literature exceeds the purposes of the present section. Nevertheless, efforts to overcome the ‘rigidities’ of Fordism led to the adoption of a production model characterised by greater flexibility, with regards both to the geographical mobility and allocation of various business and productive units and resources, as well as to the functions and reorganisation of the labour process. The transition from Fordism to the new model, known as ‘flexible specialisation’, has entailed the partial abandonment of standardised, mass production patterns in favour of specialised production for fragmented and equally specialised markets and market niches (Iosifides 1997a). Although the universality, the extent and the depth of the transition from Fordism to flexible specialisation (or flexible accumulation) is questioned, it is widely acknowledged that socio-economic restructuring processes have resulted in a series of novel social, economic and labour market developments. These developments are related mainly to the drop or slack of industrial employment in wealthier countries, the increase of self-employment and the tertiary sector, the trend towards more casualisation of the labour force, informalisation of certain sectors of economic activity, the increase of long term unemployment, the

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gradual formation of a segmented labour market (schematically divided between ‘primary’ and ‘secondary’ parts), acceleration of the internationalisation of capital, growing substitution of unskilled labour by technology and increased employment differentiation across age, gender or ‘ethnic’ lines (Pugliese 1993, Castles and Miller 2003: 78). Castles and Miller (2003: 79) summarise contemporary trends in international population movements caused by socio-economic restructuring processes, as follows: (a) broad decline of government-organised labour migration to Western Europe followed by emergence of a second generation of temporary foreign workers policies in 1990s; (b) family reunion of former foreign workers and colonial workers, and formation of new ethnic minorities; (c) transition of many Southern and Central European countries from countries of emigration to countries of immigration; (d) continuation of migration to the ‘classical immigration countries’ of North America and Oceania, but with considerable shifts in the areas of origin and the forms of migration; (e) new migratory movements (both internal and international) connected with economic and social change in NICs; (f) recruitment of foreign labour, mainly from less developed countries, by oil-rich countries; (g) development of mass movements of refugees and asylum seekers, generally moving from South to North, but also (especially after the collapse of the Soviet Bloc) from East to West; (h) increasing international mobility of highly-qualified personnel, in both temporary and permanent flows; (i) proliferation of illegal migration and legalisation policies. (Castles and Miller 2003: 79). The complexity of the current situation regarding international population movements becomes evident if we turn our attention to the various categories of people crossing international borders. Thus labour migration, within poorer and between poorer and wealthier countries, continues occurring either on a permanent or on temporary basis. Skilled and irregular migration is on the rise together with an increase in refugee and asylum seekers movements (Castles 2000). Furthermore, since the 1960s the number of women migrants increased to a significant degree (Castles and Miller 2003); in 2000 almost 50% of international migrants were women (UN 2004). The ‘feminisation’ of migration is related to various changes in production processes and relations despite the fact that the acknowledgement of female migrants as autonomous and significant came with great delay. In this respect, ‘feminisation’ of migration refers both to real societal changes and to the contemporary (much delayed) shift towards theorising the

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migration of women. As Nancy Green (2004: 141) points out, the feminisation of migration in the United States in 1930 was reported in an article only in 1984. Now, regarding contemporary estimates of the number of international migrants globally, according to the United Nations World Economic and Social Survey (2004), those were about 175 million in 2000, while Lowell (2007) estimates the same figure to be 190 million in 2005. Since the beginning of the twentieth century international migration increased fivefold while the global population increased less than fourfold (UN 2004). The direction of international migration shifted towards the wealthier countries during the last four decades. Only about 37% of the total number of international migrants moved to a poorer country during this period (UN 2004). International migrants are also concentrated geographically within the core countries. Therefore in 2000 the United States was ‘host’ of about 35 million international migrants (about 20% of the total), the Russian Federation 1.3 million (7.6%), Germany 7.3 million (4.2%), Ukraine 6.9 million (4%) and France 6.3 million (3.6%) (UN 2004: 30). Geographical concentration is evident in source countries as well as only three countries, China, India and the Philippines, account for about 63 million international migrants (35, 20 and 7 million respectively).1 The total number of international migrants may seem high in absolute terms but it accounts for only a very small fraction of the total world population (about 3%), whereas the volume of internal migration, especially within poorer countries is much higher. To give but one example, only in India, about 24 million people were internal migrants (living outside the State they were born in) in 1981 (UN 2004: 25). Faist (2000: 81, 94) addresses the question of low immobility out of most places and relative high mobility out of few places stressing factors such as the asymmetric dependence between emigration and immigration countries, the differentiation in granting rights to immigrants (access to labour markets, civil, social, political and citizenship rights) between Western Europe/North America and peripheral countries (for example, the Arab gulf countries) and the function of migratory networking systems. The global distribution of international migrants for 2000 is as follows;2, 3 Europe (including the European part of the former USSR) 1  http://images.gmanews.tv/html/research/2007/12/world_migration_report_2005. htm (accessed: 7 September 2009). 2  http://images.gmanews.tv/html/research/2007/12/world_migration_report_2005. htm (accessed: 7 September 2009). 3  Southern European countries (Italy, Greece, Spain and Portugal) have been transformed from source to destination areas since the late 1970s. It is estimated that in the 1990s at least 2 million and probably closer to 3 million immigrants resided in southern European countries (Iosifides and King 1996). The main reasons for this transformation are related to the relative ease of entry, geographical proximity with various source countries, the narrowing of economic gap between southern and north-western Europe, the Mediterranean demographic divide and the demand for cheap labour due to socio-economic restructuring and the persistence of the informal economy (Iosifides and King 1996). Nevertheless, it should be noted that, for example, in Greece delayed acknowledgment

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‘hosts’ 56.1 million immigrants (7.7% of the European population), Asia 49.9 million (1.4% of Asian population), North America 40.8 million (12.9% of the total North American population), Africa 16.3 million (2% of African population), Latin America 5.9 million (1.1% of Latin American population) and Australia 5.8 million (18.7% of the Australian population). Now let me examine some key types of contemporary population movements, namely labour and temporary migration, irregular migration, skilled migration and refugee/asylum seekers movements, placing special emphasis on Europe. Continuing international labour migration in the contemporary era is a phenomenon which is linked directly not only with the ‘push’ factors in the source countries but also to specific ‘pull’, labour demand factors in various sectors of economic activity or labour market segments in destination countries. As Sassen (1988: 43) points out: First, the advanced industrialised countries continue to employ immigrant labour as they did in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. But the number of developing countries supplying labour is growing and immigrant workers are claiming a larger share of urban service jobs. Second, rapid industrialisation in the oil-exporting countries has generated a major international labour flow. Third, labour import and export policies suggest immigrants are increasingly being seen as a commodity. (Sassen 1988: 43)

What partly explains the continuing demand for cheap immigrant labour in wealthier countries is the interrelated processes of globalisation and internationalisation of production, labour market segmentation, informalisation of certain sectors or subsectors of economic activity and tertiarisation. These processes result in the polarisation of labour demand between high-skilled, relatively protected and low-skilled, casual, and in many cases, informal jobs (King 1994). Globalisation processes and the emergence of global cities results in, predominately female, migratory movements in export-led zones in poorer countries and in increased complementarity between innovative, dynamic sectors and economic activities as well as in demand of low-skilled, often informal immigrant labour (Iosifides 1997a). With regard to the former process, active labour market participation of women in the labour markets of peripheral countries leads to changes in traditional rural economies and international male and female migratory movements. Thus, internationalisation of production and investments in poorer countries does not necessarily ease migratory pressures. On the contrary, introduction and proliferation of market relations often lead to an increase rather than to a decrease of movements (Iosifides 1997a). As regards the latter process: of its transformation to an immigration country has also been related to the persistence of official discourses on ‘cultural homogeneity’ and the associated self-image of ‘cultural integrity and unity’ (Ventura 2004).

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies The expansion of high quality services in global cities requires a large complementary amount of low-waged jobs. Many components of high income gentrification are labour intensive: residential building attendants, workers producing services or goods for specialty and gourmet food shops, dog walkers, errand runners, cleaners of all sorts and so on (Sassen 1988). (Iosifides 1997a: 43–4)

Of course, the above processes do not solely explain international labour migratory movements. Globalisation is much more complex, entailing simultaneously both mobility and immobility of labour. Thus, the ability of certain segments of capital to move around the globe and to relocate where the terms of accumulation are more favourable, results in putting pressures for labour immobility (Papastergiadis 2000). This ability has been noted by the New International Division of Labour (NIDL) thesis, according to which ‘from the 1960s onwards, large companies within the more developed countries elected to relocate an ever great part of the production process in the developing world in order to increase profits by drawing on the lower labour costs than were possible on the so called ‘core economies’ (Gould and Findlay 1994: 23). Furthermore, understanding international population movements requires a thorough examination of the crucial role that various actors, other than capital and economic interests, play such as states, political pressure groups and parties, civil society and rights advocacy organisations. The ‘growing politicization of migration’ (Castles and Miller 2003: 9) along with the securitisation of international population movements, explains a great part of the directions of official migration policies both at an international and national level (Bade 2003, Papadopoulos 2007). Labour migratory movements, especially in Europe, were affected significantly by the demise of the central planning regimes of Eastern Europe and the former USSR in the early 1990s. In 2002/2003 in Western Europe, there were about 10 million registered labour migrants, 37% higher than that of 1995, although in Southern European countries4 a great proportion of this increase was a result of regularisation programmes (Salt 2005). Furthermore, temporary labour migration has been increasing in the last 10 years, with the USA being the most popular destination country (UN 2004). Temporary labour migrants fill low-skill shortages mainly in sectors such as services and agriculture, and are often regulated either by bilateral or multilateral agreements or by provisions of regional organisations such as NAFTA (UN 2004). Thus, in 2000–2001, there were about 530,000 temporary migrants in the United States, 330,000 in Germany, 200,000 in Japan, 132,000 in the UK, 128,000 in Australia and 56,000 in Switzerland (UN 2004: 128). Lastly, a type of significant contemporary labour migratory movement is that of irregular migration. Of course, and due to its very character, the volume of irregular migration is extremely difficult or even impossible to estimate with precision, despite the fact that a series of direct or indirect methods (multiplier, 4  My translation from Greek original.

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self identification, survey methods and residual estimation, demographic methods etc.) are used for approximate estimates (see Jandl et al. 2008). It is estimated that in 2001, there were about 3.3 irregular immigrants in Western Europe, while Europol estimates the annual ‘inflow’ of irregular immigrants into the EU at half a million (UN 2004: 47). The tendency to impose legal migration restrictions internationally, the development of common EU border control policies and the gradual formation of ‘fortress Europe’ (Jordan and Düvell 2002), along with the absence of international comprehensive policies dealing with the causes of population mobility have led to the development of the so-called ‘migration industry’; that is human smuggling and trafficking (Castles and Miller 2003: 115). The vast extent and impact of those organised activities are far from evident as it is estimated that they involve about 200 million people globally, whereas profits reach about 10 billion US dollars annually (Castles and Miller 2003: 116). Nowadays, reorganisation and internationalisation of production have deep impacts not only on labour migratory movements but also on movements of skilled, qualified persons. As King (1994: 32) claims ‘[T]he growth of world trade and the international expansion of business have produced a well-developed international market for skilled and highly-educated labour’. Contemporary skilled migration may be divided into two major types (King 1994); the first type, which takes place mainly within the wealthy world, is related to movements between different locations around the globe but, in most cases, within the same company. The development of the so-called ‘internal labour markets’ by multi-national companies results in combining upward social mobility, promotion, change of duties or transferring to another departments with relocation and geographical movement. The second type occurs mainly between peripheral and core countries and is known as ‘brain drain’. ‘Brain drain’ entails the movement of highly educated persons from peripheral to core countries due to unemployment, underemployment or limited life chances in their countries of origin. Skilled migration has been on the rise since the 1990s, as it is considered of great importance, and actively encouraged by wealthier countries. Thus, in 2001/2002, there were 175,000 skilled immigrants in the United States, including their family members, 137,000 in Canada, 54,000 in Australia and 40,000 in the United Kingdom. For the purposes of comparison, the same numbers in 1991 were 12,000, 41,000, 41,000 and 4,000 respectively (UN 2004: 49). On the one hand, the preceding types of contemporary migratory movements are mainly perceived as ‘voluntary’, although in many instances social, economic and cultural forces put voluntary migration choice into perspective. On the other hand, refugee and asylum seekers’ movements are in most cases involuntary as they entail displacement due to political, ‘ethnic’ or religious persecution, famines, war, or environmental disasters. ‘Having risen from 4.1 million in 1976–80 to over 12 million in 1986–90, the number of refugees in developing countries stabilized during 1991–1995 and fell to some 8 million during 1996–2000’ (UN 2004: 171). The fall in the number of refugees in the rich world in recent years may be seen as a result of a growing unwillingness by wealthy countries to admit Third World

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refugees (Bade 2003: 265) and not as a result of mitigating the root causes of involuntary displacement. The same tendencies of hostility against refugees have also been observed for asylum seekers as well (although in varying degrees across countries). Thus, as Salt (25–6) points out: ‘[S]everal destination countries have also put into operation asylum reduction models designed to interdict flows, curtail administrative processes and reduce benefits to asylum seekers’. Concerning general trends of asylum applications in the developed world, ‘[D]uring the period 1999–2003, 2.8 million asylum claims were lodged in the industrialized countries, 16 per cent more than in the previous five-year period’ (UN 2004: 182). The preceding, inevitably incomplete and partial, discussion of migration-related processes and phenomena in the twentieth century and in the contemporary era nevertheless indicates their complexity, multifacetedness and multidimensionality. It also sets the ‘factual’ scene for the brief critical examination of attempts to theorise and explain migration-related phenomena in the next section. 2.2 Explaining Migration: Main Theoretical Frameworks This section contains a relatively brief discussion of the main attempts to theorise the migratory phenomenon, or, to be more precise, to theorise various aspects of it. The migration process is extremely complex and multi-faceted and thus any attempt to produce any coherent theoretical frameworks about it leads inevitably to a confinement to some dimensions of the process and to addressing only some fundamental questions related, for example, to the causes of movements, their direction, their impacts and consequences, their dynamics and so on. Furthermore, theories of migration usually tend to focus only on some migratory types, such as internal migration, international migration, refugee movements, labour or skilled migration, although their range may have been proven to be much broader. Theoretical frameworks, discussed below, are not exceptions, although there have been attempts by some scholars to capture the totality of the phenomenon. Nevertheless, every theoretical framework either generic or more specialised, not only in migration studies but in social sciences in general, implicitly (and some times explicitly) adopts a certain view on the nature of social reality (ontology), the means of knowledge production (epistemology) and on the appropriate research practices (methodology). Those implicit assumptions of migration theories will be critically examined subsequently. 2.2.1 Micro-level Theories Micro-level theories originate mainly from economics and their basic feature is related to the level of analysis, considered to be central for theorising migratory movements; that is the individual or other types of atomistic units such as the household or the business unit. According to Faist (2000: 31), micro-level theories put special emphasis on individuals’ values and expectations and on individual

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choices aiming at ‘improving and securing survival, wealth, status, comfort, stimulation, autonomy, affiliation and morality’. Probably the most influential attempt to theorise migratory movements, within the micro-level framework, is that of neoclassical economics. Earlier efforts, connected with neoclassical thinking, include Ravenstein’s ‘laws of migration’ and what is widely known as ‘push–pull’ theories (Castles and Miller 2003). These theories consist mainly of a list of numerous factors which result in attracting individuals in certain areas and motivating them to leave the areas of their residence. Although their explanatory power is rather limited, they are based on the same premises of the ‘utility-maximising individual’ that characterise later neoclassical theories as well. According to these later neoclassical theories, the rational, utility-maximising, individual actor opts for migratory behaviour which leads, at the aggregate level, to an equilibrium between supply and demand for labour in different geographical areas and an eventual equalisation of productionfactor prices (Mousourou 1990). This line of argument became the springboard of the so-called ‘modernisation theory’ according to which ‘the movement of people from areas that had abundant labor but scarce capital to areas that were rich in capital but short of labor would ultimately contribute to economic development in both sending and host societies’ (Brettell 2008: 102–3). Within this framework and, concerning primarily internal migration within poor countries, the ‘dual economy’ model theorises migratory movements between ‘a labour-rich agricultural sector and a modernising industrial urban sector where labour is in demand’ (Iosifides 1997a, see also Lewis 1954, Fei and Ranis 1964). According to this model: the rate of labour absorption depends on the rigidity of the rate of capital accumulation in the industrial sector of the dualistic economy and on the strength and character of innovational activities. Labour is assumed to be abundant and its marginal productivity to be near zero in rural areas; also wages are assumed to be at the subsistence level. The industrial sector of a dualistic economy then can have at its disposal virtually unlimited supplies of labour at a subsistent wage level determined by institutional forces. The procedure of labour reallocation will stop when the rate of economic growth matches the rate of population growth and when wages rise to a level at which further expansion of the capitalist sector will be unprofitable. (Iosifides 1997a: 18)

For neoclassical equilibrium theories, migration patterns at the macro-level are merely aggregations of micro-processes instantiated by rational individual choices. Thus, individuals respond rationally to wage, cost and benefit differentials between geographical areas, resulting in matching labour supply and demand across different spatial units. Regarding the role of state, neoclassical theories view it ‘as an aberration which disrupts the normal functioning of the market’ (Castles and Miller 2003: 24). The main assumptions of neoclassical migration theories may be summarized as follows:

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–– Individuals are characterised by utility-maximising capacities resulting in rational calculation of costs, benefits and risks of movement. This process presupposes availability of accurate information about labour market conditions, wage differentials and risks in different geographical areas (Sjaastad 1962, Todaro 1969, 1976, Castles and Miller 2003, de Haas 2008). –– ‘Normal’ functioning of the markets leads to equilibrium and factor price equalisation. This process entails movements of labour and capital across space (de Haas 2008). –– Human capital characteristics of individuals play a crucial role in what is termed ‘migration selectivity’. (Chiswick 2008, de Haas 2008) Rational micro-level theories also include the theoretical framework known as ‘the new economics of migration’ (see Keely 2008). Within this framework, the unit of analysis shifts from the individual to the household or the family. New economics of migration along with ‘the household approach’ (Iosifides 1997a) attempt to accommodate factors and processes other than individual choices in theories of migratory decision-making. Those factors are mainly related to the role of collectivities as mediators between structural, broader socio-economic and political factors and individuals’ choices and actions (Iosifides 1997a). However, those theoretical attempts fail, to a great extent, to overcome the limitations of neoclassical thinking, as utility maximising rationality remains their main premise despite the change in the level of analysis. Thus, ‘focus on households does not resolve the impasse between individuals and structures because the approach merely reiterates a family element to the neo-classical individual’s cost-benefit analysis. Household and individual calculations remain separate and the household indistinguishable from other external structures’ (Iosifides 1997a: 34). The main lines of a general critique of micro-level migration theories are related (1) to false assumptions about universal human rationality – that is, the kind of rationality characterising the ‘economic man’; (2) negligence of historical contexts of social processes, of broader structural socio-economic, political and cultural powers and generative mechanisms and of the deeply social character of relations of production (Wood 1982, Mousourou 1990, Iosifides 1997a); (3) limited explanatory and predictive power and disagreement with various empirical research findings (Castles and Miller 2003). From a critical realist perspective, micro-level theories fail to explain migratory movements in a satisfactory manner due to problems inherent in those paradigms such as methodological individualism, positivistic empiricism and inadequate theorising of the relations between structure and agency (Archer 1995). 2.2.2 Structuralist Theories Structuralist or historical-structural migration theories are mainly based on Marxist, neo-Marxist and other radical traditions and shift their interest from

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the micro- to the macro-level of societal developments, contradictions and transformations. Structuralist theories explain population movements by stressing the importance of historical processes and social relations such as class antagonism and struggle, labour exploitation and capital accumulation, uneven spatial development and the role of reserve army in the reproduction of the capitalist mode of production (Iosifides 1997a, Papastergiadis 2000). Structuralist approaches view population movements as serving the interests of global capital and as an integral part of capital accumulation worldwide. The role of state, within those approaches, is to accommodate the processes of capital accumulation in the most appropriate ways (Papastergiadis 2000) and uneven spatial development is conceptualised not only as a mere outcome of capitalist relations of production but as a necessary precondition of capital accumulation and capitalist expansion (Iosifides 1997a). ‘Central to the structuralist theory of migration is the concept of the ‘reserve army’, which is drawn from Marx’s account of the relationship between employment opportunity and the cycles of capitalist expansion and contraction. A precondition of expanding industrial expansion is the availability of cheap and dispensable labour’ (Papastergiadis 2000: 32–3). Thus, within the historical-structuralist framework, migratory movements are seen as a necessary and integral part of the social reproduction of a system which is inherently characterised by socio-economic and spatial inequalities and by exploitative social relations (de Haas 2008). Among the most prominent theorists within the structuralist perspective are Amin (1973, 1974), Baran (1957), Frank (1967) and Wallerstein (1979). Amin theorised the process of unequal development within the capitalist mode of production and Baran and Frank expanded this notion by analysing the ‘development of underdevelopment’ process and the mechanisms of dependency between peripheral and core-metropolitan countries (Iosifides 1997a). Wallerstein’s world systems theory points to the necessity of spatial inequalities and unequal exchange for the reproduction and expansion of the global capitalist economy (Iosifides 1997a): Migration then must be considered as a response to demands of the core and a result of push from the peripheral countries at the same time. It also must be considered as an important element of the world capitalist system, necessary for the continuation of the accumulation of capital; as a mechanism for the core to exploit the periphery. (Iosifides 1997a: 28)

Structuralist approaches received a great amount of criticism along different lines. For example, de Haas (2008: 8) points out that: There is increasing consensus that capitalism as such cannot be blamed for the problems of underdevelopment, but that the specific developmental effects of incorporation of a region or country into the global capitalist system seems to depend much more on the conditions under which this takes place, that is,

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies how the incorporation is embedded into wider institutional structures as well as the internal socio-political cohesion and economic strength of countries and regions. Thus, depending on these circumstances, the incorporation into global capitalism can have both positive and negative effects in different areas of development and on different groups of people within society. In the same vein, (labour) migration cannot automatically be interpreted as a desperate flight from misery, not only because it is seldom the poorest who migrate, but also because we can at least not logically rule out the possibility that migration facilitates development through reverse flows of capital (remittances), knowledge, ideas, attitudes, and people (return migration). (de Haas 2008: 8)

However, the preceding arguments do not critically address structuralist migration thinking in a satisfactory way, as structuralists would have no difficulty in adopting these arguments without compromising the basic elements of their approach, which are related to the importance of the mechanisms that are considered to be crucial for capitalist accumulation and expansion – that is, unequal spatial and sectoral development, constantly producing spatial (and sectoral) differentiation and inequality. Hence, migration is viewed simultaneously as an outcome of and as a part of the function of these mechanisms as well as an option opened due to the proliferation of market relations in poorer countries and areas rather than as a ‘desperate flight form misery’ (de Haas 2008: 8). From a critical realist perspective, structuralist migration theories may be criticised, in a more comprehensive way, for failing to fully explain migratory movements because they point more towards structural determinism than structural conditioning, reification of structural powers, conflation of agency into structure and problems linked to methodological holism (see Archer 1995). 2.2.3 Transnationalism and Social Capital Theories Changes connected with globalisation and the transformation of the traditional political and social role of the nation-state, especially since the 1990s onwards, led to new theoretical conceptualisations of global migratory movements, away from classical individualist or structuralist thinking. Those new conceptualisations, notably transnationalism and transnational social spaces (Pries 2001) concern mainly the meso-level between structure and the individual migrant (Faist 2000). Within this framework: A relational analysis obviates the rigid micro vs. macro distinction because it focuses more on the form and content of the relationship rather than on the properties or attributes of the actors or positions. On the meso level, the social and symbolic ties of the movers and stayers vary with respect to their structure, such as density and strength and their content. (Faist 2000: 33)

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Thus, transnationalism refers to the formation, maintenance and reproduction of weak or strong social bonds by migrants across different countries and areas (see Heisler 2008: 95). Immigrant transnationalism and the notion of transnational communities challenge a series of established convictions in migration theorising. They challenge the centrality of the notion of nation-state as the locus of analysis of the migration phenomenon and the associated line of theorising and researching migration, known as ‘methodological nationalism’ (Tsimouris 2009). Furthermore, they radically modify the concept of ‘mutual embeddedness of geographic space and social space: in one geographic space (the state) there exists one single social space (the nation), and each social space (nation) has and needs just one geographic space (state)’ (Pries 2000: 4). Finally, they problematise traditional concepts of immigrant integration and assimilation introducing notions such as ‘hybridity’, ‘denizenship’, and ‘postnational or transnational citizenship’ (Heisler 2008). Nevertheless, transnationalism as a framework for theorising and understanding migration is not without problems. For example, Heisler (2008: 96) points out that: While recognizing the empirical reality that many contemporary immigrants engage in a variety of transnational activities (for example, they send remittances; engage in frequent travel and communication back and forth; create informal associations; they may vote in home country elections while politicians from their home country may campaign in host countries), such activities per se need not imply a new and different conceptualization. For such a conceptualization to be useful, it needs to be specified and contextualized. (Heisler 2008: 96)

Another point of controversy is whether transnationalism is a novel phenomenon linked to contemporary acceleration of globalisation processes or it is an old one which has drawn the attention of scholars only recently (Tsimouris 2009). Tsimouris (2009) argues for this point of view convincingly. He acknowledges that arguments about the historical character of transnationalism and the transnational dimensions of migratory movements are valid but he simultaneously stresses that contemporary immigrant transnationalism develops within a novel, qualitatively different context of global societal transformations. This novel context is related to the rapidity of time–space compression in the late twentieth century, which significantly differentiates contemporary globalisation processes from those of the sixteenth or of the nineteenth centuries (Tsimouris 2009: 217). The main problem with transnationalism theory, despite its value and analytical strength in highlighting certain aspects of the migration phenomenon, is the ambiguity as regards its contribution to the elucidation of certain and specific ways of linking structure and agency. Despite the ambition of the framework to overcome the limitations of structuralist and individualist migration theories, there is a clear inclination towards overemphasising the role of agency or social interaction in forming, functioning and reproducing transnational migratory communities. Thus, Castles and Miller (2003: 29) point out that ‘[T]he notion of a transnational community puts the emphasis on human agency’. Furthermore,

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focusing solely on the powers of human agency or interactional processes may lead to neglect of broader, structural features of power hierarchies and resource distributions. Concerning the drawbacks of these theories, Glick Schiller – as quoted by Tsimouris (2009: 209–10) – points out that: ‘transnational studies allowed researchers to move beyond methodological nationalism, which confuses society and nation-state. But instead of focusing their attention on global power systems, transnational studies focus on transnational communities and diasporas obscure important power relations’.5 Nevertheless, transnationalism theories may inform empirical research characterised by high explanatory power when combined with frameworks such as globalisation theories characterised by a stronger structural component. Combinations of this kind differentiate between various levels of analysis (systemic, interactional, agential) and focus on the examination of their interplay over time (Apitzsch and Siouti 2007). Furthermore, these combinations may prevent the adoption of an extreme subjectivist stance within transnational theorising. Discussing the relations between biographical methods and transnational theories in migration studies, Apitzsch and Siouti (2007) take into consideration the interplay between agential and structural powers. They stress that ‘[T]he focus of biographical analysis is not only the reconstruction of intentionality, which is represented as an individual’s life course, but the embeddedness of the biographical account in social macro structures’ (Apitzsch and Siouti 2007: 7). They also indicate that ‘[A] transnational biography is thus not only a product of subjectivity (Lutz 2004) (Produkt von Subjektivität) but also a methodological way of accessing invisible objective structures of transnational migration spaces’ (Apitzsch and Siouti 2007: 19). It should be noted that the notion of ‘objective structures’ which may be unobservable or ‘invisible’ exerting certain causal powers on other strata or entities of social reality is in agreement with critical realist social theory (see Archer 1995). Other fruitful utilisations of transnational theories may take the form of combining livelihood with structural approaches within a political economy perspective (Collinson 2009). Thus, Collinson (2009: 4) proposes the development of an approach to investigating migration processes that combines a livelihoods approach to analysing migration dynamics at the local level with a relational political economy perspective. This political economy perspective deepens understanding of the broader social, economic and political processes and interests interacting with migration and livelihoods at different levels (e.g. producing vulnerability or creating opportunities that encourage migration), and focuses attention on structures and relationships of relative agency and power that affect the dynamics of specific migration (and associated 5  See Carter (2000) for the theorising of ‘race’ and developments related to migration processes and policies in the United Kingdom, all from an explicitly critical realist perspective.

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livelihood) processes. It is the interaction of local-level factors immediately influencing people’s migration decisions and strategies (linked to livelihoods) with a range of political, economic and social factors and processes affecting the agency of migrants (and non-migrants) that ultimately shape migration outcomes within specific contexts. Differential and shifting power relations are therefore crucial to understanding the interaction of migration strategies at the local level with political and economic processes and interests affecting these strategies. (Collinson 2009: 4)

A theoretical framework related to transnationalism is that of social capital and immigrant social networks. Social capital is a rather elusive concept that has been defined in numerous different ways. In general, social capital may be conceptualized as the form and the content of social relationships and networks in which individuals participate. The most prominent social capital scholars are: Pierre Bourdieu, James Coleman and Robert Putnam (PRI 2003). On the one hand, Bourdieu conceptualises social capital as a social relation and a resource and in this way social capital may be placed within the framework of social antagonism, social hierarchies and inequalities and class relations (Adkins 2005). For Bourdieu social (and other forms of) capital is distributed unevenly according to actors’ positioning in different fields of action. Thus for Bourdieu the various capitals are inscribed both subjectively (in the embodied habitus) and objectively (in fields of action). Bourdieu’s notion of social capital therefore forms a bedrock for the social inequality and social justice axis of the social capital debate. Indeed in providing theoretical bridges between social capital and issues of social inequality, in the social capital debates for those working from a critical perspective, Bourdieu’s work tends to be championed. (Adkins 2005: 197)

On the other hand, Coleman’s conceptualisation of social capital as a set of social obligations, expectations, informational flows, social norms and social sanctions (SARD 2001) has attracted much criticism: Coleman’s rather vague definition and the ‘laundry list’ of forms – a list that arguably conflates determinants, sources, and outcomes of social capital – has been lamented by Portes (1998) for having opened the way to confusion and contradiction in the wider social capital literature. Coleman has also been criticized for his conservatism, with his emphasis on the primordial role of traditional family structures and religious participation to generate strong social capital. (PRI 2003: 18)

Finally, Putnam (2001) relates social capital to the formation and functioning of social networks and to features such as social bonding, norms and trust which allow people to pursue and implement common goals in an effective way. One

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major difference in Putnam’s conceptualisation of social capital from that of the two aforementioned theorists is that Putnam makes an effort to theorise social capital as a characteristic of communities and broader societal groups rather than of individuals and families (PRI 2003: 19). Nevertheless, it is precisely these efforts to link social networking features with macro-social characteristics, such as societal trust, that have been criticised as theoretically and empirically limited (PRI 2003). Despite differences in conceptualisations and definitions of social capital, three features emerge as basic: social norms, networks and trust (Iosifides et al. 2007b): Social norms are informal rules that condition behaviour in various circumstances […] A social network is an interconnected group of people who usually have an attribute in common […] Trust is simply the level of confidence that people have that others will act as they say or are expected to act, or that what they say is reliable. (Productivity Commission 2003: x)

Furthermore, I may schematically refer to three forms of social capital that play a role in different aspects of migratory phenomena: bonding, bridging and linking social capital. Bonding social capital is related to the formation of social relations and networks characterised by perceived cultural or social homogeneity (e.g. social networks along ‘ethnic’ lines). Bridging social capital refers to social networks characterised by perceived cultural or social heterogeneity (e.g. friendship or support networks between immigrants and non-immigrants), whereas linking social capital is related to networks characterised by hierarchical differentiation (e.g. between immigrants and government officials; see Iosifides et al. 1997b: 1345). Social capital and networking may play a significant role as regards various aspects of the migratory experience. They may result in mobility and chain migration between certain geographical areas or immobility when social bonds in areas of origin are strong and decisive; they may facilitate employment and housing arrangements in ‘host’ countries or make available and diffuse critical information; they may affect the geographical distribution of immigrants within ‘host’ countries, conurbations and cities; and/or they may contribute to the creation of stable, coherent immigrant communities or formal and informal immigrant associations (Kontis 2009, Iosifides et al. 2007b). But, social capital and networking may lead to negative outcomes as well. They may lead to the formation of ‘parallel’ societies in ‘host’ countries and to limited opportunities for broader societal incorporation; they may contribute to the gradual formation of patterns of ‘ethnic’ employment specialisation and the channelling of immigrants of certain ‘ethnic’ backgrounds into specific labour market positions independently of qualifications; and/or they may lead to immigrant involvement in exploitative social relations and networks (Kontis 2009; Iosifides 2009). Phenomena such as ‘ethnic’ mobility entrapment’ (PRI 2003), ‘ethnic’ enclaves’, or ‘ethnic niches’ (Heisler 2008) are of great interest mainly because

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they originate from social interaction and are characterised by structural and cultural emergent properties; that is, by novel systemic properties, complexity and relative irreducibility as regards the properties of individuals or social actors (see Archer 1995, Sawyer 2005). Thus, ‘ethnic mobility entrapment’ may lead to the reproduction of the marginalised social position of certain immigrant communities and prevent upward social mobility opportunities (PRI 2003). ‘Ethnic’ enclaves are ‘characterised by the spatial concentration of the immigrant group and by considerable within-group stratification that give rise to clustered networks of business owned by group members’ (Heisler 2008: 88), while ‘ethnic’ niches ‘emerge when a group is able to colonize a particular sector of employment in such a way that members have privileged access to new job openings, while restricting outsiders’ (Heisler 2008: 88). Despite its relative usefulness in elucidating various aspects of migratory experiences and processes, the concept of social capital has been criticised for a variety of reasons. Some of the reasons are: its alleged novelty, the lack of empirical specificity and the neglect of issues of power (SARD 2001: 12). Furthermore the concept, and the associated theoretical elaborations, especially those made by Putnam, are criticised for failing to link macro societal processes to micro processes of social networking and for having limitations in illustrating the negative sides of social bonding (SARD 2001). In general, it should be noted that the concept of social capital has been mostly used in a highly quantified manner and with clear inclinations towards empiricism and methodological individualism. Despite the high sophistication of quantitative methods, social capital research remains largely descriptive and variable oriented. Furthermore, it tends to reduce social causality to finding and analysing empirical regularities. Research on social capital and migration needs to be enhanced by theoretical and methodological stances aiming at investigating deeper mechanisms that produce certain outcomes. Qualitative methods may prove extremely helpful in examining social interaction, actors’ practices, perspectives, meanings and societal constraints and opportunities thus, contributing significantly to theorising and empirically investigating the depth mechanisms that produce certain relations between social capital/networking, immigrant experiences and processes within specific socio-cultural contexts (see Iosifides 2009). 2.2.4 Synthetic Attempts In this section, I briefly explore, some of the attempts to theorise migratory phenomena in a synthetic manner; that is, the efforts to deal with the complexity, multi-dimensionality and multi-level character of contemporary population movements. All such attempts aim at linking micro-, meso- and macro- levels of migratory movements without giving ontological priority to any of them, stressing their relative autonomy and investigating their constant interplay and its specific outcomes within different socio-economic, political and cultural contexts. Furthermore, we may view synthetic theoretical attempts more as theoretical

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frameworks for the orientation and guidance of concrete empirical research, quantitative and/or qualitative, rather than as substantive theories offering specific solutions to various problems. Here, I examine three such approaches, notably migration systems theory, a political economy (Collinson 2009) and a social change approach (Portes 2008). Migration systems theory conceptualises migratory movements as part of broader, more or less stable, linkages between countries and geographical areas which are characterised by systemic, adaptive and reproductive properties. Thus, a migration system may involve two countries or broader areas linked together with a series of exchanges, including migratory movements; in the latter case we may identify regional migration systems (Castles and Miller 2003: 26). What distinguishes this approach from other attempts to theorise migration is that it makes an effort to cover the totality, complexity and multi-dimensionality of migratory phenomena, taking into account the role of all levels and their interconnectedness (micro-, meso-, macro-) and to conceptualise migration within a relative autonomous system of relations and interactions. Thus, ‘[I]nternational migration is conceptualised as a part of a system that, once it has come into being, tends to become self-feeding and autonomous as a result of cumulative causation effects’ (Entzinger and Fermin 2008: 8). Furthermore, migration systems theory is characterised by its emphasis on change and migration dynamics, by inherent interdisciplinarity and by multi-causal and multi-level analysis (Castles and Miller 2003). ‘Macro-, meso-, and micro-structures are intertwined in the migratory process, and there are no clear dividing lines between them. No single cause is ever sufficient to explain why people decide to leave their country and settle to another’ (Castles and Miller 2003: 28). To put it schematically, the analysis of migratory movements between, say, countries A and B, entails the examination of the broader political context (exit, entry and settlement policies, international relations), social context (migrant networks and welfare differentials), demographic context (fertility differentials and short-term travel links), economic context (wage and price differentials, regional blocks), other historical, cultural, colonial or technological bonds between the two countries, the actual migratory movements taking place between them and the feedback and adjustments produced by the whole process (see Kritz & Zlotnik 1992: 3, Figure 1, ‘A systems framework of international migration’, quoted by Entzinger and Fermin 2008: 7). Migration systems theory is linked with ‘general systems theory’ (de Haas 2008) or with what Sawyer (2005: 14) refers to as ‘the second wave of social system theories’. The basic characteristic of this kind of systemic thinking is the emphasis given to dynamics and change, nonlinearity and systemic openness (Sawyer 2005). According to Sawyer (1995), the limitations of general systems theory lies mainly in its inability to deal with social complexity and the phenomenon of emergence in a comprehensive way. Thus, migration systems theory needs to be informed by ‘the third wave of social systems theory’ (Sawyer 2005: 12) that deals explicitly with social emergence and complexity – that is, with phenomena related to social

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forms characterised by properties which are novel and irreducible to those of initial actors or entities whose interaction produced them (Morgan 2007a). These notions – which characterise critical realist thinking as well – imply that a system, including a migration system: can be defined generically as a collection of entities of any kind (e.g. physical, conceptual, or social) that form a whole, the behaviour of which depends on the relations between the entities more than on the nature of the entities themselves. Systems form nested hierarchies and are characterised by emergent properties, that is, characteristics, or behaviours, or powers that apply only to the whole rather than to its parts at any particular level. (Mingers 2007: 451)

Another attempt at a synthetic theoretical approach to migratory movements is made by Collinson (2009) in a working paper titled ‘The political economy of migration processes: an agenda for migration research and analysis’. In this work, Collinson aims at linking social processes related to migration occurring at a local level, with broader socio-political and economic contexts. Combining livelihood and political economy theoretical frameworks, this approach is concerned with capturing the complexity of migratory phenomena by analysing the effects of interaction between different levels; that is ‘local-level factors immediately influencing people’s migration decisions and strategies (linked to livelihoods) with interacting political economic and social factors and processes at different levels which affect the agency, vulnerability and/or opportunities of migrants (and associated non-migrants) during the migration process, and that shape migration outcomes’ (Collinson 2009: 2). Collinson approaches migratory processes in a promising way with regard to rigour and explanatory power. She implicitly adopts some of the most basic principles of the critical realist view of the social world, such as an emphasis on the interaction processes of different entities at different levels, complexity, relationality and contextuality, power relations, as well as separability between the powers of structures and agency, along with their interplay. This approach is formed through critique of other structuralist/political economy and livelihood micro-level approaches or versions of empiricist, ‘depoliticised’ theorising of migration (Collinson 2009: 22) which fail both to acknowledge the interaction between different levels and its outcomes and to link structure and agency by examining the mechanisms at work within different historical contexts. Collinson forms a theoretical framework characterised by ambitions for thorough causal and in-depth explanations of migratory phenomena and processes. This framework ought to be: – Contextually-specific. – Explanatory as well as descriptive in orientation. – Dynamic – both in terms of time (diachronic) and in terms of interaction between actors, institutions and structures (synchronic). – Historically grounded.

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies – Actor-oriented. – Concerned with agency as well as structure within social, economic and political processes. – Explicitly concerned with linking between micro, meso and macro levels. (Collinson 2009: 14)

Regarding research methods, Collinson takes an extremely valuable position which resembles the methodological stances of many critical realists. She prioritises qualitative research methods as powerful means of investigating in depth and in detail causal processes and associated mechanisms within different social contexts (Collinson 2009: 27). This stance towards the utilisation of qualitative methods, such as biographical research, focus groups and key informant interviewing or informal observation (Collinson 2009: 22) in migration research moves away from viewing and employing qualitative methods in ways which are hostile to causal explanation and interested only in highlighting the actor’s subjective views, along with reducing reality to this level. Collinson’s stance is characterised by strong similarities with those adopted in this book; that is, a stance favouring a kind of qualitative or intensive research (see Sayer 2000), concerned with actor’s meanings, representations, experiences and practices which are more than ‘stories’, ‘accounts’ or ‘subjective views’ – as they are influenced and conditioned by broader processes, relations and structures – and simultaneously orient social action towards reproduction or transformation of certain and real societal forms (Archer 1995, Sayer 2000, Carter 2000). Lastly, Portes (2008) proposes a theoretical framework that connects migratory processes to social change. What makes this approach particularly interesting is the adoption of a framework connecting culture, social structure, migratory movements and social change, both in sending and receiving societies. What is equally worth mentioning is that Portes clearly distinguishes surface phenomena and processes from ‘deep’, ‘invisible’ factors, either structural (power distribution) or cultural (value formation) (Portes 2008: 35), and makes a case for an in-depth causal analysis in order to comprehend better the relation between migratory phenomena and social change. The very differentiation between surface phenomena and, in many cases, unobservable structural and/or cultural relations and features is one of the major points of departure of realist notions of the social world both from empiricist approaches, which reduce reality (and causal explanation) to surface ‘sense data’, and from versions of interpretivism and social constructionism for which reality is exhausted in ‘interpretations’ or ‘discourses’, with causal explanation being abandoned altogether. This is why Portes’s analysis offers a viable way of theorising about and researching so complex and multidimensional phenomena such as migration and its impacts on social change.

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2.2.5 A Note on the Critical Realist Approach Critical realism is a philosophy of social sciences that may act as a ‘guide’ towards substantive theorising and empirical research, either qualitative or quantitative. Thus, it comes as no surprise that there is not a critical realist ‘tradition’ in migration theorising with very few exceptions.6 Nevertheless, as already mentioned in the previous subsection, a series of migration theoretical frameworks, especially those of a synthetic kind, are characterised by several features similar to those of critical realism, thus making them implicitly realist. Ratcliffe (2007: 314), criticising push–pull, structuralist and ‘subjectivist’ migration theories, from a critical realist perspective, points out that: Although these approaches appear unbridgeable, being grounded in radically differing social ontologies and epistemological positions, there is a possible way forward for realists. This entails a more flexible interpretation of structure and a more nuanced deployment of the empirical data arising from actors’ accounts of migration. Expounded more fully in Ratcliffe (ibid.), this relies on the use of the latter (in both spoken and written form, including migrants’ letters) to cast light upon, and raise questions about, precisely those historically entrenched inequalities that are seen as constituting generative mechanisms in the migration process. (Ratcliffe 2007: 314)

6  Growing trends towards interdisciplinarity, addressing complexity and the adoption of multi-methodological approaches are reflected on the themes and topics of migrationrelated research projects funded by the European Commission. Those topics are the following: –– the transnational nature of life for many migrants, associated with changing legislative, economic and social spaces which transcend national borders; –– the changing meaning of borders, often no longer simply defined by geographical boundaries, but increasingly by the implementation of immigration controls within national borders, applied differently according to the citizenship and rights of migrants; –– the need to understand ‘illegal migration’, not always as a single event or status in a migrant’s life, but as a process of negotiating changing statuses, different degrees of documentation and compliance with national legislation; –– the feminisation of migration, both in the realities observed in the labour market and in the development of migration studies; –– circular migration, one of the emerging EU policy themes, identified in the 2007 Commission’s Communication ‘Circular migration and mobility partnerships between the European Union and third countries’ –– integration in all its social, economic, political and legal senses, one of the key policy priorities of numerous Commission Communications and EU policies. (EC 2009: 5).

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He also stresses that: ‘[T]o the realist the search is for those generative mechanisms that lie behind the empirical facts of population movements’ (Ratcliffe 2007: 313). Thus, critical realists advocate an in-depth approach, which elucidates the interaction between structural, cultural and agential features producing certain outcomes regarding population mobility and immobility. The processes of emergence, the stratified nature of the social world and the reality of structural and cultural properties are crucial for critical realist theorising and researching into migration and other social phenomena (Sayer 2000). These notions will be analysed further, and in detail, in subsequent chapters (especially Chapters 3 and 4). 2.3 Researching Migration: Epistemological Issues and Methodological Approaches In this section, I examine, in a concise manner, some key issues concerning the relations between ontology, epistemology and social research methodology and their impact on research practice, giving special emphasis to research practices related to migration. Within this framework, the premises of the old and enduring polarisation between qualitative and quantitative methods in social research are briefly discussed, using examples from migration studies. This discussion aims at highlighting the ontological and epistemological assumptions of positivist quantitative and interpretative/constructionist qualitative research that make their antithesis inevitable and ‘methodological eclecticism’ even more problematic. Every research endeavour, in every field of social science, is characterised, in most cases implicitly, by certain ontological and epistemological assumptions, inevitably closely linked to each other. With regard to the former it adopts a certain view on the character of social reality and, as far as the latter is concerned, it adopts a theory about the nature of knowledge of that reality (Archer 2005, Hartwig 2007). Thus, according to Fleetwood: The way we think the world is (ontology) influences: what we think can be known about it (epistemology); how we think it can be investigated (methodology and research techniques); the kinds of theories we think can be constructed about it; and the political and policy stances we are prepared to take. Although having the ‘right’ ontology does not guarantee that the ensuing meta-theory, theory and practice will also be ‘right’, having the ‘wrong’ ontology makes this virtually impossible – although we might be ‘right’ by accident. Similarly, having an unambiguous ontology does not guarantee that the ensuing meta-theory, theory and practice will also be unambiguous, but having an ambiguous ontology makes this much harder. In short, ontology matters. (Fleetwood 2005: 197–8)

Ontological and epistemological assumptions influence strongly the ways of exploring the social world (social research methodology): ‘the social ontology endorsed does play a powerful regulatory role vis-à-vis the explanatory methodology

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for the basic reason that it contextualizes social reality in certain terms, thus identifying what is there to be explained and also ruling out explanations in terms of entities or properties which are deemed non-existent’ (Archer 2005: 17). For a long time, migration studies have been dominated by – and in some disciplines such as economics, it is still prevalent – a mode of methodological individualism and empiricism. Here we are presented with a significantly coherent way of thinking where ontological and epistemological principles affect methodological choices towards highly sophisticated, variable-oriented, quantitative methods and modelling techniques. Empiricism reduces reality to surface, ‘sense data’, through which knowledge of the social world becomes possible. Thus, it conflates ontology with epistemology and commits what critical realists call ‘the epistemic fallacy’ (Archer 1995, Sayer 2000). Consequently, empiricism rejects ontological depth; that is, powers and mechanisms operating at levels of social reality which are, in many cases, unobservable and adopts a notion of social causality as regularity, e.g. constant conjunction of discrete events (Morgan 2007b). Having been dominant especially in migration economics, empiricism, conceptualises migratory phenomena and processes of migration decision making through assumptions related to methodological individualism, to ‘a utilitarian ontology of the self’ and a ‘uniform concept of rationality’ (Boswell 2008: 552). Limitations in social explanation based on focusing solely on individual dispositions, actions and behaviours governed by an alleged universal, utilitymaximising rationality, led to calls for the incorporation into explanatory schemes of features related to actors’ subjective understandings, intersubjective meanings, shared norms and socio-cultural factors (Boswell 2008). These features are better investigated by applying qualitative methods, such as in-depth interviewing or participant observation, but problems with combining different methodological approaches (quantitative and qualitative) in a complementary way are destined to persist when implicit or explicit ontological and epistemological assumptions between the two remain distinct or contradictory. Empiricism is not a feature of methodological individualism alone. Methodological holism, which prioritises structural explanations reducing human agency to a mere epiphenomenon of structures (Archer 1995) has affected migration theorising and research to a considerable extent; Marxist and neo-Marxist elaborations being the main examples. This mode of thinking is characterised by deterministic inclinations and ‘structural reductionism’; that is, ‘the attempt to explain all human behaviour structurally’ (Porpora 2007: 423). Despite its efforts, holism fails to account for processes and mechanisms beyond the surface of social reality because it lacks the appropriate conceptual tools, such as relationality and emergence to shed light on the ontological status of social structures (Archer 2005). Thus, the incorporation of structural factors into explanatory schemes does not prevent an overall empiricist account of social reality. As Archer (1995: 54) points out: ‘[F]or structural features are allowed in under the rubric (as yet) “undefined group properties” provided they increase our explanatory/predictive power by helping to account for observed regularities. It is

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its contribution to accounting for a constant conjunction which gives a structural property its right to entry’. The critique of different versions of empiricism and positivism/neo-positivism, in recent decades, led to the proliferation of approaches characterised by ontological and epistemological assumptions related to renewed versions of methodological individualism of an interpretive Weberian manner, to methodological situationism or to elisionism (structuration theory and versions of social constructionism) (Archer 1995, Mouzelis, 1997). Methodologically, those approaches have affected so much qualitative researching that in many cases qualitative inquiry is taken to be synonymous with their ontological/epistemological assumptions. What all these approaches, despite their heterogeneity, have in common, is their inability to link agency and structure in a way that enhances the explanatory power of social theorising and research. For example, interpretivism, although a source of valuable insights for qualitative research, rejects causal analysis and the causal efficaciousness of human reasons and introduces a different version of empiricism (Hartwig 2007). ‘The “brute data” of the social world become “brute interpretations”’ (Hartwig 2007: 232). Structuration theory treats structure and agency as ‘ontologically inseparable’ and ‘methodologically irreducible’ (Archer 1995: 93, 101) and consequently it denies the reality of social structures, ascribing to them a ‘virtual existence’ (Archer 1995: 108). A similar tendency can be found in social constructionism as well. ‘[I]n this case, the difficulty is not epiphenomenalism (that is of either structure of agency being dependent, inert and therefore causally uninfluential) but that endorsement of their mutual constitution precludes examination of their interplay…’ (Archer 1995: 13–14). Furthermore, referring to the constructionist theory of Berger and Luckmann, Mouzelis (1997: 114) points out that it fails to account for the role of social hierarchies, power distribution and collective agential action due to exaggerated fears of reification, and thus it is unable to link structure and agency effectively. As far as methodological situationism is concerned, it repeats the errors of methodological individualism at the level of micro-situations of social interaction. It reduces reality to social interaction at the micro-level, which is taken to be face-to-face interaction regardless of the type and the power range of interactants, and conceptualises macro-phenomena as aggregative results of micro-interactions (Mouzelis 1997). The traditional connection of quantitative methods with empiricist, mostly individualist, ontological and epistemological principles and qualitative methods with certain irrealist and/or relativist versions of interpretivism and constructionism has made their combination either impossible or probably only subject to opportunistic eclecticism. Although the two camps seem and, to a certain degree are diverse, they nevertheless share much in common, notably irrealism and lack of explanatory depth. In migration research, the division was conceptualised rather early, mainly as a ‘philosophical dichotomy’ (White 1980: 6). According to White (1980), the dichotomy exists between ‘objective’ quantitative migration research and its ‘cognitive’ counterpart. The former

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concerns the investigation and measurement of factors operating independently of the human conception of them (mainly the push and pull factors associated with the areas of origin and destination, intervening obstacles and personal factors) and the latter with researching the role of agents’ conceptions of migratory processes and decision-making (mainly values, expectations, preferences and attitudes). White (1980) does not propose a possible way out of this dichotomy or a plausible resolution; he rather offers a ‘solution’ of mutual complementarity, which nevertheless leaves the implicit ontological and epistemological assumptions of the two approaches intact. In many cases, this complementarity continues to occur under the auspices of a quantitative paradigm characterised by certain ontological and epistemological premises. With regard to migratory movements in particular, which are of high interest for governmental agencies and international policymaking bodies, ‘objective’, that is quantitative, ‘evidence-based’ research is in significant demand. Furthermore, in market societies, where progress is equated with infinite increase, there is a strong ‘structural tendency’ towards the more favourable appreciation of quantitative methods and especially of those of positivistic manner (Singleton 1999); that is of research methods, supposedly objective and neutral, which successfully inform policymaking mainly of a technical and optimised character. However, the realisation of the crucial role that evaluative, conceptual and interpretive factors play in the production of statistical and quantitative data on migration, along with the inherent limitations of positivist/neo-positivist quantitative research has led to the need for a more mainstreamed incorporation of qualitative methods in migration research (see Findlay and Li 1999). As Findlay and Li (1999: 52) point out: Although adoption of alternative approaches was slow in coming, by the mid to late 1990s migration researchers certainly had at their disposal a much wider tool-kit of quantitative and qualitative techniques. They had also adopted more diverse methodological stances in approaching research problems, and were more open than before to other epistemological positions. (Gutting 1996)

Nevertheless, the problem of consistency between ontology, epistemology and combining qualitative and quantitative research methods remains largely unresolved. Solutions offered by employing methodological pragmatism and eclecticism are quite unsatisfactory (see Scot 2007); the reasons for this, along with the resolution to the puzzle, within a critical realist perspective, are discussed in detail in Chapter 3 and in Section 4.7. Contrary to variable-oriented quantitative research, qualitative methods are case- and process-oriented, focusing on holistic and depth understanding of actor’s meanings, representations, practices, actions, experiences and relations (Miles and Huberman 1994, Maxwell 2004). The potential role of qualitative inquiry to critically investigating and understanding aspects of social phenomena related to migratory movements and analysing in detail their complexity is great

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given the uncritical, empiricist inclinations of much quantitative work in the field. Thus, Halfacree and Boyle (1993) emphasise the need for a major shift in migration studies away from the empiricist-behaviourist paradigm and towards a paradigm focusing on intentional human agency, by applying qualitative biographical methods. They stress the centrality of the biographical trajectory of agents as a whole in understanding migration decision making, along with actors’ intentionality and practical consciousness. The role of practical consciousness – that is, acting without ‘having actively to “think about”’ (Halfacree and Boyle 1993: 336) those everyday actions – is thought to be crucial in understanding migration decision making, and it may be highlighted by ‘building up a picture of the migration decision from a variety of angles’ (Halfacree and Boyle 1993: 338) rather than depending solely on discursive knowledge or the subjective interpretations of actors. Thus, qualitative biographical research may reveal the divergence between discursive and practical knowledge of agents, implicating their actions with the ‘very structuration of society’ (Halfacree and Boyle 1993: 336); ‘the human agents using this practical knowledge might not give the ‘correct’ explanation of their action if asked about them, in part because of the novelty of such a discourse’ (Halfacree and Boyle 1993: 336–7). Similarly, Findlay and Li (1997) utilise a structuration-oriented, qualitative biographical approach to investigate the role of practical consciousness in the intentionality of professional emigrants from Hong Kong. Stressing the difficulty of investigating practical consciousness, the authors point out that: The greatest challenge for the researcher is to raise practical consciousness to the discursive realm. The approach adopted here tried to achieve this through encouraging migrants to engage in a deliberate act of reflection and to try to relate their migrant intentions to the wider collage of their changing social and cultural worlds. (Findlay and Li 1997: 35)

Despite the important insights into the value of biographical methods in migration research derived by the above examples, they nevertheless fall into the ontological and epistemological premises of ‘structuration theory’ which reduces their explanatory power; this is mainly due to the inability of this theory to grant real and separate causal powers to social structures, incorporate time into social analysis and extend the notion of ‘practical consciousness’ towards full appreciation of the role of ‘practice’ in social life (Archer 1995). Overcoming these limitations presupposes the adoption of the realist notions of emergence, reality stratification and interplay between the distinct causal powers of structure, culture and agency (Collier 1994, Creaven 2000). Thus, within realist ontological and epistemological assumptions, biographical migration research may contribute considerably not only to an in-depth understanding of agential actions and intentionality, but also, more crucially, to an examination of social outcomes produced by the interaction between them and structural/cultural factors:

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biographical methods may lead to detailed and comprehensive reconstructions of linking chains between events, meanings/interpretations, actions and practices. As regards practices, the examination of their genealogy and evolution may result in theoretical propositions of embeddedness within broader social structures which function quite independently of interpretations of actors. To give but one example, individual reasons and interpretations of migrants for the acceptance of specific kind of jobs need not have any direct relation to the functioning of ‘ethnic specialization’ systems in the labour market, which often result in channelling migrants of specific ethnic background or gender to certain economic and labour market niches, irrespective of educational and other skills (Iosifides et al. 2007). (Iosifides and Sporton 2009: 104)

Realist insights into overcoming the traditional dualism between quantitative and qualitative methods, the identification of the former with positivism and the latter with interpretivism or social constructionism and between micro- and macroapproaches, enhances significantly the explanatory potential of qualitative (and quantitative) research. Thus, qualitative methods may be viewed as the intensive part of social research and quantitative methods as its extensive counterpart, both aiming to identify ‘generative mechanisms and describe how they are manifested in real events and processes’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 165). Within the critical realist perspective, ontological and epistemological clashes and contradictions between qualitative and quantitative inquiry are resolved; their differences lie mainly in examining different sort of relations (i.e. substantial relations of connections and formal relations of similarity, respectively) (Danermark et al. 2002: 165) or posing different questions about the same reality. As the main task of both methodological paradigms becomes the same, problems of ontological and epistemological character, which would threaten their potential for combination and complementarity, are sharply diminished (Ragin 2000). Under realist presuppositions, qualitative migration research may extend its scope beyond its ‘traditional’ interests – those being the examination of the role of subjectivity, lived experience or micro-interaction – or may continue to pursue them within different conceptual and theoretical frameworks, incorporating more strongly notions of the interplay between structure and agency, social causality and of outcomes generated by the interaction of various causal mechanisms. Only indicatively, some of the themes which may be investigated qualitatively under those terms include: changes in ‘ethnic’ categorisations and identities due to migratory movements, processes of formation and implementation of migration policies at different administrative and/or spatial levels, spatial and social mobility of immigrants and refugees, migration decision making, migrationrelated experiences, socio-spatial inequalities, segregation and migration, gender and migration, immigrant social exclusion, collective action, social and political participation and immigrant associations, causal chains and causal mechanisms resulting in population movements, institutional and everyday racism, xenophobia and discrimination, immigrant networks of transnational, sub-national or local

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character, skilled migration, labour migration, employment and the labour market, processes of social incorporation of immigrants, public attitudes and discourses towards migrants and migration and processes of social change resulting from migratory movements from the global to local levels. Even from the above limited list of potential themes for qualitative migration research, it becomes evident that migration is a phenomenon so complex and multi-dimensional that interdisciplinarity or even post-disciplinarity (Favell 2008) in its study becomes an inevitable tendency. Of course, this applies both to quantitative and qualitative migration research.7 Besides the need for greater interdisciplinarity, which is considered by Castles (2007: 352-365) as an intrinsic feature of migration research, the same author points out a series of challenges in the sociological investigation of migration: (1) taking into account transnationalism and globalisation along with overcoming methodological nationalism; (2) focusing on specific topics and on the analysis of global social change; (3) analysing global social transformations at different spatial levels; (4) enhancing the critical element in the sociological investigation of migration; and (5) developing migration studies. Furthermore, Castles (2007: 367) includes in the ‘basic methodological principles for a critical migration sociology’ the need for comparative and holistic approaches, to examine the interaction between agency and ‘macro-social organisations and institutions’ and ‘the need for participatory research methods, which give an active role to migrants and other persons affected by migration in research processes’. Similarly, the International Migration Institute (IMI) (2006), apart from interdisciplinarity, prioritises four directions towards a new agenda for international migration research: Looking at migration as an integral part of global transformation processes rather than a problem to be solved. Relating current migration patterns with historical trends by analysing continuities and discontinuities. Linking micro-level understanding of migration to macro-level trends. Looking to the future by developing scenarios for migration trends, taking account of political, economic and demographic change. (IMI 2006: 9–10)

More specifically, the Institute places emphasis on three sets of specific research themes to deepen understanding of twenty-first-century migratory phenomena: 7  As Chandra (2006: 397) points out: ‘ethnic identities are a subset of identity categories in which membership is determined by attributes associated with, or believed to be associated with, descent (described here simply as descent-based attributes). I argue, on the basis of this definition, that ‘ethnicity either does not matter or has not been shown to matter in explaining most outcomes to which it has been causally linked by comparative political scientists. These outcomes include violence, democratic stability, and patronage’.

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Lives in transit – exploring the experience of migration at the level of individuals, households and communities; Migration transitions – analysing changing patterns of migration across and to and from continents; Migration and transformation – analysing the interaction between migration and social, economic and political transformation at the national, regional and global levels. (IMI 2006: 11)

Taking the opportunity presented by the above themes and research directions, I should point out that qualitative, intensive inquiry does not need to confine itself to the ‘traditional’ topics of interest, such as migratory experiences at individual or household level or social interaction and networking from the point of view of interactants. On the contrary, intensive research may enhance our in-depth understanding of broader processes and their constant interplay with individual and collective action. For example, in-depth investigation of the processes of migration policymaking at supra-national, national or local levels may reveal the conditions under which systemic properties of migratory movements arise and are reproduced and transformed. This in-depth investigation may occur by utilising an array of qualitative methods such as interviewing policy makers and key persons along with key actors influencing migration policies, content analysis of official and internal documents or participant observation of official or informal meetings concerning policymaking or consultation, to name but a few. Furthermore, researching the root causes of migration may be enriched by in-depth and detailed life history and biographical research, through which broader and contextual conditions that made migratory options possible may be highlighted. Even topics which traditionally are dominated by economics and quantitative research, such as the economic impacts of migration in destination countries may also be investigated by intensive methods, offering novel and valuable insights. Thus, for example, researching the experiences of landlords who lease previously empty houses or rooms to immigrants may lead to deeper understandings of relatively unnoticed processes of income generation due to immigration. 2.4 Central Themes in Migration Research: Structures, Policies, Processes, Identities This section is devoted to a synoptic and, of course, non-exhaustive account of some migration research themes considered to be central to understanding the phenomenon; notably the structural and systemic context of migratory movements, the formation, functioning and change of migration policy regimes, processes related to immigrant social integration, incorporation and exclusion, social relations across ‘ethnic’ categorisations, socio-cultural identities and social discrimination due to racism and xenophobia. Special emphasis is given to the potential role of qualitative research in exploring these phenomena and processes. However, it should be noted

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that accounts included in this section are only indicative, brief and rather descriptive, as the subsequent chapters contain a much more thorough and detailed analysis both of qualitative migration research methods and of concrete empirical examples. During the last two decades, migratory movements have been taking place within a specific contextual and structural environment: that of globalisation and, more specifically, that of neoliberal globalisation (Overbeek 2002). If we define social structures as ‘systems of human relations among social positions’ (Porpora, 1998: 343), then neoliberal globalisation entails the emergence of structural and systemic properties, the most significant of which is the expansion and deepening of market relations (Overbeek 2002, Hatziprokopiou 2006). Thus according to Overbeek: The essential moving factor of this process is the expansion of the market: even more people, countries, and regions are incorporated into the global market economy (expansion as geographic widening), and more and more spheres and dimensions of human existence are invaded by market relations and subordinated to the pursuit of private profit (expansion as deepening). (Overbeek 2002: 75–6).

Within this broader structural environment, regulation of human mobility and migratory movements tends to serve the overall logic of the emerging systemic relations; that is, the accumulation of capital under the most favourable terms possible (see Overbeek 2002). However, because causal powers exerted by those systemic properties are in constant interaction with other causal powers at different levels or of different nature and with various contingent factors, migratory movements are not strictly determined by the logic of capital accumulation, despite the existence of certain tendencies. The potential for better understanding and explicating various aspects of the structural context of contemporary migratory movements at different geographical levels may be significantly enhanced by the employment of qualitative methods. Thus, in-depth interviewing with business leaders or participant observation in official business management meetings may highlight processes of connections between business expansion or crisis mitigation strategies with certain migratory movements at sub-national, national or regional/local levels. Another area of great theoretical and empirical interest is that of the emergence, reproduction and change of various contemporary migration policy regimes; notably, those which lead or encourage high mobility of capital, goods and information worldwide, and are coupled with efforts to impose severe restrictions to the mobility of people and labour along with the proliferation of discourses and practices of migration control (Hollifield 2008). Migration policy developments invite us to think on a series of crucial and interrelated issues such as power distribution between states and different interest groups internationally and sub-nationally, the evolving role of borders and border regulations, selectivity and regulation of entry and stay, human rights and citizenship regimes. Qualitative research on those issues may contribute, to a great extent, to our understanding of deeper mechanisms and processes of linking structural features with ideological

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constructions and their functions. For example, a possible area of qualitative inquiry is related to the ways that ‘national’ or ‘ethnic’ categories are ideologically used by different social actors (such as states, political parties, lay persons etc.) in order to promote certain social interests. This usage may be investigated further when one compares internal with international migration or intra-country with inter-country mobility. In the former case, mobility is highly encouraged, whereas, in the latter case mobility is regulated and, for the low skilled, is actively discouraged and curbed. Thus, while mobility across space is considered as a human right within national borders, the same act is viewed as potentially dangerous or generally unwanted across borders. This differentiation has, to a great extent, to do with the persistence of the legitimation of state power by discourses around ‘nationhood’ and national belonging and with the associated use of ‘ethnic’ and ‘national’ conceptual categories in politics and everyday social life. National or ‘ethnic’ categories may be ‘empty’8 (Demertzis 1996) of real content, but they are full of uses which accommodate and socially legitimise certain power relations between different social interests and groups. Their uses tend to create ideological discourses, views and interpretations which stress the normality and the non-discriminatory nature of migration control by sovereign states (Bagaric and Morss 2005) and tend to obscure social antagonism under supposedly legitimate ‘ethnic’ or ‘national rights’. Qualitative research has a lot to offer in these fields of interest, provided that it is an inquiry without the limitations and weaknesses of orientations such as for examples constructionist and Foucauldian discourse analysis and characterised by the development of a renewed mode of ideology critique able to conceive the ‘Real of class antagonism as the disavowed core of ideological fantasy…’ (Vighi and Feldner 2007: 141) or the ‘real’ of social antagonism in general. Remaining in the socio-political realm, qualitative investigation of phenomena such as racism, xenophobia and social discrimination may be linked with broader socio-political processes such as: party politics and more specifically, extreme right party politics, distribution of power and the continuous interplay between structural and cultural elements with agential, personal and/or collective, action. As Rydgren (2003: 62) convincingly argues: the emergence of a RRP party is likely to cause an increase in manifest, politicized xenophobia when (1) there is a situation of economic and social stress; (2) the economic cleavage dimension is under real challenge from the socio-cultural cleavage dimension; (3) when established parties and other political actors adopt or accommodate policy proposals originally propelled by the RRP party, and employs similar frames and xenophobic rhetorical styles; and (4) when the RRP party succeeds in linking its anti-immigration frames with other issues of high and enduring political salience. (Rydgren 2003: 62)

8  Author note: Radical Right Populist Party (Rydgren 2003).

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In-depth examination and understanding of xenophobic ‘rhetorical styles’ and ‘frames’ are perfectly accommodated by qualitative research methods. Nevertheless, the stance I adopt in this book is towards employing a kind of qualitative research which is grounded on real properties and processes of structural, cultural and agential character, thus avoiding ‘strong’ constructionist or Foucauldian assumptions, which do not acknowledge the role of real, separate and emergent agential, structural and cultural features along with their interplay, constitutes a form of ‘discursive reductionism’ and thus lack adequate explanatory power. For those ‘strong’ versions of constructionism: ‘[T]he social world is seen as constructed by authorless discourses which themselves become agents; rather than tension between actors, agents and discourses, concretely negotiated in particular historical settings, there are merely discourses constructing objects and human subjects’ (Carter 2000: 38–9). Closely related to the aforementioned issues is the study of socio-cultural identities of both migrants and non-migrants in countries and areas of destination. Researching identities is traditionally considered as better accommodated within the qualitative paradigm, despite the fact that there have been attempts to ‘measure’ identity, for example ‘ethnic’ identity, something which is not without problems and without avoiding certain tendencies towards reification and essentialism (see Malešević 2002: 204–8). Nevertheless, the potential strength and explanatory power of qualitative approaches to researching, among other phenomena, immigrant or non-immigrant socio-cultural identities do not depend only upon their enhanced ability to elucidate participants’ meanings, understand specific and local contexts of action, social processes, identify ‘unanticipated phenomena and influences’ or develop ‘causal explanations’ (Maxwell 1996: 17–20). They also, significantly, depend upon ontological and epistemological assumptions which guide methodological choices and styles of research practices, influence data analysis strategies and lead to certain modes of social theorising. These assumptions are related to the nature of social reality and more specifically to the nature and characteristics of agency. Thus, only a concept of a stratified agency with real, internal intentionality and personal emergent causal powers, characterised by reflexivity and the ability to interact with cultural and structural elements through ‘internal conversation’, may lead to powerful social explanations beyond the surface of the, indeed valuable, personal accounts, interpretations and meanings (Archer 2000, 2003). Furthermore, only the employment of a kind of social agency with the above characteristics may lead to adequate social theorising and explanation, with significant emancipatory potential, without falling in adopting or reproducing essentialised or ‘unified’ concepts of agency (Moya and Hames-Garcia 2000, Clegg 2006). Researching social relations between immigrants and various components of ‘host’ societies opens the ‘traditional’ questions of immigrant ‘assimilation’, ‘integration’, incorporation and/or exclusion. Qualitative, intensive and in-depth methodologies for investigating those processes contribute to challenging well established notions and conceptual schemes, such as the aforementioned, and

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overcoming one-dimensional thinking about the relationships between immigrants and ‘host’ and/or transnational societal communities. Phenomena and processes such as multiculturalism, inter-culturalism, socio-cultural diversity, labour market integration or exclusion, spatial organisation and/or segregation, social and political mobilisation, participation and organisation (see Fassmann et al. 2005) may be explored in depth and in a detailed manner through qualitative research methods, which take into account seriously the interplay between cultural, structural and agential features and powers, and aim for the postulation of causal mechanisms that bring about certain outcomes. The above brief indications about some central themes in migration research raise again questions about its future and prospects. Kraal (2008: 1) points out the need to enhance the prospects of migration research in Europe, and – I would add – of migration research in general, by strengthening systematic comparison, multi-disciplinarity, integration of different levels of analysis, rethinking the relation between migration and integration, shifting the focus from migrants to institutions within ‘host’ societies and by bringing in perspectives from outside. A critical realist approach to social theorising and research may serve better the comprehensive contribution of qualitative methods to achieving the above goals, as it offers a sustainable and powerful alternative both to empiricism and to various forms of relativism and idealism. Thus, the next chapter is dedicated to an analysis of the critical realist approach to the social sciences and of its advantages as a meta-theoretical orientation of qualitative methods, compared to empiricism, interpretivism and social constructionism.

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Chapter 3

Theoretical and Epistemological Issues in Qualitative Research: The Case for Critical Realism 3.1 The Critical Realist Approach: An Introduction This section contains an analysis of the basic assumptions of a critical realist approach to social scientific inquiry. It places critical realism within the various versions of realisms and explores the main features of the approach – namely, the relations between the transitive and intransitive realm, the realist notions of social reality and its characteristics, social causality, complexity, and the centrality of the phenomenon of emergence. Special emphasis is given to realist social theorising and explanation and, more specifically, to the morphogenetic approach of Margaret S. Archer (1995). An advantage of this approach is its detailed elaboration and explanatory power, as all elements interacting to produce certain social outcomes – that is structural, cultural and agential properties, powers and features – are fully addressed in realist manner by Archer (1995, 1996, 2000, 2003). Another excellent advantage of this approach to social explanation is its ability to guide applied, empirical social research and/or substantive social theorising (see, for example, Carter 2000, Uzelac 2002, Cruickshank 2003a). 3.1.1 Realisms and Critical Realism Critical realism is a philosophical movement aiming to guide substantive social science theorising and research practice and to offer a viable alternative both to positivism­ –empiricism and to various versions of idealism/neo-idealism, relativism and linguistic and/or discursive reductionism, such as certain forms of social constructionism, post-structuralism and interpretivism, in social theory and research (Hartwig 2007). Critical or social realism also takes the form of generic frameworks of social theorising such as the Transformational Model of Social Activity (TMSA) by Roy Bhaskar and the Morphogenetic/Morphostatic Approach (M/MA) by Margaret S. Archer (Engholm 2007b, Archer 2007b). Critical realism shares with other versions of realism the premise of the objective existence of a mind independent of reality – in other words, it recognises the ‘objective reality (existence) of a class of entities and stresses that these entities are mindindependent’ (Psillos 2007: 398). The term ‘critical’ refers to the thesis of fallibility of social knowledge and to social criticism mainly by engaging in ‘explanatory

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critiques’ (Potter and López 2001). Explanatory critiques entail proving certain ideas or beliefs to be false – that is, to be antithetical to the interests of their holders – proving certain social relations to be exploitative and asymmetric, and, in many instances, proving the necessity of holding false ideas for the reproduction of exploitative or oppressive social relations (Sayer 2000). At this point, it is worth noting the potentially crucial role of realist qualitative methods in exploring in-depth the origins and ramifications of ideological discourses and their repercussions in actors’ social practices. For example, in investigating the relations between actors’ xenophobic or racist ideas, defensive ethno-national identities, and actions such as voting for extreme right, anti-immigrant parties, a realist qualitative researcher places much attention on questions such as the adequacy of actors’ understanding of their own ideas and actions along with the possibility that those ideas and actions reproduce social relations which threaten the interests of actors themselves (Manicas 2006). Thus, apart from interpreting actors’ meanings, a realist qualitative inquiry moves towards causally explaining them as well, without this being a contradiction. The basic assumption of critical realism – that is, the existence of a social reality independent of our knowledge or our identification of it (Sayer 1992: 5, Fleetwood 2005: 198) – is in contrast with idealism both in its traditional and its contemporary (linguistic/discursive) forms. Psillos (2007: 398) points out that apart from the metaphysical character of this basic assumption, ‘it has a semantic as well an epistemic component’: The semantic thesis urges that a certain discourse or class of propositions (e.g., about theoretical entities, or numbers, or morals) should be taken at face value (literally), as purporting to refer to real entities. The epistemic thesis suggests that there are reasons to believe that the entities posited exist and that the propositions about them are true. Given the epistemic thesis, realism is opposed to skepticism about a contested class of entities. (Psillos 2007: 398)

Critical realism emerged as a reaction to the positivist–empiricist dominance over the social sciences without falling to the form of ‘exaggerated reaction’ of relativist approaches (Danermark et al. 2002). On the contrary, critical realism stresses the value, the possibility and the emancipatory potential of social scientific explanatory theorising, pointing at the same time to the similarities of positivism with various versions of relativism and contemporary idealism, such as their common lack of ontological depth, their underlying ‘logic of immediacy’ (Cruickshank 2003a) and their overall antirealism. Furthermore, critical realism – which ‘is the child of the social and political turmoil that accompanied the end of the post-war boom in the mid-1960s…’ (Hartwig 2007: 96) – differs sharply from other forms of realism such as ‘naive’, ‘direct’, ‘empirical’ or ‘internal’. Thus, on the one hand, direct realism ascribes an unproblematic relationship between perceptions and objects (Psillos 2007) while empirical realism exhausts reality to observable entities (Collier 1994). On the other hand, ‘internal realism’ – according

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to which conceptual schemes are the sources of truth propositions about reality (Cruickshank 2003a, Psillos 2007) – is a contemporary form of idealism. Finally, attempts to incorporate or integrate realism with a non-reductive, non-mechanistic materialism such as emergentist Marxism (Creaven 2000) and hylorealism (Bunge 2006) are relatively compatible or reconcilable with the overall approach adopted in this book. Although there are philosophical and theoretical differences between various versions of critical realism, there is a series of, more or less, common principles, which may be summarised as follows: –– Social reality entities may exist independently of our knowledge and identification of them (Sayer 1992: 5, Fleetwood 2005: 198). –– Regarding the object of science and knowledge, critical realism differentiates between the transitive, the intransitive and the metacritical dimensions (Hartwig 2007). –– In contrast to empiricist and relativist approaches, critical realism prioritises ontology over epistemology (Cruickshank 2003a). –– Social reality is differentiated into the modes of materially, ideally, artefactually and socially real entities (Fleetwood 2005) and stratified into the domains of the empirical/subjective, the actual and the real (Outhwaite 1998, Hartwig 2007). It is also characterised by social complexity and emergence (Collier 1994, Sawyer 2005, Bedau and Humphreys 2008). Therefore, critical realism advocates a depth ontology rather than the ‘flat ontology’ characteristic of both empiricism and relativist/idealist approaches (Cruickshank 2003a). –– Causal analysis is central to realist social theorising. For critical realism, causal relations are viewed in terms of necessity rather than regularity (Sayer 1992, 2000) and operate in open systems (Archer 1998a). Causal powers are exerted as tendencies through interacting generative mechanisms which may be unobservable at the empirical level (Outhwaite 1998). –– Critical realism advocates ontological-depth realism, epistemic relativity and judgemental rationality (Hartwig 2007: 238); it also accepts a ‘practical adequacy’ notion of truth (Sayer 1992). –– Critical realism dismantles traditional ‘unhappy dualisms’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 2) such as those between positivism and hermeneutics/interpretivism, or between qualitative and quantitative methods. It strongly incorporates an interpretative dimension (Archer 1998a) in its theoretical framework, while integrating it with causal explanation under realist ontological and epistemological principles. –– Critical realism integrates quantitative and qualitative methods since it disassociates the former from positivism and the latter from relativism, certain versions of interpretivism and ‘strong’ social constructionism (Carter 2000). The combination of intensive and extensive research methods is both possible and desirable under realist principles (Sayer 1992, 2000).

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–– Generic social realist theory, and more specifically the morphogenetic/ static approach, rejects conflationary (methodological individualism and collectivism) and elisionist social theorising. It advocates an explanatory model based on the constant interplay between agency, culture and structure or between Peoples’ Emergent Properties (PEPs), Cultural Emergent Properties (CEPs), Structural Emergent Properties (SEPs) and contingent factors, where the temporal dimension is central (Archer 1995, 1996, 2000, 2003). In the following subsections, I analyse some of the most basic features of the critical realist approach to social sciences. 3.1.2 Transitivity and Intransitivity Regarding the relations between the subjects and objects of sciences in general and of social sciences in particular, critical realism stresses the differentiation between the intransitive, the transitive and the metacritical dimensions of scientific inquiry (Sayer 2000, Hartwig 2007). The intransitive dimension consists of social processes, phenomena, structures and systems of social relations that exist independently of social scientists’ knowledge or identification of them, whereas the transitive dimension includes conceptual schemes, theories and propositions about the former (Collier 1994). As for the metacritical dimension of scientific inquiry, it was constituted geo-historically when humans developed the capacity to critique their theories of knowledge in an ongoing way. In Bhaskar’s usage, it refers mainly to the critical, self-reflexive examination of the philosophical and sociological presuppositions of accounts of science and social science (metacritique). It is constellationally contained within the TD (within the ID). (Hartwig 2007: 265)

Thus, critical realism makes a distinction between real objects of social scientific inquiry and the description and theorising of them by social analysts – that is, of thought objects (Judd 2003). This distinction goes along with the differentiation between the ontological and epistemological realm which is a necessary presupposition for scientific inquiry, whether natural or social, to be possible (Judd 2003). Now, empiricist–positivist and idealist–relativist approaches alike fail to acknowledge this distinction and thus commit different forms of what is called the ‘epistemic fallacy’ (Archer et al. 1998). This kind of fallacy consists in asking questions about reality in terms of ways of knowledge of this reality (Danermark 2002), in other words, in defining what exists ‘wholly in terms of what is knowable…’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 96): in the case of empiricism in terms of knowledge of observable empirical reality generated by sense abilities

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and in the case of idealist–relativist approaches in terms of conceptual schemes, interpretations and discourses which supposedly ‘constitute’ reality. For critical realism, knowledge of real objects is always conceptually mediated but nevertheless this does not prevent the acquisition of, more or less, valid, although fallible, knowledge about the intransitive realm (Bhaskar 1998c). Moreover, the concept-mediation of knowledge of the intransitive dimension of social science need not lead to confusion or merging of the two dimensions (transitive and intransitive), giving prominence to the transitive one (Outhwaite 1998). The difficulty with differentiating between the intransitive and transitive dimensions in the social sciences arises mainly due the nature of social reality itself. Thus, whereas in natural sciences the independent existence of natural phenomena and processes are accepted more easily, the social world is inherently characterised by a strong interpretative dimension, and social scientific inquiry affects in multiple ways, or intermingles with, social phenomena and processes (Sayer 2000). However, the distinction is worth being made and is useful for the social world too, since, beyond a certain point, social scientific influences on social processes and phenomena become themselves part of the intransitive dimension of scientific inquiry. Furthermore, overemphasising the abilities of conceptual schemes and discourses in ‘constructing’ real objects leads to curbing the explanatory power of social scientific inquiry. As Sayer (2000: 34) rightly points out: one of the illusions of the hall-of-mirrors effect is produced by a (per)version of hermeneutics which assumes that because we can only interpret other discourses via our own, then we are not in fact studying independent discourses but rather our own discourse, or at least some kind of intertextual compound made from countless sources. This is an exaggeration, resting on the all-too-common reduction of mediation or construal to production or construction. This would reduce interpretation and communication to soliloquy. (Sayer 2000: 34)

Therefore antirealist assertions such as that ‘1 Social situations do not exist independently of the way they are interpreted by those involved in them or by outside observers. 2 Such interpretations are essentially arbitrary’ (Outhwaite 1998: 283) have to be rejected if we want to maintain the distinction between transitivity and intransitivity in social scientific inquiry and thus to increase the chances to acquire meaningful, comprehensive and in-depth knowledge of social reality. The existence of the intransitive realm is postulated by transcendental arguments, such as, for example, ‘…by asking “what must the world be like in order for the human project of science to be possible?”’ (Judd 2003: 34) and indirectly by immanent critiques of other, competing approaches and theoretical frameworks (Judd 2003). But the existence of the intransitive realm and the possibility to acquire more or less valid knowledge of it, or to enhance our knowledge of it, may be postulated by the character of everyday social life itself. In their ordinary everyday life, people engage in a myriad of interpretations of social processes and actions of

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other people and constantly ascribe meanings to them, even when they do not fully realise doing so. Most times these meanings are comprehensible, understandable and communicable (Potter and López 2001). This is so because meaning exists. It is there – an intransitive dimension of reality exactly as is molecular structure. It exists whether we understand it or not. Social science is possible because there can be objective answers to the questions: what does this mean? Why is he or she doing that? To repeat: meaning is communicable and possesses both a transitive and intransitive dimension. (Potter and López 2001: 13)

The preceding quotation indicates that the possibility to hold more or less successful theories of reality and to satisfactorily judge about their validity is based on certain relations that exist between the transitive and the intransitive realms. Hence, the two reams are not autonomous form each other and the transitive one does not constitute reality out of a formless, unstructured (and inherently) unknowable-initself domain (Nightingale and Cromby 2002). On the contrary, the two realms interact with each other, as conceptual schemes, theories, beliefs and discourses are never fully self-referential but are always ‘about something’ which is formed, structured and exerts causal powers of its own. Thus: We make reference through the play of differences among signs, but equally, the development of such networks of signs depends on reference (including reference to other discourses) and practical involvement in the world. Whether the patient is in the hospital is not reducible to a matter of discursive definition, for once one has provided definitions (within a wider discourse, of course), one is still left with the empirical question of whether the thing defined as ‘patient’ is in the thing defined as ‘hospital’. The discourse-dependence of reference does not mean that we can never distinguish between successful and unsuccessful references… (Sayer 2000: 38)

Hence, in many cases, even people’s most shared discourses, beliefs and expectations, and the most concerted social action, fail to be fulfilled according to initial goals or to confront reality which resists certain meanings and interpretations. As Archer (1998: 190–91) asks: what is it that depends upon intentional human action but which never conforms to these intentions? What is it that is reliant upon people’s conceptualisations but which they never fully know? What is it that is always activity-dependent but that never exactly corresponds to the activities of even the most powerful? What is it that has no organisational form without us, yet which also forms us its makers? And what is it whose constitution never satisfies the precise designs of anyone, but because of this always motivates its attempted reconstitution? (Archer 1998: 190–91)

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It is quite impossible to answer any of the above questions in a satisfactory way if we do not take into account the crucial distinction between social intransitivity and transitivity, and if we do not conceptualise social reality as stratified, differentiated complex and emergent (Archer 1995, Sawyer 2005). For social reality is never confined to our experiences and ideas of it, and never conforms to our intentions, as there are unintended consequences of social actions too. Furthermore, social actions and practices are not always in correspondence with individual or intersubjective meanings since, ‘just as it is not a condition for an intentional action that the action does in fact possess the property for the sake of which it was performed, so it is not necessarily, and indeed will perhaps only exceptionally be the case that what is exercised in action can be expressed in speech’ (Archer 2000: 146). The differentiation between the transitive and intransitive domain of social scientific inquiry and the social world in general means, contra empirical realism, ‘the anti-foundational non-identity of being and knowing’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 98) and what is considered to be the basic feature of critical realism; that is, referential detachment (Hartwig 2007: 407–8). The non-identity of being and knowing and referential detachment are necessary presuppositions not only for the development of abilities for discursive elaboration but also for the acquisition of language skills in the first place (Archer 2000). Thus, ‘language can only be learnt by reference to reality and it gains its meaning form its relation to this same independent reality’ (Archer 2000: 155). For no referential detachment was the case then the fallibility of our beliefs, interpretations and conceptualisations would be impossible. And, whereas this fallibility is proven constantly in everyday social life, either in the interaction among individual social agents, societal groups or institutions, certain social science approaches take the twisted turn of denying it, asserting self-referentiality, with devastating effects both to social theorising and to the abilities for a thorough and comprehensive investigation of the social world. As Bhaskar (1993: 212) quoted by Hartwig (2007: 407) rightly points out: Realism in the senses that involves existential intransitivity is a presupposition of discourse which must be about something other than itself, of praxis which must be with something other than itself or of desire which must be for something alterior itself. To someone who doubts whether referential detachment exists just ask them to repeat and/or clarify what they have said, and then ask them what it is that they have repeated or clarified. It must be a referentially detached (social) entity. Any creature capable of differentiation must be capable of referential detachment. (Hartwig 2007: 407)

Let me now refer briefly to an example, concerning the interpretation of biographies and life histories of immigrants, that indicates the usefulness of differentiation between the transitive and intransitive domains. Immigrants’ biographical narratives are increasingly utilised, within qualitative research, for the elucidation of various aspects of immigrant experiences, representations, practices, decisions and actions

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(see Iosifides and Sporton 2009). One task would be to interpret the meanings and representations of immigrants in order to understand, through somehow empathising with them, their motives, intentions, aspirations, expectations and, to some extent, their actions. Another task would be to place those meanings within the context of their whole biographical trajectory so as to be able to gain insights into the relations between meanings, representations, social circumstances and events. But the realist’s tasks would be more than that – notably, to be able to explain causally certain outcomes that are worldviews, social relations and/or action chains which are directly or indirectly derived from biographies. Now, should we, for example, follow social constructionist epistemological principles, we could not accomplish that task because causal explanation is not considered attainable in the social world. This is due to the fact that constructionism adopts the irrealist position according to which causal relations are not real properties of an independent social reality but properties ascribed to the social world by certain discourses and conceptual schemes (see McNally 1997). Referring to historical causal inquiry, Foster (1997: 185) rightly stresses that: Typical of postmodernist interpretations of society, according to Hebdige, is ‘the evacuation of any axis of power external to discourse’. For example, postmodernist historian F.R. Ankersmit states, ‘Suppose we ask for the cause of… “the Industrial Revolution” or of the “Cold War”’. We now ought to remember that these themes do not refer to an historical reality outside the text but to narrative substances. This means such questions are not questions about the cause of a complex state of affairs at the end of the eighteenth century or after the World War II, but a question about the cause of a notion or narrative substance. (Foster 1997: 185)

Now, returning to our example, a constructionist stance entails taking immigrant biographical narratives as accounts of the present, compiled by an array of ‘social and cultural resources’ available to the narrators, along with the specificities of the research relations. In this way, biographical narratives are unable to convey any real social processes of the past, let alone orient towards causal analysis and explanation. Thus, we need to adopt a realist stance of differentiating between the transitive and the intransitive domains of social science and reality alike, so as to be able to simultaneously answer both ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions by analysing biographical material, despite the limitations of much biographical knowledge (see Gardner 2001). This stance is necessary in order to treat human reasons that produce change as causes (Sayer 1992) and consequently to examine the role of the causal interplay between discursive and non- or extra-discursive elements in the generation of certain outcomes.

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3.1.3 The Nature of Social Reality In everyday social interaction it is very usual to become aware of the discrepancies, or even contradictions, existing between surface appearances and depth realities1 related to relationships, processes and phenomena. A supposed relationship of friendship and mutuality may be proven to have been an asymmetrical link based on exploitation and deceit. A plan for economic, social and employment advancement that appeared to be remarkably straightforward may turn out to be a disaster due to unacknowledged factors. Thus, everyday practical social knowledge points to the existence of a complex, multidimensional social reality, a great ‘proportion’ of which remains ‘hidden’, operates ‘behind the backs’ of social actors, constrains or enables social action, and often leads to unexpected, unanticipated joys or disappointments. This, more or less, intuitive sense about the character of social reality turns out to be the correct one; and because of its correctness, the acquisition of practical skills and knowledge in the evaluation of situations and making choices that are based on premises beyond surface and superficial judgements is a necessary precondition for mitigating risks and navigating more smoothly through social complexity. For critical realism, then, the social world is a layered, differentiated reality within the domains of the empirical and subjective, the actual and the real (Bhaskar 1998b, Danermark et al. 2002) (see Table 3.1). Table 3.1  Domains of reality Real

Actual

experiences/concepts and experiences/concepts and signs signs events

Empirical, more generally Subjective (the semiosic) experiences/concepts and signs

events

mechanisms Source: Hartwig 2007: 401 (Table 37) © Routledge 2007, reproduced with permission.

The empirical and the subjective domains of reality comprise social actors’ experiences of phenomena, events and processes of the social world along with conceptual and interpretative schemes through which the apprehension of the experiential world becomes possible (Danermark et al. 2002, Hartwig 2007). The 1  This is not to suggest that appearances are less real than depth realities, since, for critical realism, the former are also a part of reality. It rather suggests that reality is not confined to appearances – that is, to surface experiences or events.

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domain of the empirical/subjective includes also the ‘semiosic’, which ‘like the empirical, also has actual and real dimensions’ (Hartwig 2007: 401). On the one hand, the domain of the actual refers to events which occur in the social world whether experienced or not while the domain of the real refers to real objects, that is objects described by real definitions (Outhwaite 1998); on the other hand, the real is the domain of ontological depth and refers to generative mechanisms that produce events and phenomena and to the structural and causal powers of entities and objects (Sayer 2000, Danermark et al. 2002). Critical realism is a philosophy of social science preoccupied with the domain of the real and aims to guide social science in order to establish the existing connection among the empirical/subjective, the actual and the deep (in most cases unobservable) dimensions of reality. For critical realism, both the empirical/subjective and the actual domains are equally real as the deep dimension (Fleetwood 2005: 199). However, social explanation is impossible or inadequate without postulating the mechanisms and structural/causal contexts which condition and produce actual events and experiences; that is, without effectively linking the three domains of reality with each other. According to the above scheme, we may identify four different modes of real entities in the social world (Fleetwood 2005: 199–202); materially real, ideally real, artefactually real and socially real entities. Problems arise when various epistemological and theoretical paradigms in social sciences conflate different modes of reality or reduce reality to some of its domains while denying the existence of others. Thus, empiricism reduces social reality to what it ‘could be verified by sense-data/empirical observation’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 9). Actualism, a consequence of empiricism, ascribes universal, explanatory causal power to regularities between empirical, observable phenomena while denying the existence of, often unobservable, generative mechanisms bringing about events and processes (Sayer 1998). Thus, actualism conceptualises social causality as derived from constant conjunctions of empirical events – that is, by empirical regularities (Hartwig 2007). Relativist, subjectivist-interpretative and constructionist paradigms in contemporary social science are characterised by a different kind of actualism/ empiricism. They overemphasise the role of conceptual/interpretative schemes and cultural/semiosic frameworks for grasping the social world, ascribing to them autonomy and constitutive powers as regards social reality. Reality is exhausted by interpretations and discourses which do not construe a more or less independent world, but are constitutive of it; they literally produce or ‘construct’ it. Qualitative methods are mostly influenced by those notions as one of their basic scopes is the apprehension the social world through the experiences and thought categories of social actors. While empiricism/actualism and subjectivism/relativism/constructionism are often portrayed as sharply different and antithetical, they share a series of commonalities (see Patomäki and White 2000, Hibberd 2001a). The most important of those commonalities lie in their anti-realism and, subsequently, in

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a common fallacy, with highly negative epistemological, methodological and explanatory consequences; that is, the epistemic fallacy. The epistemic fallacy is the result of the undermining of ontological questions and the prioritisation of epistemological ones or of the ‘reduction of ontology to epistemology’ (Hartwig 2007: 173). The fallacy consists in ‘the analysis or definition of statements about being in terms of statements about our knowledge (of being)’ (Bhaskar 1993: 397 quoted by Hartwig 2007: 173), and characterises all paradigms and perspectives which share a flat, surface ontology, lacking the conceptual resources to elaborate ontological depth. Thus, for positivism-empiricism, ‘ … what is known is what can be experienced and/or observed and what “is” is what can be known. Nonobservable theoretical entities are treated instrumentally’ (Patomäki and White 2000: 217). Empiricism commits the epistemic fallacy mainly owing to its notion of causality as observable regularities and, therefore, its inability to accept the ‘causal criterion to establish reality’ (Archer 1998a: 192). This criterion allows us to postulate generative mechanisms and causal powers of entities which may be unobservable or may remain unexercised, but which, nevertheless, are no less real than observable events, entities and experiences. Various versions of subjectivism/relativism/ constructionism, which are also characterised by anti-realism, commit the epistemic fallacy too. Here, reality is taken to be what is conceptualised, ‘constructed’, or interpreted as such, and is exhausted by discourses or interpretations which ‘constitute’ it, rather than construe it (Boghossian 2006). This stance of ontological muteness (Archer 1995, Danermark et al. 2002) has dire consequences for social theorising and explanation as it rules out any notion of real social causality, occurring independently of conceptualisations and conceptual schemes. The following quote is a characteristic and extremely clear example of this kind of anti-realist, fallacious line of thinking: Structure is the meaning given to experience. Structure is immanent in the subject not in the object, in the observer not in the observed … Post-structuralists conclude that there are no real structures that give order to human affairs, but that the construction of order – of sense making – by people is what gives rise to structure. Structure is the explanation itself, that which makes sense, not that which gives sense. It follows from this that structure cannot be seen as determining action because it is not real and transcendent, but a product of the human mind. (Jackson and Carter 2000: 41 and 43, quoted by Fleetwood 2005: 205)

The above line of thinking is inevitable where conceptual resources related to ontological depth, reality differentiation, stratification and emergence are absent. Furthermore, subjectivism/relativism/constructionism lead to the undermining of rational judgement of different truth claims, and commits another fallacy as well, the one termed ‘the genetic fallacy’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 18):

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies The genetic fallacy occurs with truth-relativism, because as truth-relativism reduces truth into a framework, the origin of a belief (in such a framework), rather than its relationship to an external referent, is held to determine its truth. A logical fallacy therefore occurs because it is impossible for the origin of a belief to determine its truth or falsity. (Cruickshank 2003a: 18)

For qualitative research methods, theoretical and epistemological influences of the above kind lead to the adoption of a highly idiosyncratic and descriptive style of social research which is unable to contribute to answering causal questions or explaining anything in depth. The reduction of the outcomes of qualitative research solely to the reproduction or to the interpretation of the interpretations and meanings of social actors and laypersons introduces another kind of empiricism rather than departing from it (Hartwig 2007: 232), and limits the critical potential of the social sciences by ‘paralysing’ any efforts to engage with explanatory and emancipatory critiques (Bhaskar and Collier 1998, Hartwig 2007); this kind of qualitative research becomes, mostly unintentionally, an ally of contemporary ‘scientism’ and ‘instrumental reason’ rather than its adversary (Iosifides 2004, 2007). Now, the character of social reality, according to the critical realist approach, is not only differentiated but also stratified and emergent. The stratification of social reality means its differentiation into different layers or strata characterised by emergent properties – that is, by properties which are irreducible to those of its constituents, or to the properties of different- or lower-order strata (Sayer 1992). Thus, when examining the participation of immigrants of a certain ‘ethnic’ background in local labour markets we have to consider, research and analyse the emergent properties of local social relations and the generative mechanisms producing the terms and conditions of immigrant incorporation. These properties may be an outcome of a combination of relations such as those between local economic actors and broader contexts; between local economic sectors and activities; between local and immigrant groups; or between political and cultural considerations and certain local or broader socio-economic interest groups. The final arrangement of immigrant incorporation into local societies is then characterised by properties which are not directly reducible to those of any individual, collective or institutional actor either at local or at supra-local levels. The task of the social researcher is to shed light on the generative mechanisms producing certain outcomes by examining the nature of the relations and their structured combination. In this task, in-depth qualitative methods may be of great help, contributing significantly to the reconstruction of the multiple paths of relations between different social actors by investigating their past and present practices along with their goals, expectations and perspectives. To be more specific, qualitative in-depth interviews with local business leaders may reveal their perspectives and practices with regard to the employment of immigrant labour, moments of negotiation or conflict with other local actors or institutions (such as trade unions, local administration agencies, etc.), power relations, and

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ways of accommodating economic interests or mitigating the effects of economic downturns. The above hypothetical example may lead us towards an appreciation of the analysis of social reality as stratified and emergent but it also points to the differences between social and natural science objects. The most significant of these differences is what Danermark et al. (2002) and Sayer (1992, 2000) refer to as the ‘double hermeneutics’ feature of the social world and as the conceptdependence of social practices, phenomena and processes. Thus, Danermark et al. (2002: 32) point out that ‘[T]he interpretation, or understanding, of natural phenomena is a one-sided concern of the researcher’, while ‘the study of social objects involves a “double hermeneutics”: the social scientist’s task is to “interpret other people’s interpretations”, since other people’s notions and understandings are an inseparable part of the object of study’. The ‘double hermeneutics’ feature of social science inquiry is inevitable because a basic characteristic of social reality differentiates it significantly from the natural one – that is, the concept-dependence of social practices, phenomena and processes. However, the notion of ‘concept-dependence’ has to be treated with great attention owing to two antithetical but equally false tendencies. The first tendency is related to the absolute negligence of social actors’ concepts, interpretations and subjective understandings (see Danermark et al. 2002: 33), leading to a crude behaviourism. The second tendency is to treat lay conceptualisations and discourses as the sole object of social scientific inquiry rather than integrate them into broader and deeper theoretical and explanatory schemes (Joseph and Roberts 2004b). For critical realism, ‘concept-dependence’ means simultaneously that social scientific inquiry is untenable without incorporating within it social actors’ meanings, interpretations and discourses and that, besides understanding those meanings, there is a need to explain them too (Sayer 1992, 2000; Danermark et al. 2002) – that is. to place them within embedded, relational systems and social structures which are characterised by a material aspect as well. Hence: The fact that social phenomena are concept-dependent should under no circumstances be seen as if the social world only exists as mental constructions in people’s minds – we may make the same reflection as Bunge (1993: 209): ‘Indeed if the world were a figment of our imagination, we would people it with friends’. The social structures, that are reproduced or transformed when members of society act in accordance with their concepts of reality, are real. They contain powers and mechanisms which operate independently of the intentions of the actions here and now. In this capacity they constitute at every moment the intransitive object of social science, which scientific conceptualisation, that is the transitive object of social science, is all about. (Danermark et al. 2002: 34–5)

Hence, it follows that the concept-dependence of social phenomena does not weaken the transitivity–intransitivity differentiation in the social world because ‘social structures may be affected by social science knowledge, and actors’

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perceptions, but that social reality remains an emergent property’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 106). Furthermore, actors’ concepts do not always correspond to their social practices (Sayer 2000) and they have to be combined with concrete, material social practices in order to have an impact at all (Sayer 1992, Creaven 2000). Let me refer to a hypothetical but highly plausible example. Let us imagine a person who traditionally votes for a socialist party but gradually develops xenophobic and anti-immigrant attitudes. Let us suppose that this person continues to vote for the socialists despite her new attitudes and despite these attitudes contradicting official party policies. Now, the social researcher may be interested in explaining why this person continues engaging in a social practice (voting for the socialists) which contradicts some of her views (hostility to immigrants). This question is quite interesting but let us hypothesise that the person instead tries to follow a voting practice that accords more closely with her concepts. She can do this in two ways: first, by starting to vote for another, more conservative party or for a far-right party; second, by trying, in association with other voters or members of the socialist party who share her line of thinking, to move the party towards less immigrant-friendly policies. In any case, actors’ concepts and meanings have to be embedded in particular, structured social practices (with a strong material dimension as well), such as social stratification and domination along ‘ethnic’ lines, in order to make a difference or bring about a change. Moreover, in many cases, social meanings and conceptualisations have to be false or have to describe reality in a distorted manner for the reproduction of exploitative or oppressive social relations and practices to persist (see Sayer 1992: 35). Returning to our example, a realist social researcher would be highly interested in understanding the ways that the social actor makes sense of, interprets and understands the social world. However, a researcher of this kind would go further than that. She would like to postulate the conditions, societal structures or generative mechanisms under which the adoption of a xenophobic stance by a person who traditionally supports a progressive party becomes possible. Needless to say, qualitative methods inspired by the critical realist approach could deal with both tasks quite effectively. The concept-dependence character of social reality opens up the question of what role language, discourse and meaning-making play in the social world. Those issues will be dealt in much detail in subsequent sections (especially Section 3.2), but nevertheless some brief remarks are worth making here. On the one hand, for naive realism or for logical positivism, individual or social meanings, intentionalities and interpretations are not issues of great concern or of any concern at all, as for those paradigms facts speak for themselves; they hold inherent meanings which can be directly and rightly grasped by scientists when they follow the appropriate methods and procedures. On the other hand, social constructionist and relativist approaches prioritise discourse and language as the constitutive forces of the social world. As these approaches influence qualitative research practice and orientations to a great extent, I focus on them more than any other approaches. The main problem of overemphasising language and discourse and stressing their supposedly all-constitutive role arises due to the negligence

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of the relations that exist between language/discourses and their extra- or nondiscursive referents (Doxiadis 2008) and their conceptualisation as systems of self-reference. Thus, Sayer (2000: 36) points out that: In recent years in social theory, referents and the act of reference have received little attention, for, following the work of Saussure, it has been widely overshadowed by a preoccupation with the ‘horizontal’ relation between signifiers (equivalent to words and images) and signifieds (equivalent to concepts), together with forming signs, in abstraction from any relation to referents. The elimination of the referent – the death of the object – is, of course, consistent with the turn to discourse and away from materialism in social theory. It inevitably obscures the role of language in practical life. (Sayer 2000: 36)

While language is not the transparent and direct medium to accessing the social world that naive or empirical realism thought, its alleged centrality in social reality and social knowledge is seriously misleading and may be convincingly challenged. For critical realism, it is practice and practical action which should be prioritised in investigating and researching the social world because it is this element that is always dialectically linked with discourse and provides a way to account for depth and intransitivity (see Fairclough et al. 2004). Thus, Archer (2000: 121, 154) stresses the ‘primacy of practice’ over discourse and language and points to the ‘the practical order as pivotal’ in comparison with the natural and social orders, while scholars such as Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr Cetina and Eike von Savigny (2001) call for a ‘practice turn in contemporary theory’. Utilising the concepts of emergence and vertical explanation, Lau (2004: 370–79) integrates practice and Bourdieu’s notion of ‘habitus’ within the critical realist perspective as an alternative to phenomenological constructionist approaches to human agency and action. ‘Habitus’ is conceptualised as a set of un-reflective dispositions which emerge horizontally from structural arrangements. Furthermore, practice itself is characterised by emergent and irreducible causal properties. Lau (2004: 337) points out to three sets of habitus components: (1) fundamental beliefs, unthought premises or taken-for-granted assumptions (hereinafter belief-premises); (2) perception and appreciation or understanding (hereinafter perception-appreciation); and (3) a descriptive and prescriptive practical sense of objective possibilities (‘that’s not for the likes of us’ and ‘that’s the only thing to do’ respectively) and of the forthcoming (in Husserl’s sense). Obviously, these components are closely interlinked. (Lau 2004: 337)

Thus, social practices, characterised by tacit and implicit rules and understandings, are dialectically linked with social meanings and discourses. The latter have always to become embedded in concrete material social practices in order to exert a causal influence and the former always supersede initial meanings, discourses, expectations and beliefs due to their emergent character; in other words, due to

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the unintended consequences of coordinated social action (see Yoshida 2007). This framework of prioritising the ‘doings’ over ‘meanings’ of social actors is an adequate path for understanding the role of discourse and language in social reality without resorting to ‘hegemonic’ notions of it (Gronow 2008: 254, Archer 1995, 2000). Furthermore, a framework of this kind corrects the errors and avoids the fallacies of social constructionism, which lie mainly in a view of the social world as lacking any real causal properties outside or beyond discursive constructions of it and without any notion of normativity (Baerveldt and Voestermans 2005). Pharo (2007: 482) summarises those constructionist errors in a comprehensive way: In my opinion, the flaw of the constructionist view consists in overlooking the following considerations: (1) human actions largely escape social decisions and they display causal processes and intrinsic features which do not depend on external descriptions, narrations, interpretations or evaluations; (2) social cognition is at once a physical and an abstract process which is strongly and universally constrained by the flow of natural information; and (3) social norms and morality rest on independent features of human sensibility which prefers pleasure to pain in the normal case and recommends the avoidance of undue suffering. If properly understood, these assumptions open the possibility of a sociological realism which appears as a genuine, exciting and fruitful alternative to sociological constructionism and the demiurgic conception of society. (Pharo 2007: 482)

By focusing on the research of ‘causal groups’ and ‘substantial relations of connections’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 165), realist qualitative-intensive methods are better placed to investigate the relations between agents’ interpretations and social practices, their causal properties and the dialectics between structure and agency resulting in either social reproduction or transformation. Indeed, by utilising notions such as ‘practice’ and ‘practical logic’, social researchers have investigated a series of social phenomena and social processes in a predominately qualitative manner. These phenomena, just to mention a few, range from entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial legitimacy (De Clercq and Voronov 2009) to consumption (Warde 2005), organisational strategy research (Whittington 2006), diplomacy (Neuman 2000), trade unionist action (Lau 2004), and racist stigmatisation and categorisation of immigrants (Pharo 2007). Regarding the last, Pharo makes a telling argument by linking xenophobic and racist categorisations of immigrants with certain practices associated with concrete structural and political-economic conditionings. In his own words: Consider, for example, the case of racist stigmatization. Of course, the association of migrants and foreigners with wicked and dreadful characteristics is clearly a type of social construction that we find in many societies. But, as I have tried to show elsewhere (Pharo, 2001a, 2001b), the reciprocal acts of rejection or aggression, the political instrumentalization of foreigners, the

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numerous ordinary decisions associated with in-group/out-group perceptions and relations, the secessionist consequences of exclusive forms of self-esteem, are not at all social constructions. (Pharo 2007: 487)

3.1.4 Realist Social Causality Different explicit or implicit positions about the character of social reality lead both to varying degrees of appreciation of causality and causal relations in the social world and to different conceptions of social causality itself (Reiss 2009). Thus, empiricism and positivism adopt a reductive notion of social reality, confining it to the empirical and actual domains. Reducing reality to the levels of the empirical and the actual, empiricism rejects notions of ontological depth – that is, unobservable causal powers and mechanisms that bring about change and have an impact on things. This is because it adopts a notion of causality as the constant conjunction between discrete events, whereas when an event A is regularly observed to follow an event B, then the cause of A must be B. This successionist (Pawson and Tilley 1997, Kazi 2003) or regularity notion of causality leads inevitably to inclinations towards determinism since it considers the succession between discrete events as necessary (Sayer 2000): This assumption generates insurmountable problems: if causality is a matter of regularity, how are unique or irregular events, such as the dismantling of the Berlin Wall, caused? If the world is already determined by a host of regular causal relationships, how can people ever intervene in the course of events in a way which is not already pre-determined? (Sayer 2000: 94)

Now, the positivist-empiricist notion of causality entails either inductive or deductive reasoning. Induction leads to allegedly universal conclusions out of a limited number of empirical observations, where independent and dependent variables are linked to each other in certain supposedly causal ways. Deduction presupposes conformity of individual cases to universal laws (the covering-law model) (Danermark 2002: 80). Thus, according to the deductive-nomological model, ‘the explanandum must be deduced from a set of initial and boundary conditions plus universal laws of the type “whenever event x then event y”’ (Pratten 2007: 193). In a comprehensive way, Danermark et al. (2002: 80) summarise the limitations of both induction and deduction. Thus, induction ‘can never be either analytically or empirically certain’ and ‘is restricted to conclusions at the empirical level’ while ‘deduction does not say anything new about reality beyond what is already in the premises’. The empiricist-positivist notion of causality is based on the scheme ‘Observation + Correlation = Explanation + Prediction’ (Archer 1998a: 190). Positivism has advanced to establish an analogy between the social and natural worlds, based on the false premise that the natural world operates accordingly. Furthermore, it presupposes a high degree of closure in social systems, while,

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in reality, these systems are characterised by openness. Closure presupposes absence of qualitative changes in entities and phenomena possessing causal powers (internal or intrinsic conditions for closure) and stable relations between causal mechanisms themselves and between them and their environment (external or extrinsic conditions for closure) (Danermark et al. 2002: 66–7, Sayer 1984). Only then is it possible to observe universal regularities pointing directly to causal mechanisms and characterised by predictive capacities. In reality, however, absolutely closed systems are nonexistent, even in nature, owing to the stratified, emergent and complex character of reality, both natural and social. There are only different degrees of openness in different strata of reality – higher in social reality strata and lower in physical reality strata (Collier 1994, Danermark et al. 2002). Positivism fails to establish universal regularities in the social world not because of the alleged inability of social sciences to imitate and adopt the methods of the natural ones but due to the character of social reality itself – that is, its high degree of openness (Sayer 1984, 2002). Conceptualising reality as ontologically flat, non-emergent, un-stratified and undifferentiated in relation to degrees of openness, positivism reduces causality to regularities between discrete, observable, empirical events. Now, practically speaking, this tendency results mostly in ascribing causality to correlations between variables. Let me briefly refer to an example. In a study about public attitudes towards immigrants in western Greece, the responses of female research participants were systematically, that is in terms of statistics significantly, more positive than those of male participants towards immigrants in a series of social domains (see Iosifides et al. 2007a). This finding may be interpreted in various ways. If we interpret it descriptively, it is obvious that it points to a certain and extremely interesting pattern which needs further investigation and explanation. Problems arise if we interpret this finding as an indication of causality between the ‘independent variable’ (gender) and the ‘dependent’ one (attitude towards immigrants). These problems are manifold. First, gender per se does not explain anything. Second, although most women adopt a positive stance towards immigrants, many women do not; and, third, conclusions are derived from formal relations of similarity and not from substantive, real and causal ones. Hence, we have to investigate further and to identify deeper levels of social reality – that is, causal mechanisms and contexts which produce certain events and are not directly observable at the level of the empirical domain. Such mechanisms may be, for example, gender relations within specific socio-cultural contexts, employment relations within specific labour market conditions or the role that gender-specific rules and norms play in the expression and adoption of public stances and attitudes. Their investigation would require the employment of intensive, qualitative research strategies as a means to come up with complex and multiple causal mechanisms which may – depending on contexts, conditions and the dynamics of interaction with other mechanisms – produce certain observable events. The above example leads us to the examination of a notion of social causality which significantly departs from the positivist regularity or successionist approach

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and takes into account the character of social reality according to critical realism: a reality characterised by openness, stratification, emergence and ontological depth. Thus, causality and causal relations for critical realism are a matter of natural necessity rather than regularity (Pawson and Tilley 1997, Danermark et al. 2002). ‘To ask for a cause of something is to ask what “makes it happen”, what “produces”, “generates”, “creates”, or “determines” it, or, more weakly, what “enables” or “leads to” it’ (Sayer 1984: 104). For realism, causality is not viewed as a succession between discrete, observable, empirical events, where some are the causes while others are the effects, but rather as an interaction between underlying causal mechanisms which may or may not produce empirical events or regularities of empirical events. Causal powers and liabilities are inherent characteristics of entities and objects and, especially for social reality, of certain social relations. In other words, causal powers and liabilities are exerted due to the structure of social objects or, in most cases, due to the structure of social relations (Sayer 1984, Kazi 2003). Thus, a social network between immigrants and non-immigrants which is characterised by asymmetrical structured relations of exploitation and domination exerts causal powers over various social domains and fields such as the labour market and class positions of immigrants, broader income inequality, immigrant spatial organisation and so on. Whether these powers are exercised or not, along with their directionality and intensity, is a matter of wider conditions or a result of their interactions with other causal mechanisms. Social relations may be divided into substantial and formal: ‘Substantial relations means there are real connections between the objects, formal that there are not, but nevertheless the objects somehow share a common characteristic – they are in some respect similar’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 45). What is of more interest for the realist notion of social causality is the differentiation between internal and necessary from external and contingent relations. The former constitute the structure of social relations from which causal powers and liabilities originate while the latter form the social conditions which may play a role in the exercise of causal powers. Internal and necessary relations mean that the parts of the relationship depend on the nature of the relationship for what they are in reality. When this dependence exists for all parts of the relationship, then the relations are internal and symmetrically necessary. When it exists only for one or some parts, then the relations are internal and asymmetrically necessary (Danermark et al. 2002, Hartwig 2007). Now, the exercise of causal powers and the production of events or phenomena of specific character depend on generative mechanisms – that is, on certain conditions and circumstances. ‘A mechanism is that which can cause something in the world to happen, and in this respect mechanisms can be of many different kinds’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 55). Due to the contingency between causal powers and mechanisms responsible for their activation, we cannot establish causal relations by observing constant conjunctions of events, for those are the products of the interaction between different underlying generative mechanisms. Moreover, the existence of causal mechanisms cannot be derived directly from empirical

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observations because the former may remain unexercised for a series of reasons. As Jones (2003: 225) rightly points out: ‘everyday observation of the world does not enable identification of the causes of experienced events because of the disjuncture between real structures, the actual events produced, and the restricted range of the events available to experience (that is, the empirical evidence)’. Thus, causal powers for critical realism do not produce or lead to outcomes in a stable, law-like and deterministic way since this would presuppose closure. Causal powers, when exercised, are tendencies, and their empirical actualisation and manifestation depend upon other contingent factors (Bhaskar 1998a, 1998b, Archer 1998a). To give but one example, I quote Sayer (1998: 125): The law of value does not refer to an empirical regularity, nor a generalisation, nor a trend, but a mechanism which operates in virtue of the competitive nature of capitalist commodity production. The effects produced by it at the empirical level depend upon contingently related conditions, including those produced by other mechanisms which are sometimes called ‘counteracting tendencies’. (Sayer 1998: 125)

As we may understand from the preceding quotation, the critical realist social causality does not entail any notion of closure, determinism or essentialism; and this is because, according to the realist approach to social causality: There are four barriers to determinism. Firstly, whether causal powers – such as the ability to bear children – exist depends on the contingent presence of certain structures or objects. Secondly, whether these powers are ever exercised is contingent, not pre-determined. Thirdly, if and when they are ever exercised, their consequences will depend on mediation – or naturalization – by other contingent phenomena. A fourth possibility is that natural and social causal powers themselves (and note merely whether and in what circumstances they are exercised) can be changed. (Sayer 2002: 95)

The preceding remarks show quite clearly that critical realism debunks the dualism of interpretive understanding versus causal explanation, providing a novel notion of social causality distinct from the positivist and deterministic approaches of regularity and constant conjunction of empirical events. Critical realism recognises human agency as the ultimate causal factor in the social world, within certain limits and opportunities set by structural and cultural constraints and enablements. However: Recognizing that social structure does not exist independently of an agent’s conceptions and that persons are the causal agents of existing reality may seem to lead to a voluntarism in which society is the creation of (rational) individuals. […] But such is not the case. Such ‘creation’ is only with materials at hand […]; it is never ex nihilo and never unconditioned. Second, even if the acts of individuals

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are more or less ‘rational’, related to definite interests, and so on, their (structured) practices and the changes in them are not generally, if ever, intended; still less are these changes ‘rational’. As historically sedimented unintended consequences of intentional activities, they appear as ‘natural’ (Marx), but there is no reason to support that their ‘development’ is telic, that change is under the governance of some grand design […]. (Manicas 1998: 321)

This emphasis on the indented and unintended dimensions of agential power, as described in the preceding quote, reintroduces agential reasons and social practices in the causal order denied by paradigms as hermeneutics or interpretivism due to their inability to conceive causality in non-positivist terms (see Nagopoulos 2003). Thus, for critical realism, agential reasons – that is, interpretations, meanings, discourses, beliefs, desires, intentions, conceptualisations and, of course, actions and practices – are causes (Collier 1994). Let me elaborate a bit more on this. One basic presupposition of the acceptance of the thesis that reasons can be causes is the rejection of the positivist, behaviourist notion of causality as just physical causality along with the whole range of reductionist thinking associated with this notion (Sayer 1984, 2002). For critical realism, human reasons are part of the causal order that characterises reality. On the one hand, human reasons are able to bring certain changes in the world (Sayer 2002). On the other hand, human reasons are always conditioned by broader, usually anterior, structural-material or cultural-ideational contexts and circumstances. Furthermore, human reasons have certain practical and material dimensions as well, which, in most cases, are irreducible to them, result in unintended consequences of action and escape initial conceptualisations and expectations. Thus, social practices may possess meanings that are quite independent from the reasons that agents have or from the beliefs they hold for engaging in those practices (Leledakis 1997). These remarks point to the conclusion that the division between interpretive understanding and causal explanation cannot be maintained. ‘We need both to understand reasons or discourse in general, and assess to what extent (if at all) they cause change’ (Sayer 2002: 96). The latter illustrates how human reasons bring about change in the real world, the structural and cultural conditions and possibilities of their emergence (Collier 1984), and their interrelations with other causal mechanisms. ‘So reasons belong to the causal order, cohabit and interact with other causes in the open system of the world’ (Collier 1984: 155). Understanding the role of human reasons in causal explanation of social action presupposes the differentiation between real reasons and rationalisations (Collier 1984, Risjord 2005). The latter ‘occurs when the reasons sincerely given for an action by the agent are not the real reasons’ (Collier 1984: 254): the distinction between a real reason for a belief or action (one which is causally efficacious) and a possible reason (that is, I take it, something that has the logical standing of a reason for it, whether or not it is anybody’s reason), is fundamental to our whole way of thinking about thought and action. (Collier 1984: 154)

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This, of course, does not mean that rationalisations are not causes in general; it means only that they are not causes of agential action. For example, the real reason that many immigrants change their names into names common in ‘host’ societies in everyday interaction with non-immigrants is an attempt to increase social acceptance and to reduce unfavourable or discriminatory treatment (see Table 3.2). The reason that many may give for this action – that is, their appreciation of the cultural habits of ‘host’ societies – is a mere rationalisation. This rationalisation is not the cause of their action, but this does not mean that it is no cause at all or that it does not affect things or that it does not lead to some change. For this rationalisation may be believed by certain non-immigrants and result in outcomes aimed at by immigrants in the first place. ‘In other words reasons don’t have to involve “true” or coherent beliefs to be causes’ (Sayer 1984: 111). Table 3.2 summarises the basic features of social causality according to critical realism, giving examples for each one of them from migration studies. Nevertheless, realist social causality may not be fully intelligible without understanding another central dimension of realist thinking and theorising, notably social complexity and the phenomenon of emergence.

Table 3.2  Basic features of social causality according to critical realism Feature

Meaning

Examples from migration studies

Formal social relations of similarity Substantial social relations External and contingent relations Internal and symmetrically necessary Internal and asymmetrically necessary

Social categories, similarity as regards a common characteristic Real connections Not structured relations

Immigrants employed in the service sector or immigrants below 25 years of age Immigrant associations Social relations between immigrants and their neighbours

Structured relations, every part of the relationship depends on it for what it is Structured relations, not every part of the relationship depends on it for what it is Internal and (symmetrically or asymmetrically) necessary social relations ‘potentialities which may or may not be exercised’ (Hartwig 2007: 57) ‘What makes something happen in the world’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 206)

Social relations within a dense, informal immigrant network of mutual support and solidarity Social relations within local labour markets clearly divided along ‘ethnic’ lines ‘Ethnically’ segmented labour markets

Structures Causal powers and liabilities Generative mechanisms

Tendencies

‘potentialities which are exercised but may be unactualised and/or unmanifest to people’ (Hartwig 2007: 57)

Human reasons as causes

Causal powers of human agency (reasons, interpretations, intentions and beliefs, when acted upon) (Hartwig 2007)

Employment placement of immigrants according to ‘ethnic’ background but irrespective of educational and training qualifications and skills Gender, ‘ethnic’ and class relations as well as inter-relations resulting in concentration of immigrants in certain sectors of the labour market; for example Filipina immigrants in the domestic sector in Greece (see Iosifides 1997a, 1997b, Topali 2008) Tendencies towards immigrant employment in the informal economy and social and work insecurity and instability due to mechanisms related to legalisation regulations (terms and conditions for regularisation, broader migration policy regime) (see Iosifides and King 1996) Immigrants’ practice to change their names in everyday usage in order to avoid discriminatory acts and to achieve more favourable social incorporation terms in ‘host’ societies

Source: Compiled by the author and partially based on the following sources: Sayer 1984, Collier 1994, Archer 1995, Iosifides and King 1996, Iosifides 1997a, 1997b, Archer et al. 1998, Danermark et al. 2002, Sayer 2002, Hartwig 2007, Topali 2008.

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3.1.5 Social Complexity and Emergence One of the basic features of critical realist ontology – that is, reality stratification – entails social complexity, which is a necessary presupposition of phenomena of social emergence. Furthermore, complexity and emergence are closely linked to the realist conception of social causality – that is, the exertion of powers capable of producing change and affecting things, operating because of the structures of entities or structural relations at different levels, such as material-institutional, cultural, agential as well as because of their interrelations. Social emergence occurs when interaction or combination of social entities results in social forms that possess qualitatively different properties from those of initial social agents and entities and when these social forms are causally efficacious to agents and entities (Archer 1995, Elder-Vass 2005, Bedau and Humphreys 2008). Thus, in the process of emergence we may identify two different kinds of entities: higher-level entities and lower-level entities, from which the former emerge (Sawyer 2005). Higher-level entities are dependent on lower-level ones despite the fact that their properties are irreducible to those of lower-level ones, are inexplicable and cannot be predicted by them. Thus, following Archer’s (1995: 9) assertions and examples: Emergent properties are relational, arising out of combination (e.g. the division of labour from which high productivity emerges), where the later is capable of reacting back on the former (e.g. producing monotonous work), has its own causal powers (e.g. the differential wealth of nations), which are causally irreducible to the powers of its components (individual workers). (Archer 1995: 9).

Generally, emergent properties and entities: 1. 2. 3. 4.

Are characterized by higher-order descriptions (i.e. form a hierarchy). Obey higher order laws. Are characterized by unpredictable novelty. Are composed of lower level entities, but lower level entities are insufficient to fully account for emergent entities (irreducibility). 5. May be capable of top-down causation. 6. Are characterized by multiple realization or wild disjunction (Fodor, 1974) (alternative micro-states may generate the same macro states). (Goldspink and Kay 2007: 49)

Let me elaborate further on some of the crucial features of a realist notion of social emergence: the irreducibility of higher to lower levels, the real ontological status of emergent properties and the downward causation of higher upon lower levels. Irreducibility of higher-level characteristics and properties means the impossibility of explaining and understanding them in terms of the properties of lower-level entities, components or agents (Bedau and Humphreys 2008). This

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happens because higher-level properties are not the aggregative results of lowerlevel characteristics but the novel products of a certain degree of complexity (see McLaughlin 2008). ‘Only in cases where the relation between higher- and lowerlevel properties is wildly disjunctive beyond some threshold of complexity will the higher-level property not be lawfully reducible’ (Sawyer 2005: 68–9). Thus, emergence of irreducible entities and social forms is possible because the type and the complexity of relations between components produce changes in the very nature of the components themselves and because of certain characteristics such as ‘nonaggregativity’, ‘near decomposability’, ‘localization’ and ‘complexity of interaction’ (Sawyer 2005: 95–7). As Sayer (1984: 119) puts it: Emergence can be explained in terms of the distinction between internal and external relations. Where objects are externally or contingently related they do not affect one another in their essentials and so do not modify their causal powers, although they may interfere with the effects of the exercise of these powers. Mere aggregates, including ‘taxonomic collectives’ […] consist of externally-related individuals and hence lack emergent powers. […] In the case of internally-related objects, or structures such as the associated with our landlord–tenant relation, emergent powers are created because this type of combination of individuals modifies their powers in fundamental ways. (Sayer 1984: 119).

In contrast to non-reductive individualist (Sawyer 2005) and aggregative resultant approaches, the realist notion of emergence accepts the real ontological status of emergent social forms, properties and characteristics (Archer 1995). The real status of emergents and emergent properties is extrapolated by their causal efficacy to individuals and other lower-level entities. This presupposes a firm rejection of the perceptual criterion of the real – that is, the thesis that only observable entities in the domain of the empirical or the actual exist – as the sole criterion of what is real, and the complementary adoption of the so-called ‘causal criterion of the real’ that has been proved so right, in numerous different instances, in the course of scientific inquiry (Sayer 1984, Archer 1995, Sayer 2000). Ontological and methodological individualists may accept some kind of structural constraints on social agents but they attribute them to beliefs and interpretations of ‘other people’ in the present and in the past (Gimenez 1999: 20). This line of thinking conflates structured social relations with agents’ conceptions of those relations, ignores unintended consequences of social action and their outcomes, and does not take into account the distinction between social tokens and types (Gimenez 1999). Regarding the latter: Tokens are specific instances of more general categories or types. For example, the British miners’ strike in 1984 is a token instance of the strike as a recurrent event under capitalism. […] Methodological individualists assume that it is possible to reduce both social types and social events, whereas antireductionists only accept

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Furthermore, the strongest assertion of the reality of emergent social forms and properties may be made using the thesis of ‘synchronic emergence’ along with that of ‘diachronic emergence’ advocated by Archer. This is because ‘diachronic emergence’ would always be vulnerable to irrealist critiques. Thus, ‘just because structure represents the consequences of past actions does not mean that is real or autonomous from contemporary actions of agents’ (Sawyer 2005: 84). So: Arguing for a robust form of emergentism requires that we demonstrate the significance of relations to the causal power of a system … As Kim’s analysis makes clear, the only way to do so in a way that avoids reducing the power of emergent properties to those of their constituents is via the synchronic case. (Symons 2002: 195-196, quoted in Sawyer 2005: 84)

Closely related to the issue of the real ontological status of emergent properties is also downward causation, which is the exertion of causal powers to lower-level entities by emergent higher-level entities, since otherwise emergent properties would be merely epiphenomenal – that is, aggregate effects of micro-interactions unable to influence interactions and interactants (Bedau and Humphreys 2008, Bedau 2008). Causal powers exerted by emergent social forms (structural or cultural) are not determinate but conditional; they condition (constrain or enable) social action, set limits to options or open up new ones and influence the nature of the components of social systems and their relations (Archer 1995). Of course, their actual realisation depends on other contingent conditions and circumstances and, more importantly, on their interaction with emergent causal powers of social agents themselves (Archer 2000). This conception of causality, which has emergence at its core, differs substantially from that of positivism and empiricism. Thus: Events are caused by (actual) interactions between the real causal powers of the entities involved. Thus, they are not usually determined by a single mechanism or a single ‘law’ as in Hempel’s nomological-deductive model of causation but rather are ‘multiply determined’ or codetermined by a variety of interacting mechanisms, which may be attributable to entities at a variety of levels of the hierarchy of composition (Bhaskar 1978). Causal powers, then, cannot be understood adequately without theorizing part–whole relations, but their effects cannot be understood adequately without understanding the relation of a system with its environment. (Elder-Vass 2007: 415–16)

The preceding quotation points to what is the crucial feature of downward causation – that is, that causal influences of emergent properties change the very

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nature of the components of the system, increasing its complexity and leading to irreducibility of the properties of the system to the properties of its components. Sawyer (2005, 2009) analyses the types of downward causation exerted by different kinds of social emergents – notably, by ephemeral emergents that are frames of social interactions and by stable emergents that are emergents that last ‘across more than one encounter’ (Sawyer 2009: 5-6). Thus, for example, ephemeral emergent frames of social interaction constrain interactants by limiting their strategic options and choices and stable emergents constrain social interaction. ‘Emergents constrain the kinds of discursive patterns that can occur, and this is a strictly semiotic, interactional phenomenon, independent of human agency’ (Sawyer 2009: 8). The preceding remarks point to the fact that the phenomenon of social emergence is a central feature of social reality as a whole, not confined to macro-structures alone. It characterises even micro-interactions among individuals, the concessive field of study by interpretivists (see Martin 2009). Emergent social forms arise in every level of social reality with varying degrees of stability and endurance, exerting causal powers to lower-level entities and contributing to the production of irreducible, complex social systems. Social emergence produces and presupposes systemic complexity. There is a relatively long tradition of systemic thinking in social sciences, from the structural functionalist paradigm of Talcott Parsons, to general systems and chaos theory and more recently – form the 1990s onwards – to the complex dynamical systems theory (Sawyer 2005). The last paradigm is concerned specifically with ‘emergence, component interactions and relations between levels of analysis’ (Sawyer 2005: 22) and is based on the so-called ‘complex adaptive systems’ (CAS) theory. Complex adaptive systems are combinations of interacting components at different levels of organisation, constantly evolving through feedback and exchanges from their environment (Fromm 2004, Sawyer 2005). Complex adaptive systems are characterised by the following features: – They ‘comprise many different parts, which are connected in multiple ways’. – Their components ‘interact both serially and in parallel’; thus events may happen sequentially or simultaneously. – They ‘display spontaneous self-organisation’ which blurs the borderline between the internal and the external environment. – Self-organisation gives rise to structures which ‘are not necessarily reducible to the interactivity of the components’ of the system. – Emergent qualities tend to cover the whole system, despite their generation from local interactions. (Taylor 2001: 142 quoted in Doak and Karadimitriou 2007: 215)

For example, a regional migration policy regime may be viewed and analysed as a complex adaptive system of numerous, interacting actors and agents of different kinds, operating at different spatial and/or organisational levels: regional political or economic organisations, states, sub-state agents – such as municipalities or other

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local administrative units – non-governmental organisations, political parties, interest groups and immigrant associations. Many interacting agents within the system may actually be complex adaptive systems themselves, increasing the complexity of possible combinations and the unpredictability of outcomes even when there is adequate knowledge of interacting components and their behaviour. Emergent properties arise due to the complexity of interaction among components and the constant interchange among them and their environment. These properties are novel, irreducible to those of distinctive components and causally efficacious on the very character of components themselves. For example, regional or sectoral imbalances in supply and demand of skilled or unskilled migrant labour and phenomena such as labour market segmentation, polarisation, competition or substitution between migrant and non-migrant labour may be emergent, unplanned, unintentional phenomena resulting from systemic interactions and feedback between the system and its environment. The character of systemic components, the content and directionality of their interaction behaviour, may be influenced by the causal powers exerted by emergent phenomena and properties under certain conditions and circumstances. Thus, the continuous ‘inflow’ of irregular immigrants in a country and their employment in certain, labour-intensive economic sectors, linked with other, dynamic ones, may increase structural pressures for regularisation policies despite official declarations and respective policies aiming at limiting in-migration. Furthermore, labour market segmentation along ‘ethnic’ lines may create specialised craftsmanship niches unable to be sustained, deepened and expanded without additional ‘inflows’ of immigrants of the same or different ‘ethnic’ backgrounds. Another example of complex social systems which are characterised by emergent properties and concern, to a great extent, migration processes as well are so-called ‘multiple social inequality intersecting systems’ (Walby 2007). Addressing multiple intersecting social inequalities along ‘ethnic’, gender, class, age, religious or other lines is better accomplished through systemic approaches. The rejection of the concept of the system by post-modernists led to failures in the empirical investigation and theorising of the multiple dimensions of complex social intersectionality, mainly owing to problems such as cultural reductionism, inability to link micro- to macro-levels and the impossible task of identifying ‘a pure intersecting category’ (Walby 2007: 452). Contemporary complexity theory has rejuvenated systemic thinking and practice with regard to social intersectionality by acknowledging the ‘full ontological depth of each set of social relations’ (Walby 2007: 453) that produces social inequalities within different domains and across different lines, and by putting emphasis on system/environment distinction, the ‘non-saturation by a system of the territory that the system inhabits’, the potentiality of the ‘non-nested nature of systems’, emergence, path dependency, and on ‘the coevolution of complex adaptive systems’ (Walby 2007: 458). To put it more simply, complexity theory allows for the dialectical integration of macro-institutional arrangements with meso- and micro-relational processes of intersectionality, and for the in-depth examination of interaction among different

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systems, at various levels and within various spatio-temporal contexts, resulting in certain outcomes of multiple social inequality intersection (Walby 2007). Thus, according to Walby (2007: 466–7): The selective adoption of complexity notions enables the revision of the concept of social system. The complexity notion of the system/environment distinction enables a more nimble conceptualization of systems and their interactions. This allows the rejection of the notion that a system must saturate its territory, enabling multiple systems of inequalities in the same space or institutional domain. It enables the rejection of the notion that parts must be nested within a whole, and thus a rejection of the reduction of one set of social relations of inequality to another. Complexity theory provides the theoretical flexibility to allow systematic analysis of social interconnections without the reductionism that so marred the old. The re-working of these core concepts of social theory is necessary to adequately theorize the ontological depth of intersecting multiple systems of social inequality. The rethinking of the concept of social system is necessary to address this central issue in social theory. (Walby 2007: 466–7)

Linda McDowell theorises the intersectionality of social inequality across gender, ‘ethnic’, class and other lines, utilising ‘the example of the labour market position of recent migrants into the UK’ (2008: 491). McDowell sets the scene for questioning the usefulness of maintaining binary dualisms between culture and structure when examining multiple intersected social inequalities: suggesting instead the need to combine both approaches – to understand state power, regulatory frameworks, global flows of labour and capital, the extraction of profit, new divisions of labour, at the same time as thinking about issues of emotional and embodied labour, about interactive service work, raced and gendered performances of identity in diverse workplaces, in the belief that there are significant connections between the two forms of explanation. (McDowell 2008: 493)

The above approach, which is perfectly compatible with critical realist thinking, may be accomplished more fruitfully by adopting a complexity theoretical framework as a conceptual tool for guiding concrete empirical research. McDowell (2007) refers to gendered and racialised identities and to class practices that intersect and result in different emergents, within different spatial and sociocultural contexts – in other words, in different arrangements or patterns of overall inequality and power relations. Furthermore, and regarding recent migrants, especially those from Eastern Europe in the UK, McDowell raises the question of connecting diverse factors, processes, phenomena and categorisations such as ‘skin color, accent, visa status, class position, gender and sexuality’ or ‘nationality and English-language ability’ (McDowell 2007: 502) in order to account for intersecting social inequalities and immigrants’ and employers’ identity work.

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The role of qualitative methods in addressing complex issues, such as multiple social inequality intersectionality, could be decisive, subject to their application and utilisation within the premises of a critical realist rationale. This is because realism allows the examination of the interaction among structural, cultural and agential powers without resorting to reductionism, incorporates social complexity and emergence, and utilises systemic thinking in an open, dynamic manner. Within a framework of this kind, qualitative research methods need not be confined to the ‘micro-’ or ‘subjective’ level. For example, by systematically and comparatively researching experiences of women immigrant workers in the cleaning sector (see Avdela et al. 2009), qualitative researchers can postulate the broader systemic, structural and cultural conditions within which these experiences are lived, situated and become possible. Furthermore, they can link agential experiences and interpretations with specific social locations – that is, with intersections of race, gender, class and other hierarchies – and examine in-depth their causal interplay (Moya 2000b, Mohanty 2000). In any case, the ultimate goal of realist qualitative researchers is the (always fallible) discovery of generative mechanisms underneath or beyond surface phenomena, experiences or interpretations. This task entails thorough understanding and description of social meanings, actions and practices. But this is only the first stage of investigation. The realist qualitative researcher has to move far beyond this, notably towards a theorisation of possible distortions of interpretations and an examination of the complex links between social positions, contextual environment, resource and opportunity availability, cultural factors and individual dispositions, individual/social meaning-making and practical social action. For example, a female immigrant worker who accepts a lower pay within a context of an immigrant community business niche is placed in a position of inferiority due to multiple intersecting social inequalities (that is, class, gender and ‘ethnic’-based inequalities) operating both within the community itself and between the community and wider society. This is a real position, despite her understandings of the situation, her experiences and interpretations, although the latter are always causally influenced by her social position or location. For even though interpretations and understandings guide action to some extent, nevertheless, they are simultaneously shaped and conditioned by certain emergent properties existing independently of identification. Furthermore, in many cases, the social reproduction of domination structures entails a certain degree of interpretative and experiential distortion and mystification (Moya 2000b, Mohanty 2000). The investigation of phenomena of social emergence and complexity faces certain difficulties due to the open character of the social world, which precludes experimenting in the ways adopted in various fields of natural sciences. Thus, complexity and emergence are usually approached indirectly, through mainly retroductive reasoning, resulting in theoretical and conceptual elaborations known as ‘analytical histories of emergence’ (Archer 1995: 324). Nevertheless, relatively recent developments in computational sociology have made possible the direct examination and observation of the outcomes of social complexity – including,

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among others, social emergence – through simulation of whole societies (Sawyer 2005). The development of computational Multi Agent Systems (MASs) have made possible the observation and investigation of processes taking place in artificial societies and a deeper understanding of social dynamics. MASs allow for more autonomy in the behaviour of every agent as she constantly interacts with her dynamic environment, account for actors’ heterogeneity and behaviour changes, and capture the interplay between micro and macro relations (Sawyer 2005). Thus, ‘[T]he ability to simulate social emergence is perhaps the most distinctive feature of artificial societies’ (Sawyer 2005: 150). In other words, social simulation and the observation of social dynamics in artificial societies allows for a more complete and in-depth understanding of processes of emergence of norms and social structure, downward causation of structural features and forms, irreducibility of structural properties to those of lower-level entities and of the relations between social interaction and macro-social patterns (Sawyer 2005, Roth 2006). Contemporary applications of social simulation modelling in investigating social processes and the emergence of structured social forms are quite impressive. To give but one example, Geller and Moss (2007), adopting an explicit critical realist approach, investigate the emergence of opportunistic social networks of solidarity (or qawms) in Afghanistan. According to authors, those networks: can be perceived as dynamic modules based on actor interconnectedness which generate social order. Because qawms permeate all different spheres of Afghan social life, their analysis allows multidimensional insight into a conflict-torn society. We are particularly interested in the formation of power structures amongst Afghan stakeholders, for whom qawms are a means to acquire, maintain and increase power. It is in this respect the notion of neo-patrimonialism is pivotal to our understanding of power. (Geller and Moss 2007: 113)

What is worth noting about this study is that it is ‘evidence based’, and is informed by data derived through qualitative, in-depth semi-structured interviews with Afghan urban-elite individuals ‘motivated to reflect on power’ (Geller and Moss 2007: 117). Thus, qualitative methodologies may be linked with social simulation modelling in constructive and fruitful ways. Contextual and rich data derived by in-depth investigation of real case studies can inform social simulation rules, processes and procedures, resulting to outcomes which approximate real social dynamics more accurately. Moreover, I would add that qualitative research is valuable in highlighting crucial aspects of the actual complexity of multiple causal generative mechanisms regarding various social phenomena, including power relations and associated conflicts, even when statistical, quantitative data are available and credible. For example, Yang and Gilbert (2007) present a case study research in ‘the socialisation of newcomers into existing organisational groups, and examining how the entry of a new member reshapes the members’ interactions and the structure of the group’ (Yang and Gilbert 2007: 208), utilising ethnographic, qualitative data for Agent

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Based Modelling (ABM). Werth and Moss (2007: 321) make use of data produced by qualitative, semi-structured interviews for an Agent-Based Social Simulation (ABSS) of ‘Asset Specificity in the IT-Outsourcing context’. Qualitative data are employed as a source for the formulation of agents’ behaviour rules and as a means for model validation. Hassan et al. (2007) integrate quantitative and qualitative (life history methods) in order to develop an ABSS on the evolution of religiosity in contemporary Spain. One of the main tasks of the study was to take into account the qualitative aspects of agents’ behaviour (Hassan et al. 2007: 706) through created life stories of representative (ideal-type) agents using a Natural Language Generation (NLG) system. Finally, Taylor (2003) incorporates quantitative and qualitative methods for Agent-Based Modelling on the impact of e-commerce upon the value chain. Qualitative interview data were utilised in order to develop different scenarios regarding the impact of e-commerce on value chain and validation purposes. All the preceding examples indicate that qualitative methods may be applied or integrated in studies whose aim is to investigate complex and dynamic social processes, emergent social forms and multiple causal generative mechanisms. From a realist point of view, qualitative methods can serve as a powerful means for social explanatory endeavours moving beyond traditional descriptive and/ or interpretative tasks. Their increasing incorporation into Multi Agent Systems modelling indicates, more than clearly, this potential. To conclude this part of the section, I would like to make some remarks on the importance and centrality of social complexity and emergence for a critical realist approach to social inquiry. First, because society is characterised by complexity and emergence, both methodological individualism and holism are inadequate approaches to social explanation. This occurs because prioritising either individuals or collectivities and reducing the former to the latter or vice versa does not allow for the investigation of the multiple outcomes of their interactions. Second, social complexity and the emergence of social forms, which are irreducible to interacting entities or individuals and possess causal powers of their own, undermine the surface epistemologies of interpretivism and social constructionism. This happens because agents’ interpretations, intentional actions, social discourses and discursive practices are always conditioned by emergent social forms, participate in the causal social order, and entail/produce unanticipated and unintended outcomes and consequences. In other words, they are in constant interplay with the intransitive elements of the social world, which systematically resists wilful interpretation or construction of it (see Goldspink and Kay 2007). Finally, the very nature of societies as emergent and complex systems brings causality once again to the centre of social inquiry, taking it beyond the flawed positivist conception of it and away from its disastrous demise at the hands of interpretivism and social constructionism.

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3.1.6 Social Theorising and Explanation: Structure, Culture and Agency Contemporary critical realists contributed substantially to the development of a comprehensive array of theoretical and conceptual tools for generic social theorising and explanation. Those tools may act as precepts (Cruickshank 2003a) for substantive social theorising and research in almost every area of the social sciences, including the study of migration. The main aim of this subsection is to offer a relatively brief account of the way critical or social realism links structure, culture and agency, producing a social-scientific, explanatory theoretical framework in contrast to the various versions of reductionism, elisionism and epiphenomenalism. I draw mainly on the work of Margaret Archer, namely her tetralogy ‘Realist Social Theory: The Morphogenetic Approach’ (1995), ‘Culture and Agency: The Place of Culture in Social Theory’ (1996), ‘Being Human: The Problem of Agency’ (2000) and ‘Structure, Agency and the Internal Conversation’ (2003). In her work as a whole, Archer offers a remarkably detailed and thorough debate of the controversies around vital issues of social theorising and explanation, and proposes, in a highly elaborate manner, a series of quite convincing realist solutions to traditional and contemporary problems of social inquiry. Probably the most persistent of these, traditional but also contemporary, problems in social sciences is the connection between structure and agency (Archer 1995). This problem consists schematically of how to theorise the role of individual and social agential action and the role of the more durable and persistent societal configurations and patterns, regarding phenomena of social stability and change. Almost all attempts to resolve the problem of structure and agency, apart from the realist ones, tend to generally fall into three different approaches; methodological individualism, methodological holism/collectivism and elisionism (Archer 1995: ix). The first two are characterised by reductionism and epiphenomenalism, while the last is somehow a product of relatively contemporary but equally unsatisfactory efforts to overcome the structure–agency problem. Methodological individualism has a long and persistent presence in social inquiry, and its basic feature lies in ascribing explanatory primacy to individuals and their actions in relation to social phenomena and forms. Ontologically, individualism asserts that individuals are the only real constituents of society and ‘that the important things about people can indeed be identified independently of their social context’ (Archer 1995: 35). The former thesis is clearly connected with empiricist views of society and indicates a surface ontology of ‘observables’ characterised by the ‘perceptual criterion of existence’ (Archer 1995: 35). The latter thesis leads to a notion of individuals as characterised by a series of predetermined, pre-given dispositions which bring about social phenomena and forms. In other words, social phenomena, contexts and forms are fully reducible to and explicable by the inherent features, dispositions and characteristics of individuals. Thus, methodological individualism adopts a certain notion of social structure and a certain notion of agency in which both comply with its central premises and presuppositions. For methodological individualists, social structures

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are ‘patterns of aggregate behavior that are stable over time’ (Porpora 1998: 340) – that is, social structures for individualists are the visible, repeated and stable patterns of individual behaviour at the aggregate level (Porpora 1998) which have their explanatory basis at the micro-level. Structures are epiphenomenal to individual behavioural patterns, have no real existence of their own and are not causally efficacious in an independent manner. Collins (1981: 989 quoted in Porpora 1998: 341) explains the individualist logic: Social patterns, institutions, and organizations are only abstractions from the behavior of individuals and summaries of the distribution of different microbehaviors in time and space. These abstractions and summaries do not do anything; if they seem to indicate a continuous reality it is because the individuals that make them up repeat their microbehaviors many times, and if the ‘structures’ change it is because the individuals who enact them change their microbehaviors. (Collins 1981: 989 quoted in Porpora 1998: 341)

Now, for this type of social theorising to be internally consistent, at least at a minimum level, a certain conception of the individual and her alleged traits, attributes and dispositions is necessary. This conception is called by Archer (2000, 2002) the ‘modernity’s man’. Within this conceptualisation, human agency is characterised by certain pre-given attributes, dispositions and properties, which determine behaviour, and, depending on circumstances, result in the various macro-societal forms and institutions (Archer 2000, 2002). The most important of those properties is ‘instrumental rationality’ resulting in utility-maximising behaviour and certain biology-based behavioural dispositions (Creaven 2000, Archer 2002). The latter derive from one of the most widespread versions of contemporary biological reductionism, which is mainly professed by sociobiology and evolutionary psychology. In general, methodological individualism – that is, ‘the doctrine that facts about societies, and social phenomena generally, are to be explained solely in terms of facts about individuals’ (Bhaskar 1998b: 208) – is a reductionist project, as it confines social reality to individual behaviours and actions. It is also an empiricist and conflationary mode of social theorising and, as Archer (1995: 4) notes: Since an aggregate is a resultant of its components, this means that in practical social theorizing we are presented with ‘Upwards Conflation’. The solution to the problem of structure and agency is again epiphenomenal, but this time it is the social structure which is passive, a mere aggregate consequence of individual activities, which is incapable of acting back to influence individual people. (Archer 1995: 4)

Additionally, as Bhaskar (1998b: 209) asserts: ‘[F]or the predicates designating properties special to persons all presuppose a social context for their employment. A tribes-man implies a tribe, the cashing of cheque a banking system. Explanation,

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whether by subsumption under general laws, adversion to motives and rules, or redescription (identification), always involves irreducible social predicates.’ Methodological individualism takes many forms, and the positivist-empiricist version implied here is just one of them. Another one is implicitly adopted by various currents of contemporary interpretivism resulting in voluntarism, meaning and interpretative reductionism, a depthless ontology and explanatory limitations as regards structural contexts and factors (McAnulla 2006, Alexiou 2007). Of course, micro-level reductionism does not need to be individualist in its classical sense. Various hermeneutic, interactionist or ethnomethodological approaches are characterised by another form of micro-level reductionism and epiphenomenalism which is as equally problematic as methodological individualism. This form, which may be termed ‘methodological situationism’, prioritises the situation of micro-interaction (Mouzelis 2000: 46) and has a series of flaws. The most important of these flaws is the assumption that macrosocial phenomena are mere aggregates of instances of social interaction. This results in the neglect of the crucial role that social hierarchies play in structuring societies, in an inability to account for the phenomenon of social emergence, and in serious limitations to the comprehensive theorising of the micro–macro link (Mouzelis 2000). The second mode of reductionist-conflationist thinking of the structure–agency problem is that of methodological holism and methodological collectivism. Holism, a form of downward conflation, prioritises social structure or ‘social facts’ to such a degree that agency and its powers are severely downplayed and become epiphenomenal of societal forms (Archer 1995). As Douglas Porpora (1998: 342) points out, holism conceptualises social structure as ‘lawlike regularities among social facts’. Within this conceptual framework, social structures are reified and hypostasised, structural formations and factors determine social action, and social actors are viewed as merely bearers or performers of structural powers. ‘Because this conception of social structure rigidly divorces sociology from psychology, it represents social structure as something entirely devoid of the influence of human agency. On this sociological holist view, social structure operates mechanically and naturalistically over the heads of individual actors’ (Porpora 1998: 342). Methodological collectivism has to accomplish a double task. First, to avoid reification of structures and, second, to deal with the limitations of methodological individualism (Archer 1995). Thus, collectivism ‘complements’ individualism through the insertion of various structural factors into social theorising and explanation without taking a clear ontological position on the properties and powers of social structures. In this way, collectivism is unable to overcome empiricism. ‘For structural features are allowed in under the rubric of (as yet) “undefined group properties” provided they increase our explanatory/predictive power by helping to account or observed regularities. It is its contribution to accounting for a constant conjunction which gives a structural property its right of entry’ (Archer 1995: 54). Finally, regarding elisionism or central conflationist theorising, Giddens proposes a solution to the structure–agency problem by asserting their duality

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and their ontological inseparability (Archer 1995). Within this framework (e.g. structuration theory), the social world is conceptualised as a series of ‘rulefollowing practices’ of highly knowledgeable social actors who possess adequate practical knowledge to ‘go on’ in life (Cruickshank 2003a: 69). Thus, for elisionism, the solution to the structure–agency problem lies in the close linkage between structural context and social action in a way that the former is always the outcome and condition of the latter. This linkage implies inseparability between structure and agency, their mutual constitution and the preclusion of any notion of distinct causal powers or temporal differentiation between them (Archer 1995). For elisionist approaches, social structure is viewed as ‘rules and resources’ (Porpora 1998: 345) which produce the ‘situated’ practices of social actors. This concept grants structures a ‘virtual existence’, stripping them of any independent causal powers and denying them any ontological independence from social practices (Porpora 1998, Cruickshank 2003a). Thus, ‘[V]irtual structures become real once instantiated, but this is not to say that structures, or rather, structural properties, are emergent properties as emergent properties, would be, for Giddens, reified “things” that existed outside people and which deterministically “shoved” people about’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 78). Problems with this kind of theorising on the relationship between structure and agency are manifold. Contra Archer, Giddens’ structuration theory is charged with being methodologically individualist rather than elisionist (Cruickshank 2003a). This is because the close linkage of structural properties – that is, of informal rules – with the social practices of individuals makes impossible the conceptualisation of how the former become the constraining or enabling social context for the latter. Thus, for Cruickshank (2003a: 81): Structure and agency are not elided simply because structure is reduced into agency: rules are nothing more than individuals’ practices. This produces a sociology of the present tense because we could not understand how individuals made history in circumstances not of their choosing. We would not explain how structures are furnished a social context which enabled and constrained individuals’ practices. Instead, all we could refer to would-be individuals’ practices. Such a position would clearly be individualist, because there could be no reference to anything other than individuals and their acts. […] In short, we have upwards conflationism (rather than central conflationism), which can only explore individual’s acts and meanings in the here and now, because it cannot conceptualise the existence of a broader social context influencing individuals (and changing only slowly). (Cruickshank 2003a: 81)

Furthermore, structuration theory implies a certain form of voluntarism, falls into a version of interpretivism and irrealism about structures, neglects the role of materiality in structuring the social world, denies social emergence and fails to effectively link micro- and macro-levels due to their conceptualisation as

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face-to-face interaction and non face-to-face (extended in space and time) social interaction respectively (Archer 1995, Mouzelis 1997, Cruickshank 2003a). In general, it should to be noted that the problem of linking agency to structure (and to culture) remains central to contemporary social theory since almost all epistemological and theoretical paradigms prioritise either structure, culture or agency, or merge them in various ways, and irrespective of the terms used they are unable to avoid the errors of reductionism or elisionism. Interpretivism is characterised by an individualist ontology, only this time it is individuals’ meanings and interpretations rather than certain behavioural dispositions that take precedence in social theorising. Methodological situationism, which is mainly characteristic of the symbolic interactionist approaches, is a form of microlevel reductionism (Mouzelis 1997); yet others, for example Creaven (2000), group it, together with post-structuralism, postmodernism and structuration theory, within the elisionist tradition. Certain versions of social constructionism may be categorised as upwards, downwards or central conflationist (elisionist) modes of thinking. Therefore, micro-social constructionism (see Burr 2003) falls into methodological individualism or situationism, while macro-social constructionism, influenced by postmodernism and post-structuralism, may be viewed as an extreme form of downwards conflationism ‘because postmodernism not only asserts the primacy of (linguistic) structure over human agency, it ultimately seeks to dissolve the human subject entirely’ (Archer 2000: 25). The classical social constructionism of Berger and Luckmann is a central conflationist/ elisionist project due to its conceptualisation of structure and agency as mutually constitutive (Archer 1995, Mouzelis 1997). Despite differences in categorising these epistemological and theoretical movements, there is a commonality in all of them: their inability to theorise the structure–agency relationship without falling into some kind of epiphenomenalism, reductionism and conflationism. On the contrary, critical (or social) realism offers a more convincing solution to the conundrum of the structure/culture–agency problem, which simultaneously avoids conflationism along with the much debated errors of foundationalism and misplaced essentialism (see Sayer 2000: 86, 89–102). This solution also allows for a more comprehensive and fruitful theoretical and methodologicalexplanatory endeavour in the social sciences. Margaret Archer (1995) termed this solution ‘the morphogenetic approach’ because it focuses on how the interplay among, the separate and equally real, structural, cultural and agential powers and properties results either in maintaining essential social relations (morphostasis) or transforming them (morphogenesis). So, realism treats structure and agency as analytically separate and as possessing properties and powers which are different and distinct from each other. This happens because of the emergent character of social reality, resulting in the irreducibility of structure to agency and vice versa and allowing the examination of their interplay over time, rather than the reduction of the one to the other or their elision. Social emergence is central in order to understand the relationship between structure and agency. which is characterised

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by their relative autonomy and by the exertion of separate and independent causal powers (Archer 1995). The interplay between structure and agency is based on two propositions: (i) That structure necessarily pre-dates the action(s) leading to its reproduction or transformation; (ii) That structural elaboration necessarily post-dates the action sequences which gave rise to it. As embodiments of analytical dualism, both are opposed to conflation since what is pivotal are the conditional and generative mechanisms operating between structure and agency. (Archer 1995: 15).

Another strength of social realism is that it treats society and people as distinct, independent and irreducible and, at this crucial point, is greatly inspired by Lockwood’s conceptualisations of system and social integration or of the relations between the parts and the people (see Archer 1995: 170–72 and Mouzelis 1997: 75–98). Thus, system integration concerns the degree of complementarity or contradiction between the institutional arrangements and the essential structural relations of societies, while social integration refers to the relations between different groups of social actors (Mouzelis 1997). Realism extends this notion by asserting that structure (and culture) is the result of phenomena of social emergence – in other words, that they are emergent properties. In this way, it avoids reification, as emergent properties are dependent on lower-level entities for their existence and are changeable but nevertheless real, exert causal influences on lower-level entities and are characterised by novel features irreducible to those entities. For realism, social structures are ‘systems of human relations among social positions’ (Porpora 1998: 343) that are dependent ‘upon material resources, both physical and human’ (Archer 1995: 175). Social structures are characterised by internal and necessary relations between their parts but, because they constantly interact with other structures and with agential powers and actions, their influences may remain unexercised. Thus, as Porpora (1998: 343) points out: It follows on the realist view that science has two tasks: to explain the causal properties of each entity in terms of its internal structure and to explain the occurrence of particular events in terms of conjunctures of the causal properties of various interacting mechanisms. Neither of these tasks involves the lawlike correlations among events that are so integral to the positivist covering law of explanation. (Porpora 1998: 343)

I would add to this that none of these tasks involves the confinement of social inquiry to social agents’ meanings and interpretations, as this exhaustion precludes the examination of the ways that social properties emerge out of social interaction, are independent of agents’ identification, and causally influence, though do not determine, social action.

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Now, Archer describes the morphogenetic/morphostatic cycle regarding social structures as follows: (i) there are internal and necessary relations within and between social structures (SS); (ii) causal influences are exerted by social structure(s) (SS) on social interaction (SI); (iii) there are causal relationships between groups and individuals at the level of social interaction (SI); (iv) social interaction (SI) elaborates upon the composition of social structure(s) (SS) by modifying current internal and necessary structural relationships and introducing new ones where morphogenesis is concerned. Alternatively social interaction (SI) reproduces existing internal and necessary structural relations when morphostasis applies. (Archer 1995: 168–9)

Social structures condition, that is constrain or enable, social action and the terms of social interaction; this conditioning operates through involuntary placement of people into different social positions characterised by different vested interests for their maintenance or transformation and by differentiated opportunity costs as regards social action and action plans (Archer 1995). Of course, there are always different ‘degrees of interpretative freedom’ (Archer 1995: 208) for social actors because structural emergents condition, and do not determine, action. In other words, they supply more or less powerful reasons for action to social agents. ‘[R] easons not only have to be weighed and found good but if and when they are, discretionary judgements have to be made about what to do in view of them. Action then has been consistently seen as resulting from the confluence of powers of the ‘parts’ and the ‘people’’ (Archer 1995: 208). These reasons are conceptualised by four different ‘situational logics’ which are the results of the relations between and within different structural emergents; these are the situational logic of ‘protection’ resulting from necessary complementarities within or between structures, ‘compromise’ resulting from necessary incompatibilities, ‘elimination’ resulting from contingent incompatibilities and ‘opportunism’ resulting from contingent compatibilities (Archer 1995: 218). The same scheme applies to culture and Cultural Emergent Properties (CEPs), since conflationist or elisionist thinking is quite common to cultural analysis as well (Archer 1996). Here analytical dualism entails the differentiation between the objective and emergent cultural system and the logical relations between its components – that is, between ‘theories, beliefs, values, arguments, or more strictly between propositional formulations of them’ (Archer 1996: 107) – and the socio-cultural action and interaction of agents. In the case of cultural analysis, the scheme of the morphogenetic/morphostatic cycle is given by Archer as follows: (i) there are internal and necessary logical relationships between components of the Cultural System (CS);

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The causal influences of the cultural system on socio-cultural interaction are exerted through four different situational logics: constraining contradictions (necessary incompatibilities), concomitant complementarities (necessary complementarities), competitive contradictions (contingent incompatibilities) and contingent complementarities (see Archer 1995: 229–45). Now, social structures (or Structural Emergent Properties – SEPs) and cultural systemic forms (or Cultural Emergent Properties – CEPs) condition (constrain or enable) social interaction resulting in structural or cultural elaboration –that is, in structural or cultural morphostasis or morphogenesis (Archer 1995). The whole process involves strongly agential action and presupposes a notion of human agency as both emergent and stratified; in the process of interaction between SEPs, CEPs and agential powers (Peoples Emergent Properties – PEPs) agency contributes to structural and cultural elaboration but in the process also elaborates itself (Archer 1995, 2000, 2002). The morphogenetic/morphostatic process of structure, culture and agency is always a process that occurs over time, and is schematically illustrated in Figure 3.1.

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Figure 3.1  The morphogenesis of structure, culture and agency Structural conditioning _____________________ T1 Social interaction _______________________ T2 T3 Structural elaboration _______________________ T4 Cultural conditioning _____________________ T1 Socio-Cultural interaction _______________________ T2 T3 Cultural elaboration _______________________ T4 Socio-cultural conditioning of groups _____________________ T1 Group interaction _______________________ T2 T3 Group elaboration _______________________ T4 Source: Archer 1995: 193–4, Figures 10, 11 and 12. © Cambridge University Press, 1995, reproduced with permission.

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The presuppositions for social transformation (morphogenesis) or reproduction (morphostasis) are summarised in Table 3.3. Those presuppositions are related to different combinations of situational logics as well as to the character of social or systemic (structural or cultural) integration, and result in four different combinations of structural and cultural morphostatic or morphogenetic outcomes: ‘conjunction between structural morphostasis and cultural morphostasis’, ‘disjunction between cultural morphostasis and structural morphogenesis’, ‘disjunction between cultural morphogenesis and structural morphostasis’ and ‘conjunction between cultural morphogenesis and structural morphogenesis’ (Archer 1995: 309, 312, 315 and 318 respectively). Those combinations are termed by Archer (1995: 325) ‘thirdorder emergent properties’ while ‘first-order emergent properties are the results of social interaction’ and ‘second-order emergent properties constitute the results of the results of necessary and internal relations amongst the former’ (SEPs, CEPs and PEPs). Table 3.3  Morphostasis and morphogenesis High

Low

High Necessary complementarity Necessary contradiction Morphostasis Social Integration Low Contingent complementarity Contingent contradiction Morphogenesis Systemic Integration (structural or cultural)

Source: Archer 1995: 295 (Figure 17. When morphostasis versus when morphogenesis. © Cambridge University Press 1995, reproduced with permission).

Now, regarding human agency, and contrary to other approaches that conceptualise it either in an over- or under-socialised manner, critical realism ascribes to it genuine powers which are the product of processes of emergence. For realism, agency is stratified and has real causal powers (see Hartwig 2007: 18–24 and 384–5): agential social practices, actions, reasonings and meanings are integral components of the causal order of the world and thus need to be explained and not only interpreted (Archer 2000). And this is because ‘[S]tructural and cultural emergent properties (SEPs and CEPs) only emerge through the activities of people (PEPs), and they are only causally efficacious through the activities of people’ (Archer 2000: 307). Human agency is viewed as emergent from the interplay of different strata and their relative autonomous characteristics and properties. First, the emergence of self-consciousness is the product of human interaction with the world as a totality and not only with society or more narrowly through participation in societal discourses; it is also the product of human interaction with nature and the practical order whereas practice is rendered to be pivotal and having primacy over language (Archer 2000, 2002). Thus, according to Archer (2002: 13):

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Self-consciousness derives from our embodied practices in reality, and embodiment necessarily refers to human properties which are non-social in kind. The primacy accorded to practice makes the emergent sense of self independent from ‘joining society’s conversation; even though language acquisition may be taking place, it is the dependent variable’. Because acquiring a continuous sense of self entails practices, then it also involves work in the world. This is what sets it apart from the pre-given character of Modernity’s Man. Because it emerges at a nexus of our embodied encounters with the world, this is what sets it apart from Society’s Being. (Archer 2002: 13)

Self-consciousness is the base for the emergence of personal identity, that is the totality of relatively enduring and agential properties resulting from interaction with natural, practical and social orders. ‘[F]undamentally, personal identity is a matter of what we care about in the world’ (Archer 2002: 15) and it includes concerns as regards ‘bodily well-being’ (interaction with the natural order), ‘performative achievement’ (interaction with the practical order) and ‘self-worth’ (interaction with the social order) (Archer 2002: 16). The emergence of social identity – that is, of social agential position and action – completes the stratified nature of agency, according to the critical realist approach. Social agents may be distinguished into primary agents, corporate agents and actors. Primary and corporate agents are those that are involuntarily placed in positions within certain cultural and structural contexts; in other words, they ‘are defined as collectivities sharing the same lifechances’ (Archer 2000: 261). But while the primary agents lack any collective action plan towards structural or cultural reproduction or transformation, and they impact on structural and cultural contexts mostly unintentionally, corporate agents are characterised by different degrees of collective organisation and seek actively to influence cultural or structural contexts (Archer 2000, 2002). Finally, social actors are those who manage to ‘acquire their social identities from the way in which they personify the roles they choose to occupy’ (Archer 2000: 261). Social explanation for the realist entails the examination of how the interplay among structural, cultural and people’s emergent properties (SEPs, CEPs and PEPs respectively) over time results in certain outcomes. What distinguishes realism from other approaches to social theorising and explanation is that it avoids reductionism and grants distinct features and causal powers to agency, culture and structure. Furthermore, the realist approach does not offer any ready-made specific theories about the social world but acts mainly as an ‘underlabourer’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 143) of concrete, and always fallible, social research. SEPs, CEPs and PEPs may be viewed as general realist precepts, the application of which entails the formulation of domain-specific meta-theories through the immanent critique of other approaches and explanatory attempts (Cruickshank 2003a). Cruickshank (2003a) summarises the basic characteristics of realist social theorising as shown in Figure 3.2.

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Figure 3.2  Levels of realist theorising Metaphysical realism (metaphysical ontological argument (with no specific clams about being) about reality existing independently of our perspectives and ideas, contra idealism and relativism) General realist meta-theory (meta-theoretical ontology: emergent properties in open systems)

Domain-specific meta-theory (applying the realist precepts to a substantive research debate)

Empirical research and the formation of specific theories

Source: Cruickshank 2003a: 144 (Figure 6.1, Levels of realist theorising. © Routledge 2003, reproduced with permission).

Cruickshank’s generic scheme may be applied to social scientific attempts to explain different aspects of the migratory phenomenon. These attempts would have the chance to be more successful if undertaken within a realist framework that allows the examination of both systems of interaction and interplay among diverse and multiple actors – such as individual immigrants, immigrant organisations, political parties, states and organised economic interest groups – and the outcomes of various structural and/or cultural emergent properties such as labour market arrangements, ‘ethnic’, religious, gender and age divisions, discourses of nationhood, identities, integration patterns and migration policy regimes. Within such systemic realist frameworks, reductionism and conflationism of any type is avoided, the inherent complexity of migratory phenomena and processes is addressed, and the centrality of emergent phenomena within essentially open societal systems is fully acknowledged. Table 3.4 contains some possible structural, cultural and people’s emergent properties (SEPs, CEPs and PEPs) related to the migration phenomenon.

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Table 3.4  Some possible Structural, Cultural and People’s Emergent Properties (SEPs, CEPs and PEPs) related to migration SEPs

CEPs

Labour market structures with Prevalent societal values special emphasis on divisions along ‘ethnic’, gender and age Dominant ideological discourses, especially lines ‘nationhood’ discourses and representations Global, regional, national and sub-national economic Identities especially in structures including patterns of economic relations among relation to attitudes and stances towards perceived sectors and spatial units cultural diversity and homogeneity International, national and local political structures and associated policies

PEPs Primary agents: individual immigrants and non-immigrants Corporate agents: immigrant associations, non-governmental organisations, political parties, employers’ and employees’ associations, various interest groups, human rights advocacy groups

Systemic socio-spatial inequalities at different spatial levels Migration policy regimes at different spatial levels Source: Compiled by the author.

Based on Table 3.4, a realist study of an aspect of migratory processes and phenomena would seek to examine the interplay between different structural, cultural and agential emergent properties over time in order to highlight the exact process of production of specific outcomes. It would emphasise the indication of functions and specific generative mechanisms which are unobservable at the level of the empirical and which are responsible for the production of certain events, processes and developments at the levels of the empirical and the actual. In order to achieve this, the realist researcher would take into serious account the ways in which internal and necessary social relations and interactions within and between structural and the cultural-ideational domain are linked with agential action and how the causal influences of those relations and linkages manifest themselves (or do not manifest themselves) resulting in observable events and outcomes. For example, the process of migration policy changes towards granting citizenship rights to legal immigrants and to their children in a country2 is one matter that a realist researcher would examine, going beyond surface explanations at the level of observable events (e.g. certain policy decisions of the party or 2  A policy change of this kind is currently under way in Greece.

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parties in power). She would be interested in elucidating the complex generative mechanisms that made possible such an outcome. This elucidation would require the examination of the interplay between the structural conditions leading to permanent or mostly permanent immigrant presence in the country, the dynamics of the ideational contexts that influence the terms of social inclusion or exclusion and social conflicts or struggles regarding human, social and citizenship rights. Qualitative research methods may be employed to elucidate those complex generative mechanisms, either autonomously or in combination with quantitative techniques. Of course, this employment presupposes the radical detachment of qualitative methods both from interpretative or constructionist epistemological and theoretical assumptions and from the assumption that qualitative methods are adequate only to research social processes at the micro-, individual or interactionist level (see Smith 2005, Tacq 2010). The former means, among other things, that qualitative methods can be used as a powerful means to address causality in the social world – thus, for example, in-depth interviews or focus groups with immigrants and non-immigrants, with key persons and representatives of NGOs, with immigrant organisations and central or local administrative agencies, and discourse and content analysis of official policy documents and participant observation in public spaces, municipalities or public policy departments and agencies may result in valuable insights into the postulation of how multiple and intersecting causal factors at different layers of social reality form specific generative mechanisms. The latter, as noted earlier, means that qualitative methods may be viewed as adequate to research macro-phenomena and macroprocesses and not necessarily confined to the investigation of phenomena and processes in the micro-level (see Mouzelis 1997, 2000). Thus, studying holistically and in depth the internal organisation and external relations of local or state agencies, or interviewing policymakers on issues related to the formulation and implementation of certain initiatives, is a work of essentially macro-dimensions; it is a methodological strategy that, under realist premises, can lead to theoretical elaboration on macro- and emergent properties which can be traced back to the intended and unintended consequences of past social interaction. To complete the picture of the explanatory power of the realist approach it is necessary to move, in the next section, to a brief critique of positivism and empiricism and then to a more extended critique of various forms of interpretivism and constructionism that have inspired much of contemporary qualitative research, including contemporary qualitative migration research. Through this critical exposure of the fallacies of positivism and empiricism and serious flaws of interpretivism and social constructionism, I am going to illustrate that critical realism is a viable alternative to both.

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3.2 Critical Realist Alternatives to Positivism, Interpretivism and Social Constructionism 3.2.1 Positivism and Empiricism Empiricism as an epistemological position, in both the natural and social sciences, comes in many forms (see Hibberd 2005: 74–5), but here I refer mainly to the logical positivist version of it. The reasons for including a subsection about positivism in a book on qualitative methods inspired by the critical realist metatheory are manifold. The first reason is related to the fact that almost all varieties of contemporary interpretivism, social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism – which are a significant influence on a great part of current qualitative inquiry and qualitative research practice – present themselves as sharp alternatives to positivist thinking. Linked to that, we have to take into account the fact that all these versions of contemporary reductionism and idealism are the products of a critique of positivism. In this subsection, and in the present chapter in general, I intend to show that those alleged alternatives are not really genuine ones since there are many common features between positivism and some versions of contemporary idealism (i.e. social constructionism) (see Hibberd 2005, 2001a, 2001b), and since many of those versions accept the positivist definitions of concepts such as truth and objectivity (see Mohanty 2000: 36, Andriakaina 2009). Furthermore, I intend to show that a critique of a fallacious position such as positivism may lead to the formulation of equally fallacious and flawed ‘alternatives’ such as interpretivism and social constructionism. The second reason has to do with the supposedly radical divide between natural and human sciences. A series of misunderstandings with significant and long-standing consequences for scientific inquiry have resulted owing to conceptualisations related to this alleged ‘great divide’. To mention briefly the most notable: that natural sciences are positivist in character and that social sciences have either to adopt positivism in order to be as successful as natural ones (social scientific positivism, empiricism and scientism) or to break altogether with positivism and aspirations for the scientific study of the social world by embracing interpretative, constructionist or post-structuralist epistemologies. In this chapter, I intend to show that the above scheme, in its totality, is false. First, because positivism has been proved inadequate for the study not only of the social but also of the natural world. Indeed, genuine alternatives to positivist thinking in general, such as critical realism, came about in the first place through ‘a sustained and rigorous critique of positivism in natural science’ (Potter and López 2001: 8). And second, because the interpretative element that characterises, among others, the social world does not preclude its scientific investigation; that is, the causal explanation of social phenomena and processes, since human reasons are a kind of cause as well and participate fully in the societal causal order (Collier 1994, Spiro 1996). Thus, the alleged divide, regarding the main task of science, either natural or social, that is causal explanation, is not so great after all. Adopting an appropriate meta-

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theoretical and philosophical position, such as that of critical realism, may lead to the solution of most of those conundrums. Now, positivism may be viewed mainly as a position based on the alleged appropriate source of human knowledge. According to positivism, this source is sense experience (Morgan 2007b). The ‘logical’ element in logical positivism lies in the acknowledgement of the role of logic as a means to analyse sense experienced observations, while its principles are only true by convention (Morgan 2007b, Hibberd 2005). These premises of positivism have led to what critical realists call the epistemic and the actualist fallacies. The epistemic fallacy has to do with the confusion of epistemological with ontological questions; ‘what exists is defined as what can be known, and what can be known is defined by how the mind knows via sense experience’ (Cruickshank 2003a: 10). Thus, objectivity and objective reality for positivism is taken to be what is always mediated through the senses and questions about knowing reality beyond sense experience are rendered meaningless (Morgan 2007b). This fallacy leads to another one, that of actualism. Natural and social reality are reduced to the levels of the empirical and the actual, in other words to levels that serve as bases for the accumulation of knowledge of observable phenomena and events or for inferences about observable phenomena and events (Potter and López 2001). These principles lead to a certain view of causation. Natural and social causation for positivism is nothing more than the constant conjunction of discrete events ‘i.e., as Hume might put it, if B always is preceded by A we may infer that A caused B’ (Potter and López 2001: 10). This succesionist/regularity view of causation is inevitable for positivism since knowledge of reality is confined to observable events and phenomena and since processes beyond the surface – such as meaning-making, intentionality, underlying mechanisms or structural factors – are rendered unknowable in principle and thus beyond the reach of science (see Hollis 2005). In social sciences, the imitation of what is taken to be the standard natural-science mode of inference (a flawed and misplaced imitation though) results in a view according to which the purpose of studying the social world is the postulation of universal generalisations based on causal relations between events. ‘Such generalizations of universal invariance of events […] are our scientific laws. Actualism thus is an event based on ontology of invariance. Empirically observed invariance is generalized, from the subset of events, this being exhaustive of reality and thus the generalization of invariance is the law of nature’ (Potter and López 2001: 11). The above characteristics of positivist thinking are complemented by the adoption of the so-called deductive-nomological (D-N) or covering law mode of explanation (Pratten 2007: 193) and atomistic-individualist ontology. Methodological individualism and atomism seem to be necessarily derived from the positivist premises of event discreteness and regularity view of causality. Collier (1994: 75–6) provides a summary of some basic critical points to empiricism, applied to logical positivism as well, that is worth quoting at length:

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(a) The argument form the necessity of experiment shows that the ‘spectator’ conception of experience as passive observation is inadequate to account for scientific knowledge. (b) From this also follows the need to distinguish epistemically significant from insignificant experience. Empiricism can’t do this, since experience is simply the succession of impressions cast by nature: the more impressions, the more experience, the more knowledge; great knowledge of nature would be a function of old age. (c) The incapacity of mere successive experiences to ground a theory of causation, since constant conjunction rarely occur except when produced experimentally by us – i.e. causation cannot exist as no more than a relation between successive events; it must involve the generation of events by enduring structures. Empiricism is irretrievably actualist in its account of causation. (d) The account of science as an inherently social activity, carried out by collaboration of institutions which transmit and transform information from one generation to another, rules out the empiricist assumption that knowledge is essentially an individual product and possession. (e) The idea that the mind is a blank age at birth is an empirical hypothesis, though one on which the weight of evidence seems to be going against empiricism. But the necessity of scientific training shows that scientific knowledge at least can only be acquired by a mind that is already far from a blank page. (Collier 1994: 75–6)

The above points of critique are significantly illuminating as they are addressed mainly against the use of positivism and empiricism in natural sciences. The positivist conception of scientific laws based on regularities of events presupposes the existence of closed systems that are rare even in nature. Systems, natural and social alike, are characterised by varied degrees of openness, and experiments are possible and useful in natural science because of the lower position of the natural world in the hierarchy of emergence (Danermark et al. 2002). Thus experiments act as means for creating artificially closed systems in order to explore the way of functioning of the deep structures of the physical reality. As Collier (1994: 35) puts it: ‘we make experiments in order to find out what goes on when we are not making experiments, and we do find it out.’ Thus, the natural and social world is characterised by common features, such as openness, stratification and emergence which, despite their marked differences, allow their scientific investigation. This investigation may be based on realist rather than positivist premises – and indeed much of the success of natural science is due to the application, explicitly or implicitly, of realist reasoning and methods – and the alleged sharp divide between explanation of the natural world and understanding of the social world does not hold. It holds only if we replace the term ‘explanation’ with that of ‘positivist explanation’, but, as already mentioned, the latter is flawed even with regard to the production of natural scientific knowledge. Thus, interpretivists and social constructionists are fighting on the wrong battleground; their critique of positivism

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is more or less justified but their conclusions – abandoning any notion of causality and causal-explanatory task in the social world – are mostly false. The equation of science and causal explanation with their positivist conception brought about another long-standing misinterpretation: that the alleged ‘failure’ of social science to apprehend the social world comes about because the later is characterised by absence of causality, causal powers and mechanisms and deep, enduring structural features. The real reason for this apparent difference in success and effective explanation is that social entities and phenomena occupy the highest positions in the hierarchy of emergence and are characterised by significant degrees of openness thereby making the experimental manipulation of them almost impossible (Collier 1994, Danermark et al. 2002). This, of course, does not render scientific and causal explanation in the social world impossible, only more unstable and with much less predictive power than that found in the natural one. Finally, two additional points about positivism should be made: first, its association with quantitative methods and the repercussions of that, and, second, its marked anti-realism. Regarding the former, a strong association between positivist principles and quantitative methods became possible mainly because positivism prioritises and renders ‘scientific’ only the measurement and measurable external features and characteristics of events and entities in order to establish ‘laws’ based on the constant conjunction of them. Quantitative methods get a high position within the positivist rationale because of their ability to represent reality as quantities (Downward 2007) and to reduce causal explanation in correlations among abstract quantitative variables. Indeed, the employment of quantitative methods for the investigation of the social world may lead more easily to a slippage towards assumptions regarding closure. As Downward (2007: 312) points out: ‘[Q]uantitative methods presuppose degrees of closure. Numeric representations assume intrinsic closure. Probability distributions assume extrinsic closure. This casts doubt upon their relevance to the non-experimental realm.’ However, when quantitative methods are used and quantitative data and findings are interpreted in a non-positivist manner, they can serve as valuable means in highlighting crucial aspects of social reality. For example, when empirical regularities or – to put it more accurately – demi-regularities (Danermark et al. 2002) are not taken to be causal explanations, they may guide and orient researchers towards the postulation of generative mechanisms able to explain these demi-regularities causally (Sayer 1992, 2000). Another equally important aspect or consequence of the association between quantitative methods and ‘science’ in a positivist manner is the proliferation of ‘quantification’ in modern societies. In most cases it is a positivist quantification characterised by atomistic and individualist assumptions and findings, leading to a neglect of structural and socio-political factors and to the proliferation of managerial practices regarding social problems and processes, informed implicitly or explicitly by dominant ideological discourses (see Willmott 2003). For example, referring on the use of statistical findings by educational agencies in the UK, Willmott (2003: 141) points out that:

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Indeed, the tacit OFSTED3 assumption here is that causal factors are independent, universal and additive; that is that they do not interfere with each other and are uninfluenced by their contexts. The ideological import is palpable: teachers are blamed for pupil ‘failure’ (in other words, poor examination results). Furthermore the key determinants (later reworked as key ‘factors’) that in OFSTED’s view constitute ‘effective’ schools are culled at the level of observable events and in positivist fashion there is no attempt to differentiate between contingency and necessity. (Willmott 2003: 141)

The above remarks highlight a strong tendency that, ironically, classical positivism aimed to avoid: the fit between positivist assumptions and practices with dominant, extra-scientific ideologies such as neo-liberalism. They also point to the marked irrealism of positivism – a feature that it shares with modern relativism – which serves existing power and material relations well. In this respect, positivism and relativism – despite the received view – are more allies than enemies. Thus, questions about social structures, systemic contradictions or generative mechanisms are meaningless due to their positioning beyond the actual and empirical levels of reality (positivism), or they are just social constructions, are constituted in discourse and lack any independent existence or causal powers of their own (relativism). Finally, the issue of the irrealism of positivism (see Patomäki and White 2000) needs some additional elaboration. Positivist irrealism is derived from ‘the absence of ontology and of a concept of (natural) necessity’ (Engholm 2007a: 268) that characterises it. Instead of ontological questions, positivism asks only epistemological ones (thus the epistemic fallacy) and, instead of a view of causality based on necessity it adopts a regularity one. In this respect, too, positivism shares irrealism with contemporary relativism (though there it is of a different kind), and a genuine, forceful alternative to both would be an effort to overcome ‘the omissive errors committed in Western philosophy’ (Engholm 2007a: 268) and to bring ontology back and to the centre of social theorising. In my view, critical realism is the most promising of these contemporary efforts. 3.2.2 Interpretivism I now turn to a discussion of some of the central issues regarding interpretivist approaches in the social sciences, which, along with constructionist, poststructuralist and postmodern ones, have come to influence a great part of contemporary qualitative research practice. Interpretivism, as a term, is often used interchangeably with ‘hermeneutics’ (Hartwig 2007: 230), although there are certain differences between the two. Thus, Willis (2007: 104) distinguishes three different versions of hermeneutics: ‘validation (or objective), critical and philosophical’. The first two versions, under certain presuppositions, are quite 3  Author note: the Office for Standards in Education.

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compatible with the critical realist rationale. Thus, according to Willis’s (2007: 104) formulation, ‘[T]he first, validation, is based on postpositivism, and assumes that hermeneutics can be a scientific way of finding the truth.’ It may be supported that it also includes the methodology called ‘objective hermeneutics’ of Oevermann (see Lueger et al. 2005: 1147), the main goal of which is to discover latent structures of meaning that underlie social practices and subjective meanings. These structures are the outcome of and provide the meaning context for the social coordination of practices. They are latent – not restricted to the actor’s discursive knowledge – and independent of their subjective intentions and meanings (and in this sense ‘objective’) (Oevermann 2002). (Lueger et al. 2005: 1147)

The compatibility of this approach to critical realist reasoning is quite evident mainly because of two interrelated reasons: the first has to do with the efforts of objective hermeneutics to move beyond the surface level of subjective or intersubjective understandings of social agents and the second is related to the potentialities it creates for investigating the role of largely unobservable social structures which exist independently of actors’ interpretations of them and condition individual meanings and social practices. The so-called ‘validation’ version of hermeneutics also corresponds, to a great extent, to what Pawson and Tilley (1997: 21) call ‘hermeneutics I’. According to those authors: [Hermeneutics I] … stressed that by being witness to the day-to-day reasoning of their research subjects, by engaging in their life world, by participating in their decision making, the researcher would be that much close to reality. The hermeneutic approach, it was assumed, almost literally, placed one in touch with the truth (much more closely, anyway, than those arcane positivists with their hygienic, dehumanizing, pseudo-scientific measuring instruments). (Pawson and Tilley 1997: 21)

The second version of hermeneutics, that of critical hermeneutics, seeks to promote human emancipation through investigating the conditions resulting in ideological distortions and false consciousness (Willis 1997: 104). Finally, the third version, that of philosophical hermeneutics is based on interpretivist epistemology and aims at developing understanding. It rejects any form of foundationalism – that is, a sure way of finding truth. Interpretivists see validation hermeneutics as an effort to find truth through a research method. They see critical hermeneutics as foundational as well because the interpreter (researcher) is still given a privileged position to explain to the subjects of the research why their false consciousness is wrong and the researcher’s view more correct. Interpretivists do not accept either approach as

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a foundation for qualitative research. Instead they push for understanding of the topic of study in context. (Willis 2007: 104–5)

Philosophical hermeneutics, or interpretivism, corresponds to what Pawson and Tilley (1997: 21) call ‘hermeneutics II’, which is based on the assumption that ‘all beliefs are “constructions”, but adds the twist that we cannot, therefore, get beyond constructions’ (Pawson and Tilley 1997: 21). It is this version – along with the different strands within it such as phenomenology, ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism – which will be mostly critically discussed in this section, as it is highly influential in modern qualitative research practice. As it is evident from the Willis’s (2007) quotation about philosophical hermeneutics or interpretivism, this version equates the search for any kind of truth or adjudication between different interpretations or elucidation of any kind of relation between reality interpretation and meaning as ‘foundational’ and as thereby rendered futile. I deal with the often dogmatic and derogatory accusations of ‘foundationalism’ along with that of ‘essentialism’ in much more detail in the next subsection. For the time being I turn my attention to some central premises of interpretivism, to the resulting flaws and fallacies of a full-blown interpretivist account and its consequences for social science theorising and research practice. Contemporary interpretivism is a heritage of Winch and Gadamer’s thinking (see Hartwig 2007: 231) and a forceful proponent of the alleged sharp division between natural sciences, where causal explanation is applicable, and social sciences, where interpretive understanding is considered the only way for apprehending the human world. Thus, according to interpretivism, the adequate approach to the social world is ‘verstehen’, or, in other words, interpretative understanding of subjective or intersubjective meanings through which social actors perceive it and act accordingly. Interpretivism exaggerates the role of subjective or social meanings, conflating ontological concerns with epistemological ones. In other words, interpretivism confines social reality to the understanding of meanings and ‘is thus committed to empirical realism and actualism (empirical for the natural, conceptual for the social world – a split leading to the reification of agency in the extrinsic aspect [i.e., physicalist reductionism] and its disembodiment in the intrinsic aspect)’ (Hartwig 2007: 231). Hence, interpretivism precludes the causal explanation of social phenomena and processes mainly due to two interrelated factors: the first is related to its implicit surface ontology noted above and the second to its opposition to the view that human reasons can be causes. The latter view needs more elaboration. Interpretivism refuses to view human interpretations and reasons as causes mainly owing to their teleological character and hence the lack of logical independence between them and ‘the behaviour they explain’ (Archer et al. 1998: xv, Nagopoulos 2003). This view is, of course, a repercussion of interpretivists’ adoption of the positivist definition and notion of causality as the constant conjunction between distinct events, objects or phenomena. They ignore the fact that this notion of causality has been proven obsolete even regarding the natural

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world and continue to equate it with causality in general. Thus, while interpretivists rightly reject it as way of investigating the social world they falsely abandon any possibility of causal explanation of social phenomena altogether because their definition and conceptualisation of causality is taken up from the positivist camp. However, if we adopt the realist notion of causation as consisting of powers, liabilities, potentialities and tendencies characterising social agents, entities and emergent social/cultural properties (Mumford 2008, Tacq 2009, Easton 2010), then human reasons participate fully in the causal order of the social world (see Witt 2008). This is because reasons and interpretations stem from certain human powers such as intentionality and reflexivity and can bring about change in the world; in other words, they are causally efficacious. Contrary to interpretivists’ formulations, ‘actors’ accounts are both corrigible and limited by the existence of unacknowledged, conditions, unintended consequences, tacit skills and unconscious motivations’ (Archer et al. 1998: xvi). Furthermore, human reasons and interpretations are always characterised by a certain material dimension (Sayer 2000). They are conditioned by certain social and cultural arrangements and structures and have to be ‘materialised’ in order to have an impact (Sayer 1992, Creaven 2000). Interpretivism’s neglect of the above issues does not allow for the acknowledgement of the possibility of error in agents interpretations, meanings, actions and practices. It does not allow an in-depth investigation of the origins of beliefs and meanings and of the broader societal and cultural conditions which contribute to conceptual distortions or to the proliferation of ‘false consciousness’ (Hartwig 2007) and, hence, limits the possibility of a truly emancipatory critique. As Manicas points out: The key point […] is that once one gets an understanding of the meaning which social phenomena has for actors, it must now be asked: Is their understanding adequate? That is, while actors need to have practical knowledge sufficient to carry practices in society, they need not have an understanding of the conditions and consequences of action. They may, accordingly, misunderstand what is happening in society. More generally, it is possible that they are acting on false beliefs and that, indeed, if they were to come to this conclusion, they might act otherwise. (Manicas 2009: 8–9)

The failure of interpretivism to account for error in social actors’ meanings vis-àvis a reality existing independently of them is strongly related to the nature of the appropriate way of approaching social reality, that is, verstehen, or interpretative understanding. According to interpretivism, verstehen involves mainly an empathetic, subjective understanding of actors’ motives, intentions, meanings and actions but this kind of understanding is rendered unable to lead to rational judgements about different interpretations and meanings. As Willis (2007: 111) explicitly declares, ‘the purpose of interpretivist research is not the discovery of universal laws but rather the understanding of a particular situation. Even this

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goal is subjective [my emphasis]. Interpretivists eschew the idea that objective research on human behavior is possible.’ Note how the above argument builds on an extreme dualism since it accepts the positivist definitions of objectivity and causality; there is either the option of discovering universal laws or otherwise we have to embrace ultra-subjectivism; there is nothing else in between or beyond this remarkably, and extremely, persistent and false dichotomy. When verstehen is confined to only one dimension – that is, empathetic understanding, intuition and insight (Spiro 1996) – and excludes other dimensions such as the ‘understanding of constitutive meanings’ (Sayer 1992: 37), then this notion is not very useful for scientific inquiry and research. It is not very useful because, as Spiro (1996: 767) rightly asserts, ‘[I]t provides no objective or intersubjective criteria by which conflicting interpretations can be adjudicated.’ This extremely restricted and unidimensional version of interpretative understanding is based on irrealist and relativist assumptions about the relation of interpretations to reality. It is based on the assumption that subjective understandings exhaust the social world and that meanings are wholly ‘subjective’, in the sense that they are not related in any way to any objective social reality (Manicas 2009). The latter notion is derived by the theories of language developed by Saussure and later Wittgenstein (Maze 2001), according to which meaning is dependent on the network of endless differences between words and concepts (signifiers and signifieds) (Sayer 2000), excluding the ‘referent’ and reference to any extra-linguistic entity or reality (Nellhaus 2001). In this case, ‘the epistemic fallacy often appears as the linguistic fallacy, whereby the limits of language are the limits of the world’ (Hartwig 2007: 231). This issue will be dealt in more detail in the next subsection. What can be asserted here is that verstehen is in reality a much more practical and common feature of the social world and, in fact, its everyday success guarantees the continuation of social life. Unlike interpretivists ‘[I]n everyday life, we do not turn a problem into an impossibility’ (Manicas 2009: 6–7). Indeed, in everyday life we all depend on differentiating between true or valid understandings of other people and of social situations and false ones and we pay the price when we fail to do so. On this issue, Potter and López (2001: 9) assert that: We can (and do!) rationally judge between competing theories on the basis of their intrinsic merits as explanations of reality. We do so both scientifically and in everyday life. If we could not we would not be very frequently successful in even our most mundane activities. Science, in one sense at least, is merely a refinement and extension of what we do in the practical functioning of everyday life. However, it is a refinement! And what critical realism as a philosophy does is to establish the basis of the possibility of this refinement. (Potter and López 2001: 9)

Of course, scientific or everyday judgements about meanings, beliefs, interpretations and theories may be proved to be false or true but that ought to be

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exactly the purpose of any interpretive act: to differentiate between the two and to explain the role of ‘mis-understandings’ (Sayer 1992: 38) in the reproduction of certain social relations. Thus, interpretative understanding of individual intentions and motives behind anti-immigrant, racist or xenophobic beliefs may be a good starting point for engaging in qualitative research (Hartwig 2007, Iosifides 2008), but it is just that, a starting point, and not the end of investigation. It needs to be complemented by explanation of both beliefs and associated actions – that is, by efforts to locate them within certain cultural and social contexts and by efforts to illustrate the intersections between them and individual biographies. These beliefs also need to be evaluated critically, in other words to be questioned regarding their adequacy (Manicas 2009) and their social consequences. I now turn to another feature that interpretivism shares with positivism – that is, methodological individualism and the associated rejection of structure and structural analysis. Mario Bunge (2003: 196–212) dedicates a whole chapter of his book Emergence and Convergence: Qualitative Novelty and the Unity of Knowledge to a discussion of the similarities between interpretivism and the mostly positivistic-scientistic and ahistorical paradigm of rational-choice theory. Despite their differences those paradigms share a lot of common elements, most notably methodological individualism – which privileges human agency and its powers, neglects systemic characteristics of societies and dismisses the distinctiveness and reality of social structures. Privileging human agency stems from an exaggerated reaction of interpretivism to the reification of social structures but results in an overestimation of the role of agency in social change or reproduction and is unable to explain social continuity and stability (McAnulla 2006). Furthermore, the failure to account for the impacts and consequences of phenomena of social and cultural emergence leads to the reducibility of all social processes to individual interpretations, meanings and actions of the present and past and thus to one of the most common and unconstructive forms of reductionism (Gimenez 1999). Critical realism offers a notion of structure that simultaneously avoids reification, allows for ontological distinctness of structure and agency, owing to the possession of different kinds of properties by them, and acknowledges the causal efficaciousness of structures through constraining or enabling agential action (McAnulla 2006). It also pays serious attention to the materiality of social relations, their objective structuring and the exertion of their causal powers independently of human identification4 (see Porpora 1993). Closely related to this issue, Gimenez (1999: 25), in her discussion of the ontological individualism of contemporary interpretivism, points out that: ‘[T]o deny ontological reality of structures produces an impoverished social science, one which artificially divides the social form from 4  About this issue Porpora (1993: 215) asserts: ‘[I]t implies that a material thing will exert a causal effect whether or not actors are aware of it, but not that the causal effect necessarily will be the same in both cases. Through their awareness, actors by their actions may modify, mitigate or neutralize the effect, but then awareness of those actions themselves are effects that produced causally by the thing in question.’

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its material conditions of possibility and is therefore unable to theorize the logic of social systems and modes of production, and their contradictions, processes, and tendencies.’ It should be noted though that the realist critique does not totally dismisses interpretivism. Although most of the conclusions of interpretivists are flawed, some of their premises and insights are necessary for any kind of social inquiry and research and are quite compatible with realist social theorising. Thus, the social scientist always confronts a pre-interpreted social reality and has to be engaged to what is called ‘double hermeneutic’ – that is, to interpret and understand social agents’ interpretations too (Sayer 2000, Hartwig 2007). With certain presuppositions, interpretative understanding is fully incorporated into realist social theorising and research practice, since systems of constitutive meanings, their origins and their impacts are real and are always embedded in or are interlinked with other systems of material/power arrangements (Sayer 1992). Interpretative understanding of agents’ contextual motives, intentions, interpretations and practices is an indispensable part of any research endeavour, subject to a critical questioning of their adequacy and to an investigation of them alongside the results of the interaction among different emergent social properties. Social scientists engaged in interpretative understanding within a realist rationale have also to take account the following crucial point made by Potter and López (2001: 14): The same aspect of social reality may possess both a transitive and intransitive dimension simultaneously. The explanation of some aspect of meaningful sociality may in turn become the subject matter of explanation itself. However, it is nonetheless possible to be objective about subjectivity [my emphasis]. It is this aspect of social reality that makes for both the possibility, and arguably the necessity, for example, of a sociology of sociology. (Potter and López 2001: 14)

Thus, although the version of interpretivism discussed earlier is surely not compatible with realist social research, interpretative understanding in general, is. ‘However, only when conjoined with concepts of intransitivity, transfactuality,5 dialectical process, agentive agency – which presupposes that reasons (that are acted on) are causes – and struggle can it be regarding unreservedly as a friend of emancipatory science’ (Hartwig 2007: 234). Interpretivism comes in many varieties. Here, I will briefly examine three kinds of them, namely phenomenology, ethnomethodology and symbolic interactionism, 5  Author note: Indicating real, underlying causal mechanisms. To give an example, any understanding of agents’ conceptualizations of nationhood as a bounded cultural whole that needs to be ‘protected’ from ‘immigrant invasion’ has to be complemented by explanation of the causal, historical and contemporary, mechanisms of ‘nation building’ and of the ways in which national and/or ‘ethnic’ categories are an integral and necessary part of wider structures of socio-economic inequality, exploitation and domination (see Fenton 2003, Gunaratnam 2003).

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since currently they inspire a great part of qualitative social research in a broad array of topics, including migration. Phenomenology originates from the writings of the German philosopher Edmund Husserl, but in sociology it was Alfred Schütz – one of Husserl’s students (Craib 1998, Katrivesis 2004) – who championed it. The phenomenological tradition, closely related to existentialism is mainly interested in how the social world is meaningfully constituted in human consciousness (Craib 1998). Actually, for phenomenology the social world is exhausted by agents’ meanings of it mainly because it asserts that social knowledge is created through meaning-making out of a ‘pool of chaotic impressions’ which are structureless and have no meaning in themselves (Craib 1998: 189). Willis (2007: 107) defines phenomenology as ‘the study of people’s perception of the world (as opposed to trying to learn what “really is” in the world)’. Of course, the first part of this definition is quite straightforward and unproblematic. Every social scientist, of whatever theoretical and epistemological persuasion, studies or ought to include to her study people’s perceptions, interpretations and meanings of social phenomena and processes. Nevertheless the second part is problematic. Owing to the fact that phenomenology conflates perceptions of reality with reality itself (Craib 1998), there is nothing left to be studied, discovered or explained beyond agents’ perceptions. This is a classic version of the epistemic fallacy that phenomenology – along with other interpretivist paradigms, constructionism and post-structuralism – commits; that is, confusing reality with what it knowable about it, according to its premises. The most central concepts in the phenomenological literature are ‘the intentionality of consciousness’ ‘the process of typification’, ‘inter-subjectivity’ ‘lived experience’ and ‘bracketing-out of reality’ (Craib 1998, Creswell 2007). The first concept is related to the above-mentioned exhaustion of the social world in perceptions as constituted in consciousness. According to Creswell (2007: 59): This idea is that consciousness is always directed toward an object. Reality of an object, then, is inextricably related to ones consciousness of it. Thus, reality, according to Husserl, is not divided into subjects and objects, but into the dual Cartesian nature of both subjects and objects as they appear in consciousness. (Creswell 2007: 59)

Thus, according to this premise the real world resides not outside but inside human consciousness and knowledge is created by the ascription of meanings to experiences or ‘chaotic impressions’. Knowledge is created by ‘the process of typification’ of the various meanings of experiences divided according to criteria of similarity and difference (Craib 1998: 189). Now, a large part of knowledge is based on social interaction and is derived from the experiences of other social actors (Katrivesis 2004), so inter-subjective – that is, commonly shared – meanings are rendered to be necessary for the continuation of social life. Phenomenological research aims mainly to study the inter-subjective meanings of lived experiences. ‘Phenomenologists focus on describing what all participants [in research] have

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in common as they experience a phenomenon…’ (Creswell 2007: 58). In order to achieve that, phenomenologists try to engage in what is called ‘bracketing-out of reality’ – that is, they try to ‘set aside their experiences, as much as possible, to take a fresh perspective toward the phenomenon under examination’ (Creswell 2007: 59–60). Methodologically, phenomenologists employ mainly or only qualitative methods. One of the commonest methods they use is phenomenological indepth interviewing, which is a combination of focused in-depth and biographical interviewing (Seidman 2006). Sideman (2006: 16–19) describes phenomenological interview research practice as consisting in three separate interviews with each prospective interviewee. The first is called ‘focused life history’ and aims at investigating life experiences regarding the specific phenomenon or the topic under study. The scope of the second interview ‘is to concentrate on the concrete details of the participant’s present lived experience in the topic area of the study’ (Seidman 2006: 18), whereas the third interview aims to elucidate the meanings that participants ascribe to their experiences. According to Seidman, the overall purpose of phenomenological interviewing is to engage in an, always partial, understanding of the ‘lived experience of other people and the meaning they make of that experience’ (2006: 9). However, it is extremely difficult to comprehend the practical utility of phenomenological data given the overall premises of this paradigm. Thus, if all that there is in the world is perceptions as constituted in consciousness, this is also applicable to researchers’ knowledge as well. Consequently, phenomenological research findings are nothing more that subjective or inter-subjective meanings attached to researchers’ lived research experience. Therefore, we are left with no criteria for judging between different or contradictory findings of other phenomenological research teams on the same topic and with no ground for making any sustained claim about the degree of truthfulness of research findings.6 Of course, the fallibility of all knowledge is explicitly acknowledged by critical realism too, but what is at issue here is that the very ontological and epistemological presuppositions of phenomenology preclude any evaluation of findings regarding their validity. Those are the impasses and contradictions that any idealist and irrealist form of thought and research practice, such as phenomenology, inevitably faces. These impasses and contradictions are inherent, apart from idealism and subjectivism, in methodological individualism and in the denial of the existence of a consciousness-independent world of social entities or objects which have 6  It should be noted, however, that phenomenological thinking comes in various versions, a thorough and detailed discussion of which exceeds the scope of the present subsection. For example, Creswell (2007: 59–60) mentions the ‘hermeneutical phenomenology’ of van Manen and the ‘transcendental or psychological phenomenology’ of Moustakas. Furthermore, it should be taken into account that classical Husserlian phenomenology is characterised by certain rationalistic and empiricist tendencies (see Danermark et al. 2002: 161, Wilkerson 2000, Norris 1996).

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a material dimension, are structured in specific ways, exert causal powers and influence meanings, interpretations and actions (Mingers 1992). Regarding ethnomethodology, my account here is very brief as this paradigm is closely connected with social constructionism – with which I deal in the next subsection – and employs the doctrines of the so-called ‘linguistic turn’. Ethnomethodology equates the social world with the ways of conceptualising it (Craib 1998) and thus agrees, in this aspect, with phenomenology. Nevertheless, it differs from the latter in placing special emphasis on language and the linguistic construction of everyday social situations (Craib 1998). Craib (1998) points out that the two more interesting ideas derived from ethnomethodology are related to the contextual determination of meaning (indexicality of meaning) and the notion according to which descriptions of reality simultaneously contribute to the construction/creation of reality characterised by a specific logic and meaning (see also Katrivesis 2004: 204–20). As far as the former idea is concerned, most ethnomethodologists take context to be only the interactional one – that is, the context ‘constructed’ in language within specific interactional encounters. With the exception of Aron Cicourel, ethnomethodologists take into account broader societal context ‘to the extent that it is perceived as relevant by the actor’ (Steensen [date unknown]: 6–7). Now, in relation to the previous statement, ethnomethodologists overestimate, in an extreme way, the power of discourse in ‘constructing reality’ and strongly underplay other necessary conditions or processes for this ‘construction’, such as broader societal relations and the role of social hierarchies in determining which discourse prevails and has real material and other consequences and which discourse makes no impact at all (Mouzelis 1997). Thus, ethnomethodology is characterised by all the flaws and fallacies of methodological situationist accounts such as its inability to account for structural factors (Craib 1998), emergent properties of societal forms and their dialectical interplay with agential powers. Ethnomethodologists do not posses the theoretical armoury to account for the ways that discourses are socially produced and to move beyond discursive and linguistic reductionism and determinism. Therefore, they are trapped in a view of the social world characterised by the epistemic fallacy, and – more specifically – by a particular version of it – that is, the linguistic fallacy. Finally, symbolic interactionism as a theoretical paradigm and research practice was developed in the Department of Sociology at the University of Chicago in the 1920s (Craib 1998). ‘The substantive basis of symbolic interaction as a theory is frequently attributed to the social behavioral work of Dewey (1930), Cooley (1902), Parks (1915), Mead (1934, 1938), and several other early theorists, but Blumer (1969) is considered the founder of symbolic interactionism’ (Berg 2007: 10). The basic premises of symbolic interactionism lie in the alleged close relationship between action and meaning, based on the assumption that meaning is produced through social interaction and that change in meanings is based on interpretative interactional processes (Craib 1998: 161). Blumer (1969: 5) quoted in Berg (2007: 10) asserts that:

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Symbolic interactionism […] does not regard meaning as emanating from the intrinsic makeup of a thing, nor does it see meaning as arising through psychological elements between people. The meaning of a thing for a person grows out of the ways in which other persons act toward the person with regard to the thing. Their actions operate to define the thing for the person; thus, symbolic interactionism sees meanings as social products formed through activities of people interacting. (Blumer 1969: 5 quoted in Berg 2007: 10)

Methodologically, symbolic interactionists employ mainly qualitative methods7 of a wide range, from dramaturgical interviewing, focus groups, ethnography and action research to unobtrusive research strategies, oral history, case studies and content analysis (Berg 2007). Symbolic interactionism is mainly a micro-level, action-oriented, and methodological situationist approach that either neglects the role of structure in social life or views it as the aggregative result of numerous micro-interactions (Mouzelis 1997, Craib 1998). Owing to this view, interactionism also fails to account properly for the production of meaning as well, which is considered its strong element. Thus, and as is evident the quotation from Blumer given above, the only source of meaning in social life seems to be the interaction between individuals; the ‘thing’ (see quote above) is totally passive, acquiring its meaning through the social dynamics of interaction between people. The ‘thing’ (for example, a structured social form or entity or object) neither influences in any way actors’ meanings nor constrains or enables specific meanings and actions. It seems that whatever meanings come out of social interaction may be ascribed unproblematically to the ‘thing’ and facilitate the associated action. This is a clear indication of voluntarism (Craib 1998) but it is not, of course, the only problematic element of symbolic interactionism. Other problematic elements include the neglect of social complexity (Craib 1998) and its very limiting assumptions regarding the ‘self’. According to Creaven (2000), the symbolic interactionist notion of the self conflates self, self-identity and social identity and proposes an over-socialised version of agency (see also Archer 2000). Finally, and regarding the interactionist theory of Erving Goffman on ‘self presentation’: compacting of self-identity and social identity (and hence of self and selfpresentation) has effectively undermined the common-sense idea that it is possible and desirable to distinguish between what individuals claim to be and what they really are. […] Yet it does not seem unreasonable to draw precisely this distinction. After all, only a fool would be so naïve as to suggest, for instance, a person who expresses racist ideas inside but not outside of the workplace is one thing in the former and another in the latter. On the contrary, the personal 7  With the exception of the so called ‘Iowa School’ of Manford Kuhn (Craib 1998: 165, Berg 2007), which ‘became distinctive for operationalizing concepts of symbolic interaction, including concepts such as the self and reference group in standardized ways so that hypotheses testing could be accomplished’ (Berg 2007: 11).

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As an example of interpretive research in migration studies, I synoptically discuss below a phenomenological study by Lim and Wieling (2004) titled ‘Immigrant Chinese American Women: Negotiating Values and Perceptions of Self in the Cultural Borderlands of East and West: A Qualitative Study’. published in The Family Journal: Counselling and Therapy for Couples and Families. Methodologically, the study was based on qualitative data derived by in-depth interviews with 10, mostly ‘highly educated professional’ (Lim and Wieling 2004: 151), women of Chinese descent that immigrated to the United States and its main aim was the investigation of the ways those women ‘negotiate differences in values and perceptions of the self in the cultural borderlands of East and West’ (Lim and Wieling 2004: 148). The authors employ an explicit descriptive, phenomenological perspective in order to understand the ways that research participants perceive their experiences within an ‘individualistic’ socio-cultural context given that they come from a ‘collectivistic’ one. In other words, the central scope of the study was to collect different individual perceptions regarding the experiences of the socalled ‘cultural borderland living’ (Lim and Wieling 2004: 149). The main research questions were to elucidate the perceptions of self-identity of immigrant women, the processes and content of value transfer between them and their children, and their experiences as ‘Chinese’ in the United States (Lim and Wieling 2004: 150). In the authors’ words: The research questions centered around three main areas: 1. How do immigrant Chinese American women view themselves? To answer this question, the women were asked to provide self-descriptions. They were also asked to describe their situated selves at home and at work, as well as to give pictorial representations of how they viewed themselves in relation to others. 2. What are the values they want nurtured in their children? In this study, questions regarding pride and shame issues in the women’s families of origin and in their immediate families were asked to capture the central organizing principles intergenerationally. These principles reflected the values that shaped the families intergenerationally. 3. What are their experiences of being Chinese in America? How do the women negotiate the differences they experience between the two different cultural systems? (Lim and Wieling 2004: 150)

Analysis of data produced through the in-depth interviews focused almost exclusively on description of perceptions and meanings, classification of ‘emergent themes’ and identification of ‘essential invariant structures’ (Lim and Wieling 2004: 150). The main findings of the study may be divided into six major themes: the ambiguities and contradictions regarding women’s experiences

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of everyday realities; perception change due to living in cultural borderlands; cultural and contextual appropriateness; the persistence of other-centeredness; the different stances as regards transmission of Chinese identity, culture and language to the next generation; the emergence of certain inter-generational organising principles such as ‘educational attainment, career success, hard work and good effort, dedication, resourcefulness, love and care for family, good behavior (specifically respect, honesty, trustworthiness, and good manners), and financial prudence’ (Lim and Wieling 2004: 155); and, individual freedom to form bicultural identities (Lim and Wieling 2004). First, it should to be noted that the study is partly based on theories about alleged collectivistic and individualist cultures and the authors cite positively works of scholars such as Hofstede and Triandis. The considerable criticism (see, for example, Voronof and Singer 2002) that those theories received is not taken into account and the supposed sharp divide between cultural ‘individualism vs collectivism’ is employed in an unproblematic way. This employment results in a notion of cultures as reified complex wholes, as bounded and homogeneous, and in an exaggerated view of cultural difference and the power of culture to dictate behaviour (Phillips 2007). The latter is contradicted, to a great extent, by the evidence that the authors themselves present, but nevertheless the acceptance and utilisation of theories such as, for example Hofstede’s, presuppose it. Contrary to the theoretical underpinnings about culture that Lim and Wieling (2004) use, critical realist notions of culture and cultural dynamics can account more accurately for the role of ideas and systems of meanings in social reproduction and change (see Archer 1996, Mutch 2009). Realist cultural theory exposes the ‘myth of cultural integration’ (Mutch 2009: 153) and differentiates between the systemic (Cultural System) and the socio-cultural interactional dimensions of cultural dynamics (Archer 1996). At the systemic level, ideas and meanings produced by interaction escape their producers, become autonomous and ‘stand in logical relations of contradiction and complementarity’ (Mutch 2009: 154) independent from agents’ awareness or perception of them. These logical relations among elements of the cultural system create certain ‘situational logics’ that exert causal influence on the course of socio-cultural interaction. The latter course either reproduces or modifies the elements of the cultural system, and, subsequently a new cultural morphogenetic cycle begins (Archer 1996). The article by Lim and Wieling (2004) concerns mainly the socio-cultural interaction dimension, and thus a comprehensive realist explanation of cultural dynamics would require the acknowledgement of and associated research on, the ways that cultural systemic elements (such as, for example, ideas of nationhood and belonging, and meanings of ‘ethnic’ attachment to China and the USA) causally influence socio-cultural interaction, through the creation of specific situational logics for action by the social agents that draw on those ideas (Mutch 2009). Inevitably though, and despite the relative autonomy of the domain of culture, this domain is always interlinked and intertwined with that of social structure. Thus, collecting and describing perceptions of immigrant women to America

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regarding cultural identity may be a good start but a realist investigation of the issue would go much further and deeper than that. It would strongly take into account the multilayered and stratified nature of social reality and would not confine it to the levels of individual agency, individual perceptions or intersubjective meanings. The realist would question the adequacy of these perceptions, which is the degree to which they capture the real structural and cultural workings of both Chinese and American societies. Furthermore, the realist would seek, apart from accurately describing and interpreting those perceptions, to explain them as well; that is, to place them within certain structural and cultural contexts and elucidate the relation between the social location of immigrant women and their identity constructions and perceptions (Moya 2000b). This relation between social location (gender, ‘race’, class or other structured hierarchies, including the results of their intersection) and identity is not straightforward or determining but causally efficacious through various mechanisms, which are therefore worthwhile being researched and highlighted. Research on those issues would result in insights about evaluations of perceptions and experiences ‘as sources of objective knowledge or socially mediated mystification’ (Mohanty 2000: 38) As Moya (2000b: 85) asserts: ‘our ability to understand fundamental aspects of our world will depend on our ability to acknowledge and understand the social, political, economic and epistemic consequences of our social location.’ Thus, the critical realist approach to cultural identity and self-identity explicitly asserts that perceptions should be treated as theories of interpreting the social world and should be evaluated for their accuracy and validity like any other theory (Moya 2000b, Mohanty 2000). That is because, according to the realist approach: there is a cognitive component to identity that allows for the possibility of error and of accuracy [emphasis added] in interpreting the things that happen to us. It is a feature of theoretically mediated experience that one person’s understanding of the same situation may undergo revision over the course of time, thus rendering her subsequent interpretations of that situation more or less accurate. (Moya 2000b: 83)

To conclude this subsection, it is necessary to briefly account for some important differences8 between different versions of interpretivism and social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism, which are the subject of the next subsection. This is because, owing to some similarities, in many instances hermeneutic approaches are confused with those of social constructionism, poststructuralism and postmodernism, although there are also marked differences between them. Probably, the most significant of these differences lie in the way they account for human agency. For example, the interactionists’ and structurationists’ 8  For differences among various versions of interpretivism, social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism regarding their orientation towards methodological individualism, situationism, elisionism and conflationism, see subsection 3.1.6 above.

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account of the ‘social self’ ‘is far more systematic and “theorised” ’ (Creaven 2000: 118) than that of post-structuralists’ and postmodernists’. Thus, for the former theorists the human subject is far from ‘decentered’ as is characterised by powers that enable its resistance to ‘being constituted as a mere “effect” of discourse, culture or “relationships” of whatever sort’ (Creaven 2000: 119). For example, Rod Rhodes and Mark Bevir, who championed a new interpretivist approach to British politics (see McAnulla 2006), explicitly reject Foucauldian and other postmodernist and post-structuralist notions regarding all-pervasive powers of discourse and knowledge/power nexus ‘for appearing to grant no meaningful role for individuals to alter their webs of belief through creative reasoning’ (McAnulla 2006: 116). The differences between various versions of the two camps (interpretivism and social constructionism) are also evident in the critiques that each has developed of the other. Thus, on the one hand, David Silverman (2006: 123), from a social constructionist perspective, criticises phenomenology and interpretivism in general – which he calls ‘emotionalism’ and ‘humanism’ – for attempting to gain ‘authentic’ and ‘deep understanding’ of ‘subjective lived experience’ of social agents instead of elucidating how subjectivity and experience are constituted through discourse. On the other hand, and from a phenomenological-existential perspective, Svend Brinkmann (2006: 94) highlights the affinities of contemporary social constructionist thought with the logic of ‘consumption-oriented society’ and challenges constructionist assumptions and/or consequences regarding ‘identity morphing, aesthetization of life, and a denial of life’s tragic dimensions’ (Brinkmann 2006: 92). The same author ‘outlines an existential phenomenological ethics that starts from certain basic facts of human existence, including human interdependency and mortality. It is argued that nonconstructed moral demands spring from these facts. Social constructionists too easily miss the fact that solidarity, compassion, and care are possible only for finite, vulnerable creatures’ (Brinkmann 2006: 92). With social constructionism, along with post-structuralism and postmodernism, I deal in much more detail in the next subsection. 3.2.3 Social Constructionism Social constructionism9 of various versions has become highly influential on social science theorising and research practice, and today there is almost no topic 9  Social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism are reactions against the alleged principles of modernism and positivist social science. They are the products of the disappointment caused by the failure of the revolts in the 1960s (Wood 1997) resulting in a widespread pessimism and ‘skepticism about the capacity of critical theory to construct a universal, normative critique of the de-humanizing effects of instrumental reason in the (late)modern world (Delanty, 1997)’ (Houston 2001). Nevertheless, as I will illustrate later on, these paradigms do not radically break away with positivist and irrealist thought in social sciences and philosophy, and their real critical potential is extremely limited (Hibberd 2005, Moore 2007). Indeed, their rise to dominance over several sections of academia

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or discipline that remains unaffected from ideas related to constructionist, poststructuralist or postmodernist thought. Metaphors, terms and concepts, such as ‘social construction’, ‘discursive practice’, ‘difference’, ‘situated knowledge’, to mention a few, are used at every instance and are mostly adopted within qualitative research endeavours, despite the fact that their use does not mean that every core idea of social constructionism is accepted and followed all the way down. Although there are certain differences between social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism (see, for example, Holstein and Miller 2007), their similarities, resemblances and interchanges of concepts and ideas between them are far greater and more significant (Hibberd 2005). It is hard to find any social scientist today who does not accept that social realities, processes and phenomena are produced, reproduced or transformed through other social realities, processes and phenomena. However, social constructionist ideas are very different from those common and almost truistic notions. Social constructionism, as Burr (2003: 2–5) points out, takes a ‘critical stance toward taken-for-granted knowledge’, puts emphasis on the historical and cultural specificity of social understandings of the world and on the social constructedness of knowledge, and binds together knowledge with social action. It is ‘the view that social phenomena are as people perceive them to be or as constituted and institutionalised by discourse and social convention’ (Westerhuis 2007: 419). Constructionists consider reality, including social reality, as inseparable from socially constructed knowledge and its understandings. This is because they maintain the view that social agents, society and culture lack any inherent structures and distinct features of their own and they are constructed as such in social interaction through discourse and language (Houston 2001). Social constructionists place language at the centre of their interest in such a way that a vast array of phenomena and processes so divergent as emotions, human intentionality, thought, human agency and the self, gender, ‘race’, class and institutions are rendered to be constituted in and by language and various ‘discursive practices’. Within this ‘logic’, interacting social agents create, shape, or construct what is taken to be social reality via interchanging meanings through language. Thus, according to Burr (2003: 7), ‘[O]ur ways of understanding the world do not come form objective reality but from other people, both past and present.’ Constructionists maintain that people make knowledge of the world or more specifically of their social worlds rather than discover it through successful efforts to relate their concepts to a mind-independent reality. Thus, ‘the knowledge we have of reality is socially constructed rather than corresponding in some way to something that is objectively real’ and furthermore ‘the very reality that we think we have knowledge of is itself also socially constructed’ (Moore 2007: 31).

corresponds to, and has concrete affinities with, the proliferation of a consumerist, signbased and communicative capitalism (Iosifides 2004) and its associated cultural features (Wood 1997, Eagleton 1997).

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Social interaction and the resulting shared linguistic and meaning conventions play, for social constructionists, a vital role in the construction of social reality and of knowledge about it, which anyway are rendered to be the same thing. People construct reality out of an ‘undifferentiated flux of fleeting sense impressions’ (Chia 2003: 111 quoted in Fleetwood 2005: 206) through linguistic-conceptual practices and acts such as ‘differentiating, fixing, naming, labeling, classifying and relating’ (Chia 2003: 111 quoted in Fleetwood 2005: 206). Following this line of reasoning, it is relatively straightforward to understand the reasons why social constructionism, post-structuralism, postmodernism and the like reject any notion of truth, objectivity, causality and reality independence and embrace different forms of relativism and conventionalism. Constructionism fully participates with positivism (its alleged opponent) in what Hibberd (2001a, 2001b) calls ‘the continuity of error’, which is mainly a result of the neglect of ontological assumptions and questions and the preoccupation with epistemology. Social constructionism comes in different versions and persuasions. We may, for example, differentiate between micro- and macro-social constructionism (Burr 2003). The former ‘sees social construction taking place within everyday discourse between people in interaction’ (Burr 2003: 21), while the latter – based mainly on the work of Foucault – places emphasis on how power relations determine various discursive practices or ways of constructing the world (Burr 2003, Moore 2007). Another division is between weak and strong, or strict, social constructionism. Weak social constructionism may be viewed as a version that highlights the crucial role that discourse plays in the formation, reproduction and transformation of social relations and processes. This version views and analyses discourse as an integral part of social reality that interacts with other non- or extra-discursive elements, producing certain outcomes. It views discourse as produced by and producing societal phenomena and processes and it is perfectly compatible with critical realism (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Fairclough 2003). This version should necessarily be a part of any non-positivist, critical and emancipatory social research practice. On the contrary, I consider strong or strict social constructionism (see Carter 2000, Best 2007) as totally inadequate for critical social research theorising and practice due to its extreme ‘discursive reductionism’, culturalism, ontological muteness and self-contradictory relativism (Spiro 2001). As mentioned earlier, social constructionism considers language pivotal for any account of social and cultural phenomena and processes, and this consideration has also been called ‘the linguistic’ or ‘the cultural turn’. Social constructionism establishes an analogy (or a metaphor) between the functioning of society and the

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functioning of language, meaning and reference10 (Sayer 2000), or, to be more precise, it takes society and its characteristics to be analogous to the notions that constructionism itself has developed about meaning and language (Wood 1997). Constructionist theory of language, meaning and signification – which is based on interpretations or more accurately on misinterpretations of the work of the Saussure (Gairdner 2008) and the late writings of Wittgenstein – pays undivided attention to the relations between the signifier (word, image) and the signified (concept) (Sayer 2001). These relations, which are rendered to be wholly arbitrary, produce meanings or signs through a network or a ‘system of differences’ (Potter 2001: 183, Sayer 2001). Hence, post-structuralists and social constructionists assume that ‘underneath all meanings, there are just other meanings’ (Gairdner 2008: 231) and extend this scheme of linguistic and meaning self-referentiality and arbitrariness to the totality of conceptual schemes that people employ in order to make sense of the world (Gairdner 2008). Of course, as Potter (2001) and Archer (2000) point out, the relation between signifiers and signifieds are not wholly arbitrary because, first, signifieds are external to signifiers and, second, although the connection between them is not wholly determined, it nevertheless has to follow some basic rules corresponding to linguistic and reality structures. Thus: For example, the signifiers ‘help me!’ or ‘aidez-moi!’ are arbitrary in relation to their common meanings in human communication … in one sense but not in another! That is, they do not have to be exactly what they are; but they cannot be just anything at all either. There are boundaries to the possibilities of the nature of such signifiers in relation to other aspects of reality. Such words must be relatively short for example. Is this a feature of parole rather than langue perhaps? I think not. Language is structured, and its structural nature is something different from the instances of actual language usage which rely upon it. (Potter 2001: 186)

Moreover, this scheme of linguistic and conceptual self-referentiality, based on the misappropriation of the work of Saussure, totally neglects another important factor for any comprehensive explanation of the signification process. This factor is referentiality to objects and entities outside language. If we insert the ‘referent’ into the scheme, then its ‘negativity’ and much of its alleged arbitrariness fades away. This is because ‘horizontal relations’ between signifiers and signifieds that supposedly produce meaning are transformed into the so-called ‘signification triangle’ – that is, the relations between signifiers, signifieds and referents (Sayer 10  This analogy is driven, mainly by postmodernists and post-structuralists, to its extremes. As Wood (1997: 5) points out regarding these notions, ‘[S]ociety is not simply like language. It is language; and since we are all entrapped in our language, no external standard of truth, no external referent for knowledge, is available to us outside the specific “discourses” that we inhabit.’

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2001). Thus, ‘[T]he signification process takes place through networks of such triangles, and what is a signifier or signified in one triangle may become the referent of another. Meaning, on this account, is still constituted through difference, though not only through difference’ (Sayer 2001: 37). The exclusion of the referent from the signification process, by social constructionists and post-structuralists, falsely obscures the role of the ‘intransitive dimension’ of reality resulting in another version of the ‘epistemic fallacy’. Knowledge about the world and reality in general reside within the transitive (linguistic and conceptual) realm, and the distinctiveness and powers of the intransitive one are not taken into consideration. This leads to the implicit adoption of a ‘flat’ notion of reality where its depth, stratification and emergence are reduced to interactional meaning-making processes. It also leads to a total neglect of the practical character of language, the practical nature of referring and ‘referential detachment’ that is a necessary precondition for any comprehensive act of signification anyway (Sayer 2001: 37, Collier 1998). As Nellhaus (2001: 4) stresses: ‘[S]emiosis is an act, a practical action in the real world.’ Furthermore, the post-structuralist and constructionist signification scheme is ‘anthropocentric’ and corresponds to their over-socialised notion of human agency. In reality, signification does not need linguistic capacities and acts in order to occur at all and ‘does not require human consciousness’ (Nellhaus 2001: 7), since non-human animals signify as well, possess knowledge and hold beliefs and some of them are characterised by behavioural variation through learning (see Kornblith 2002). This point is important as it indicates that signification is always towards something external to it, which does not need to be only social but it can also be natural or material. Thus, signification is a process that –because it is located in the real world and constantly interacts with its features – is always characterised by possibilities of semantic realism. ‘Semantic realism is, roughly the view that properties of sentences like having meaning, or being true, are primarily objectively explained, typically in terms of causal relations and interactions, or correspondences, with an external world distinct from both thought and language’ (Gamble 2002: 244). What this means is that there is the possibility of gaining more or less valid knowledge of the real world, although this knowledge is always conceptually mediated (Nellhaus 2001). This notion offers a solution to the false dichotomy that social constructionism establishes between signification and reality – that is, that the one and only alternative to naive realism (i.e to the position that there is an unmediated access to the world) is conceptual and linguistic self-referentiality. Now, apart from misinterpreting Saussure, constructionists base their notions on language and signification on Wittgenstein’s ideas and especially to the idea that meaning is wholly produced by use (Hibberd 2001b). According to this thesis, a word, a sign or a concept gains its meaning through its use within the contexts of a given linguistic community – that is, within a specific ‘language game’. This thesis, of course, results in, or is related to, various kinds of relativism (linguistic, conceptual, cultural) and conventionalism. The use theory of meaning is another way to put forward the self-referential, closed notion of signification and discourse,

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and extend it to whole linguistic communities, cultures or groups of people playing certain ‘language games’. However, as with any kind of extreme relativism, it is the case that linguistic relativism is self-contradictory and inconsistent regarding its own premises. When, for example, social constructionists assert that reality is constructed out of an ‘undifferentiated flux of fleeting sense impressions’ (Chia 2003: 111 quoted in Fleetwood 2005: 206) through linguistic-conceptual practices and acts such as ‘differentiating, fixing, naming, labeling, classifying and relating’ (Chia 2003: 111 quoted in Fleetwood 2005: 206), they seem to know a lot of real features outside their ‘language game’. They seem to know that there is a flux of fleeting sense impressions which is undifferentiated, and know how exactly reality is constructed out of this flux. But how is this possible? How is it possible for constructionists to transcend their ‘language game’ and assert what the case in reality is? How it is possible for them to correct others, for example realists, who see reality as not constructed in the way they do? The answer is that it is impossible if they talk about these issues from within a self-referential, closed, ‘language game’ that shapes its own reality and holds no relation of any kind with any other reality external to it. As Gairdner (2008: 234-235) rightly puts it: it is impossible to confirm that we live in a prison house of language without coming to this judgment from some firm reality outside the prison house. For how would we know? As Tallis puts it so well, ‘the very fact that there is evidence for the relativity hypothesis constitutes evidence against the hypothesis’. And again: ‘if discourses cannot reach to a reality outside of themselves, if they cannot be truly about anything, then they certainly cannot be used to comment on the relationship between themselves and reality’. (Gairdner 2008: 234–5).

Another flaw of strict constructionist and post-structuralist thinking is that linguistic structures and conceptual schemes are supposed to shape or construct a previously structureless reality as if those linguistic structures or conceptual schemes are not already part of this reality. But this notion cannot avoid stumbling into an obvious breach of self-referential consistency, for the nature of language would clearly be part of the structure of the world that is supposedly created by the structure of language. Wittgenstein’s theory is just a theory about the nature of language, and as such it is merely the creation of his own language game. We don’t have to play his language game if we don’t want to. By his own principles, we can play a language game where the world has an independent structure, and whatever we say will be just as true as whatever Wittgenstein says. Thus, like every kind of relativism, Wittgenstein’s theory cannot protect itself from its own contradiction. Nor can it avoid giving the impression of claiming for itself the very quality, objective truth, that it denies

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exists. If it does not make that claim, there is no reason why we need pay any attention to it.11

Strong versions of social constructionism take language and discourse to be only ‘perfomative’ and not referential towards any object or reality outside discourse. This notion neglects the informational function of language and discourse since ‘all speech-acts express state of affairs and, therefore, all speech-acts have components that are fact-stating, that communicate information, albeit perhaps in some disguised manner’ (Hibberd 2005: 69). In addition, this notion of ‘internal reference’ of language and discourse is inconsistent for it presupposes a language– world dualism and some kind of ‘privileged’ knowledge about what is really the case – that is, that every discourse/linguistic community creates conventions which are self-referential (Cruickshank 2003a, Hibberd 2005). Of course, semiosis, language and discourse are real elements of the social world (Fleetwood 2005); they are an integral part of social reality and their role and functions can be taken into account more comprehensively and fruitfully within a critical realist approach and rationale. Realists do not prioritise discourse and language, treating them as an all-encompassing domain; they rather prioritise practice and view speech acts as deeds (Archer 2000) that are causally efficacious. They reject the discursive reductionism and linguistic idealism (see Fisher 1984) of social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism and place discourse, ideology, meaning-making activities and interpretations within certain contexts, conditions, circumstances and structures (Joseph and Roberts 2004b). They do not conflate discursive with material practices since both have distinct powers of their own (Joseph and Roberts 2004b) and view discourses as always socially embedded (Best 2007). As Best (2007: 141) points out ‘language never leaves society’. Instead of reducing extra- or non-discursive social elements to discourses, realists examine their relation, thus avoiding the linguistic or discursive ‘imperialism’ and determinism of social constructionism (Archer 2000, Joseph and Roberts 2004a). Furthermore, realists assert that making judgements about the validity of different interpretations and discourses does not require an ‘Archimedean position’ or a ‘God’s eye view’ of reality, as social constructionists falsely assume (Sayer 2000, Baghramian 2004). Although judgements of this kind are always conceptually mediated, this does not mean that every conceptual scheme is equally valid (Moya and Hames-Garcia 2000). Regarding this point, among others, constructionists and post-structuralists adopt an either/or logic, which is unproductive and profoundly problematic. Thus, either knowledge or discourse access reality in an immediate and unmediated or direct way or they are selfreferential and not related to anything outside them (Hames-García 2000). This logic characterises other domains of constructionist thinking as well. For example, the self is either completely bounded and unitary or completely fragmented (Moya 11  ‘Relativism’ (http://www.friesian.com/relative.htm, accessed 17 March 2010).

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2000b). Either objectivity or truth is achievable via ‘neutral’ and correspondence scientific methods or objectivity and truth are rendered obsolete. This logic of social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism comes from their acceptance of the positivist definitions of objectivity and truth (Andriakaina 2009). The inability of these theories to go beyond the positivist frames of reality, objectivity, conceptual mediation and truth12 results in the formulation of a series of false dichotomies and futile binaries. On the contrary, realists accept that: (1) all observation and knowledge are theory mediated and that (2) a theorymediated objective knowledge is both possible and desirable. They replace a simple correspondence theory of truth with a more dialectical causal theory of reference in which linguistic structures both shape our perceptions and refer (in more or less partial and accurate ways) to causal features of the real world. And they endorse a conception of objectivity as an ideal of inquiry rather than as a condition of absolute and achieved certainty. (Moya 2000b: 12)

Regarding discourse, Hames-García (2000: 121) summarises brilliantly the realist thesis: While I recognize that humans are socialized through discourse, it seems to me that discourse is as conditioned by us as we are by it. Discourse is neither just a ‘medium’ through which we gain access to reality nor merely a social matrix or tool by or with which reality is constructed. It is set of related practices that aid the organizing of social world. These practices, in fact, are part of that social world, as is the self. Only by viewing the self and discourse as mutually conditioned parts of a social process larger than the extent of either can the false dichotomy between positivism and scepticism be transcended (Hames-García 2000: 121).

The above quotation provides us the opportunity to briefly elaborate on how social constructionism treats agency and the self. For constructionists and poststructuralists, human agency and the self are completely ‘decentred’; they are constituted discursively and are the mere effects of discourse (Carter 2000, Archer 2000, Creaven 2000). The notion of the ‘dissolution of humanity’ (Archer 2000) cannot, of course, be sustained in a consistent way. For the replacement of social agents, cultural and social structures possessing real causal powers by anthropomorphic, agential, ‘authorless discourses’ (Carter 2000: 39) and by discursively produced, power–knowledge ‘regimes of truth’ leaves unanswered 12  Of course, these are not the only elements that social constructionism shares with positivism. Others include irrealism, the epistemic fallacy, the emphasis on epistemology and neglect of ontological questions, the preoccupation with language, conventionalism and the notion of meaning as use (see Patomäki and Wight 2000, Hibberd 2001a, 2001b, 2005).

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vital questions. First, if human subjectivity is constituted wholly by discourses and regimes of truth then how did post-structuralists, as for example Foucault, come to have knowledge of this? As Wilkerson (2000: 273) asserts ‘if discursive practices actually produce our experience and identity, then the origin and reliability of my knowledge of these discursive practices becomes highly questionable.’ Second, this notion leaves unanswered the question of how and against which standards we can make sense of social relations of exploitation, injustice and domination and how to employ a critical, emancipatory social scientific practice. Third, constructionist and post-structuralist decentring of human agency leads to the dangerous conclusion that human nature is totally malleable according to various discursive constructions of it. This results in forms of cultural and moral relativism (see Lukes 2008) that are the best allies of highly oppressive regimes and prevents any critiquing of social practices that hinder the realisation of human powers and potentials (see Archer 2000: 34–44). In this respect, Carolan (2005: 5) offers a telling comment on the consequences of strong constructionist notions: if there is no biological substratum lending experiential force to, say, pain, then ‘pain’ becomes a mere discursive construction, which can thus be reduced through either discursive denial or discursive reconstruction (Soper 1995b). Such projects of ‘strong’ social constructionism are consequently, upon closer inspection, radically uncritical in character due to their inability to ‘say what oppression is bad for, or what it does damage to’ (Sayer 2000: 98). (Carolan 2005: 5)

In the place of the loss of human agency of strong social constructionism and post-structuralism – that is, of a non-stratified agency that is totally constructed by ‘society’s conversation’ (Archer 2000) – realism posits a dynamic, stratified, powerful and causally efficacious human actor who acquires her ‘sense of self’, and her personal and social identity, through relationships with the totality of world, including its the non-social aspects (Archer 2000, Creaven 2000; see also Jenkins 2001). Archer (2000: 116–17), criticising Harré’s social constructionist and postmodernist view of human agency, summarises the realist notion of it as follows: (i) The realist account starts in ‘privacy’, in human exchanges with the natural world, rather than in the public domain of social relations. (ii) The primacy of practice implies an anti-clockwise trajectory […], as well as starting in a different place because we bring the effects of our natural encounters to our social ones. (iii) What the human self does encounter in the social domain is not simply ‘society’s conversation’, as a flat discursive medium, for in society the cultural realm is deeply stratified (containing emergent ideational properties – CEPs). Moreover, structural properties (SEPs) do not need to be discursive at all, in order for their powers to be causally efficacious.

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Finally, some additional critical comments on social constructionism, poststructuralism and post-modernism should be made: –– In prioritising discursive knowledge, social constructionism totally neglects other non-discursive kinds of knowledge such as practical knowledge (Judd 2003). –– The role of bodily materiality and its distinct, non-constructed causal powers, along with the role of embodied knowledge (Archer 2000, Nightingale and Cromby 1999), is also underplayed by social constructionism. Taking racism as an example, social constructionists cannot and do not account for the kind of ‘“pre-discursive” (that is, bodily, affective, pre-symbolic) racism, a form of racism that “comes before words”, and that is routed through the logics of the body and its anxieties of distinction, separation and survival’ (Hook 2006: 207). –– Social constructionism accuses its opponents – that is, literally everyone who does not accept its axioms and doctrines – of essentialism and foundationalism. These accusations are directed towards critical realists as well who are presented as mere ‘disguised positivists’. Of course, the very act of accusing others for their theses presupposes a description of them in a way that reveals their character. In other words, it presupposes a description of what is the case that strong or strict constructionists are not allowed – at the price of inconsistency – to make (Sayer 2000, Best 2007). More specifically, it is not the case that one need be a strong social constructionist in order to avoid foundationalism since the basic premise of critical realism – that is ‘mind-independence of the world’ – ‘is to undermine, not to support, hopes of some privileged relation between discourse and the world’ (Sayer 2000: 41). The anti-essentialism of strong social constructionists and post-structuralists is employed in a way that corresponds to their discursive reductionist programme. It entails the alleged inability to find and describe social or psychological kinds (see, for example, Jenkins 2001 and Cooper 2008) and categories that exist independently of their discursive construction, and has to be corrected towards rejecting what is called ‘misplaced essentialism’ (Sayer 2001: 86) but not the existence and functioning of essences in general. –– The very core of constructionists’ assumptions – for example, that of the link between discourse and action – is problematic because ‘it is not true

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that what people themselves think about their action is the true explanation of their action, since their intention is not the unique and isolated cause/ motive of it’ (Callewaert 2006: 77). –– Social constructionism is extremely weak in accounting for materiality, the character of social relations and power (Nightingale and Cromby 1999). Materiality, nature and artefacts possess causal powers of their own that condition wilful constructions or act back on them. For example, Rowlands (2005) refers to Latour and his ‘guns kill people’ slogan ‘to illustrate the fact that gun, as object, acts by virtue of its material components that are irreducible to the social qualities of the person holding the gun (Latour 1998: 176)’ (Rowlands 2005: 74–5). This is, of course, true for social relations as well, which are always characterised by a material dimension that is irreducible to discourse. Social relations, as material relations between real people, have causal powers that are exerted on and influence actors independently of the latter’s understanding of the former or of the former’s intentions (see Martin 2009: 9–20). Furthermore, the variance of the character of social relations of any kind (i.e. between individuals or social groups within various social fields) is rather limited. This character, which is objective and exists independently of human awareness and identification, is related to different degrees of equality and inequality between the different parts of the relation. Thus, ‘social relations vary in two dimensions, “power” and “solidarity”, or social hierarchy and social distance’ (Fairclough 2003: 75). In contrast to this dimension, discourses, meanings and interpretations linked and associated with or related to social relations may be infinite in number and variation. Yet, only some of them, and usually exceptionally, are able to grasp, though partially and with limitations, this character of social relations. Now, conflating this intrinsic character of social relations with their discursive constructions, as constructionism does, prevents adequate theorising and researching of both social relations and various discourses and meanings that are linked with or are part of them. Finally, issues related to power, power relations and power hierarchies are treated by social constructionism in an unsatisfactory way (Nightingale and Cromby 1999). In most instances these crucial issues are rather neglected by constructionists because their examination entails some kind of differentiation between the discursive and non- or extra-discursive realm that strict constructionists are not ready to make or to acknowledge. Nevertheless, ‘power’ features prominently in the Foucauldian version of the constructionist ‘discourse’. But this notion of power, also known as ‘the capillary notion of power’ (Mather 2000: 91) – that is, a ‘tactical and localized view of power’ (Reed 2000: 526) – results in the reinforcement of the neglect of the structural dimensions of power and power relations along with their role in the production and reproduction of relatively stable and enduring social hierarchies, thereby obscuring their real ontological status (Reed 2000).

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–– Most versions of social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism adopt, either implicitly or explicitly, some kind of relativism which ultimately generates major problems for social theorising and research practice. Relativism comes in many forms but generally it assumes that some ‘entity’ or ‘object’ is always relative to something else. These ‘entities’ or ‘objects’ may be knowledge, truth, reality, perception or moral values and that ‘something else’ that these ‘entities’ or ‘objects’ are relative to may be ‘language games’, cultures, interpretative communities, societal discourses or perceptual schemes (SEP 2003). As a consequence, notions of truth, rational reasoning, objectivity and judgement about the plausibility and validity of theories become meaningless and obsolete; furthermore and importantly, they become impossible, in principle, to achieve. The various kinds of relativism – such as cognitive, cultural, linguistic, moral or alethic (Baghramian 2004) – have serious negative implications for social research methodology and practice when employed in a fullblown manner. Thus, Hammersley (2009) attacks, in a comprehensive and convincing way, the use of relativist ideas in qualitative inquiry and, more specifically, the rejection of a mind-independent reality, the adoption of pragmatist criteria for assessing the validity of research findings and the abandonment of ‘epistemic in favor of moral criteria in assessing the knowledge claims made by researchers’ (Hammersley 2009: 5). Regarding the first point, realists stress that knowledge of a mind-independent reality is possible through certain conceptual and theoretical schemes and that the options are neither the relativism nor the brute empiricism to which social constructionists adhere (Hammersley 2009). Furthermore, as with all versions of relativism, the anti-realist stance is ultimately inconsistent and self-refuting. Thus: To propose that there are no phenomena existing independently of our accounts of them is to put forward a knowledge claim. Yet if the validity of all knowledge claims is relative to some socio-cultural framework or context, then this is true of this claim as well. And this means that in terms of some other frameworks or contexts it will be false. (Hammersley 2009: 12)

Regarding the second point, it should be noted that avoiding completely questions of truth or falsity and plausibility or implausibility of research findings, theories, discourses, or propositions is impossible and leads to inconsistencies and contradictions. It leaves us with no criteria to adjudicate between different theories, discourses or propositions, resulting to an ‘anything goes’ attitude, since any belief, theory or proposition may be assessed as worth holding given that it is accepted by a linguistic or cultural community (Hammersley 2009). Finally, regarding the third point, the adoption of moral criteria to judge knowledge claims results in another kind of relativism – moral relativism – which is equally problematic as epistemic or cognitive varieties. Thus, Hammersley points out that:

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From a relativist point of view, what is morally acceptable is so only in the context of a particular cultural framework, and could well be unacceptable from other perspectives. In these terms, the implications of relativism are the same as regards both epistemic and moral standards; so why abandon the former while retaining the latter? (Hammersley 2009: 21)

–– Methodologically social constructionism, post-structuralism and various postmodernist persuasions advocate research strategies such as ‘conversation’ or ‘discourse analysis’. Strongly linked to ethnomethodology, conversation analysis, places an almost exclusive emphasis on the formal and detailed analysis of texts, conversations and discourses, in such a way that there is no escape from the closed universe of discursive formations and practices of social actors. Thus, as Hammersley indicates, conversation analysis amounts to a shift away from investigation of the features and causes of particular events, actions, and institutions towards a focus on the methods or practices that are held to generate whatever intelligible sense participants (and, for that matter, researchers) make of them. Furthermore, these methods or practices are assumed to be involved not just in the recognition of social phenomena but also in their production, in ‘bringing off ’ events, actions, and institutions as of distinctive kinds. (Hammersley 2008: 13).

Quite similar are the trends of constructionist discourse analysis as well. The most influential examples of this kind of discourse analysis, which is mainly inspired by the work of Foucault, give so much prominence to discourse and discursive practices that it is as if they ‘absorb’ or ‘produce’ everything else. Thus, any meaningful distinctions between discursive and non- or extra-discursive practices and realities are denied and the whole social realm is reduced and confined to discourse (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999). Of course, this kind of discursive idealism and reductionism does not and cannot account for those non- or extradiscursive realities, entities and processes that, through constant interaction with discourse, are shaped by it and shape it as well. Those non- or extra-discursive features of social reality are ‘social relations, power, material practices, beliefs/ values/desires, and institutions/rituals’ (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 28). Ignoring these features results in intractable problems in social theorising and, mostly qualitative, research practice. These are related to undermining ontological questions – thus committing the epistemic fallacy – nominalism, self-refutation and self-contradictory relativism, limiting the potential of social and cultural critique, downplaying the role of human agency, and denying the existence and role of ideologies as a distinct kind of discourse as well as localism in relation to power and power relations (Reed 2000):

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Finally, some of the problems and limitations of social constructionist research practice may be briefly highlighted by two examples from the broad area of ‘ethnic’ minority and migration studies. The first is related to the thorough critique, from a critical realist perspective, to which Veit Bader (2001) subjects the constructionist work of Gerd Baumann’s, titled ‘Contesting Culture: Discourses of Identity in Multi-ethnic London’, while the second concerns a synoptic account and critique of a study titled ‘The South African Exodus: A Social Constructionist Perspective on Emigration’ by Melissa Brokensha (2003). As far as the first example is concerned, Bader (2001) critiques Baumann’s constructionist (Bader uses the term ‘constructivist’) approach in a study where he analyses the cultural, community and identity features of Southall, an area of London characterised by great ‘ethnic’ diversity and immigrant presence. What Bader (2001) finds problematic in the constructionist rationale about culture in general and about Baumann’s analysis in particular is the denial of the real character of cultures, their causal efficacy and the role of their structural features, along with the reduction of cultures to discourses, processes and identities. Regarding the real character of cultures, Bader (2001) shows that constructionist analyses are exaggerated reactions to essentialism and that avoiding essentialism does not necessarily leads to the adoption of constructionist convictions. From a critical realist point of view, it is possible both to avoid essentialist and reified notions of culture and cultural practices and to explain more productively phenomena of cultural stability, continuity and change. As Bader (2001: 255) stresses: Languages, as well as cultures, are, obviously, not natural things but they do have some structure and some logic of their own. Recognizing that linguistic or cultural traditions and continuities ‘exist’ should not be mistaken for committing

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the sin of reifying cultures. Stating that only linguistic or cultural change is real, that traditions or continuities are purely abstract notions, easily leads to a complete neglect of the actual degrees of continuity and coherence. (Bader 2001: 255)

Regarding the reduction of culture to discourse Bader (2001) stresses that this results in an almost complete neglect of the role of habitus and of the material dimensions of culture – that is, ‘customs, rituals, traditional ways of doing, institutions and virtues (‘material culture’)’ (Bader 2001: 257). Thus, as an example: to research changing practices of arranged marriages amongst South Asian migrants means not only studying the situationally specific opinions of different groups and generations […], it also requires studying the different degrees in which those changes of opinions and convictions have lead to changes in habitus and to changes in ‘behaviour’. (Bader 2001: 258)

Furthermore, the adoption of a ‘processualist’ view of culture has major negative consequences in accounting for cultural reproduction and continuity – and ultimately for cultural change as well – and limits any meaningful effort to explain the evolution of socio-cultural realities and forms (Bader 2001). Finally, dissolving cultures into identities overlooks two crucial issues: ‘[F]irst, cultural practices may be relatively stable whereas definitions of individual and collective identities may change rapidly or, vice versa […]. Second, cultural practices may serve as one of the possible bases of identity definitions but this need not be the case […]’ (Bader 2001: 260–61). Consequently, Bader (2001: 263–4) stresses the virtues of a critical realist alternative to investigating cultures and cultural practices: a critical realist conception of culture allows us to place discourses about culture within contested cultural practices, to analyse processes of cultural change without neglecting constraining and enabling structures, and to analyse processes of identity formation in their varying relationships with cultures. My claim is that it would help in bridging the gap between actual research practice and a constructivist selfunderstanding which clearly does not fit. (Bader 2001: 263–4)

The second example concerns a study that examines the emigration phenomenon from South Africa and explicitly employs a social constructionist approach – in my view of the strong kind (Brokensha 2003). The study is based on the written narratives of two respondents (of Peter and Clare), the one already an emigrant from the country and the other preparing to immigrate at the time of the research (Brokensha 2003: 40). The research focuses almost exclusively on the discourses and discursive practices of the research participants vis-à-vis their reasons for emigrating from South Africa, in a clear postmodern manner and employing a kind of Foucauldian discourse analysis. This case is typical of strong social

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constructionist, postmodernist and Foucauldian approaches; it is characterised by a total neglect of causal and explanatory questions, and it completely relativises truth. The study ‘focuses on the discourses circulating in South Africa that inform people’s decision to emigrate’ (Brokensha 2003: iii). Furthermore, the author states that: In my research I am not engaged in the search for the causes of emigration, nor for a solution to the ‘problem’. My aim is to elucidate the range of discursive events circulating in the South African narrative around emigration. I explore the construction of the category of emigration and the power relations emanating from the complex process of that construction. I explore the production, circulation and authorisation of ‘truths’ regarding emigration. (Brokensha 2003: 40)

Of course, it is impossible to discuss even synoptically the whole study here, so my account is necessarily partial and selective but, nevertheless, adequate to the making of some points regarding social constructionist rationale and research practice. Brokensha (2003) identifies three major discourses that allegedly inform the decisions of the two research participants to emigrate from South Africa. The discourses are those of: (1) crime (that is, fear of crime and safety considerations with special emphasis on children’s safety); (2) lack of opportunities for life and socio-economic advances in South Africa; and (3) anti-Jewish discrimination and anti-Semitism in South Africa (Brokensha 2003). These discourses are treated by the author as mere ‘stories’ that are unrelated to any realities of non- or extradiscursive character. This refusal to move ‘beyond discourse’ and to examine the relations of discourses, discursive practices, actors’ constructions and agents’ shared meanings to extra-discursive realities, either in the domain of social structure or in that of agency, results in the study falling into almost every fallacy and flaw of the strong constructionist approach (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Fairclough 2003) – that is, the confusion of ontological with epistemological questions (the epistemic fallacy), discursive reductionism and idealism, total neglect of social (and discursive) structures, materiality, agential causal powers, and embodied subjectivity (Cromby 2004) along with self-refuting relativism. A selection of statements made by the author (Brokensha 2003) is characteristic: I would like to take you, the reader, and my two storytellers, Peter and Clare, on a journey with me through the land of discourses and the various interpretations I have constructed out of the texts. Please keep in mind that they are mere interpretations and not ‘truth’ statements (58) [emphasis added]. The first discourse I would like to introduce you to is the discourse of crime […]. I started to wonder what stories are being told about crime in South Africa (58). There is discourse around protecting children and I wonder if this forms Peter and Clare’s construction of what it means to be a good parent (62).

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After reading Peter’s narrative I got a strong feeling that he does experience being valued in South Africa. […] I wonder if Peter has this experience when he writes about his struggle with his company and affirmative action (66). At this point I would to introduce the discourse of religion that permeates through Clare’s narrative. Clare is Jewish and tells certain stories of her experience of being a Jew in South Africa (74). This allows you the reader, to judge for yourself whether the interpretations are warranted and gives the opportunity to construct alternative meanings or interpretations (42).

Although the above quotations cannot indicate the whole reasoning of the study, they point to a series of limitations that are endemic to strong social constructionism. First, there is a constant and complete reduction of the totality of social reality to discourses, stories, narratives, constructions and shared meanings without any attempt to assess their adequacy (e.g. blaming affirmative action) by relating them to certain, real, relatively stable and enduring social structures (for example class structures, socio-political structures of domination, structures of social discrimination along ‘ethnic’ or religious lines or intra- and inter-country inequalities). It seems that for Brokensha (2003) ‘crime’ is a mere discursive construction. Extra-discursive realities of social disorganisation and social relations of domination and inequality, resulting in trends towards both higher criminal activity and emigration, are ignored. Second, social agency is seriously underplayed and undermined. Agents seem to be ‘informed’ by ‘circulating discourses’ that completely shape their social experiences (Brokensha 2003). But why are those discourses circulating in the first place? Why is there a circulation of those specific discourses and not of others? In what ways do different discourses relate to each other and to extra-discursive features such as ‘social relations’, ‘material activity’ and social agents’ ‘beliefs, values and desires’ (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 61)? Working under strong constructionist premises those crucial questions cannot be answered. The author leaves no room for social experience itself, along with its specific social characteristics, to exert any independent influence on actors’ understandings of social situations and phenomena. On the contrary, according to the author, ‘the dominant cultural discourses…’ (Brokensha 2003: 33) ‘…determine how the individual gives meaning to experiences and their identity’ (Brokensha 2003: 33). Third, although the author calls for judgements on the ‘warranty’ of interpretations made in the study, she offers neither criteria nor grounds for such judgements to be based on. If these are to be based on mere convention, then there is no reason for us all to accept them as better than any other alternative interpretations. This also applies to the strong social constructionist or postmodernist project as a whole. This kind of reasoning entails the so-called ‘performative contradiction’ (Al-Amoundi 2007: 547), which is quite common in certain versions of Foucauldian constructionist research, including Brokensha’s

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(2003) study. Thus, according to Al-Amoundi (2007: 547), by relativising truth and objectivity in an extreme manner, Foucault would undermine his own theses as he would be committing a performative contradiction [emphasis added] (Habermas) – that is a contradiction held not between two contradictory explicit statements but between one explicit statement and an implicit, albeit necessary, statement implied by the very performance of the speech act (e.g. ‘I did not write these lines’). In effect, if knowledge is only determined by social constraints, then Foucault’s own opus is necessarily a mere social product. In this case, his arguments would not have more value than any other contradictory arguments. At best, his work would present an interest as (poor) poesy. If Foucault maintains that truth is only socially determined, then he must admit in turn that his own work entirely constructs the reality to which it pretends to refer. (Al-Amoundi 2007: 547)

To conclude this subsection and chapter, I should note that my preceding critique of social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism is necessarily incomplete and partial, since capturing the whole range of constructionist, poststructuralist and postmodernist thinking – in its multiplicity, complexity and difference – would require a whole book (or probably many). Instead, I have placed emphasis on some features of strong social constructionism with certain affinities to post-structuralist and postmodernist thinking in order to highlight their negative consequences for social research practice and to pave the way to my analysis of critical realist qualitative methods in migration studies.

Chapter 4

Critical Realism, Social Research Methodology and Qualitative Migration Research This chapter is mainly devoted to qualitative methods in migration studies from the point of view of the critical realist meta-theory. It is true that a concrete critical realist methodology has yet to fully be developed, and this is probably quite understandable as the origins of critical realism are purely philosophical. Despite this fact, the explosion of interest in critical realist meta-theoretical elaborations in the last 20 years, the production of significant, explicitly realist, empirical research along with the thorough realist critiques of both positivistic-scientistic and relativistic orientations to social research have resulted in certain principles that may lead quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method social research to attain a much more enhanced explanatory value and potential. In this chapter I discuss some of the potential advantages of a realist reorientation of qualitative methods in social sciences and highlight the productiveness of such an approach to explore phenomena related to contemporary migration. 4.1 Realist Qualitative Research 4.1.1 Critical Realism and Social Research Methods Before discussing the potential for reorienting qualitative methods under the critical realist meta-theoretical framework, it is essential to elaborate on some crucial principles of critical realism that have inspired social research methodology in general. As I mentioned earlier, critical realism is not a set of analytic methodological procedures or specific methods and techniques for the collection or analysis of empirical data, but rather a philosophy of social sciences concerned mainly with ontological and epistemological questions (Yeung 1997, Danermark et al. 2002). However, I advocate that ontological and epistemological assumptions and presuppositions are unavoidable in every social research endeavour and that social researchers should seek and maintain consistency between these assumptions and the methodological principles and procedures they employ (Danermark et al. 2002). ‘There should be congruence between the object of study, the assumptions about society and the conceptions of how knowledge is

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possible, and one’s choice of design and method…’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 150). Thus, I reject the pragmatic eclecticism of various methods irrespective of explicit meta-theoretical principles (Danermark et al. 2002), mainly because there is the danger of conflict between different, and implicitly held, ontological assumptions; this conflict usually results in limiting the explanatory power, truthfulness and usefulness of research findings. Furthermore, I strongly oppose the traditional connection between certain methodological camps with certain epistemological and theoretical positions; that is, the connection between quantitative methods and positivism, as well as between qualitative methods and interpretivism, social constructionism and other modes of idealism and relativism. It is this strong and long-lasting connection that it is the cause of an unproductive opposition between quantitative and qualitative methods; the ‘war’ between the two camps resulted in serious ‘casualties’ regarding methodological and theoretical progress in social sciences, namely the lack of cooperation between them or ontologically and epistemological inconsistent and conflicting or eclectic and pragmatist combinations between quantitative and qualitative methods. The solution offered by critical realism is what is called ‘critical methodological pluralism’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 150). This entails the combination between quantitative and qualitative methods under the same meta-theoretical framework, that of critical realism. It is a framework that explicitly presupposes that ‘social science studies are conducted in open systems, that reality consists of different strata with emergent powers, that it has ontological depth, and that facts are theory-laden…’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 150). Critical realists maintain that there is nothing that inherently and necessarily links quantitative methods to positivism and qualitative methods to interpretivism and social constructionism and that, while it is impossible to combine the positivist and the interpretivist/constructionist positions within the same research endeavour, it is perfectly possible and more than desirable to combine quantitative and qualitative methods. A necessary presupposition for this combination is to reorient both quantitative and qualitative methods towards a critical realist meta-theoretical framework. The most crucial dimensions of this reorientation are related to examining the character of quantitative and qualitative methods regarding the specific topic and object of study, to shedding light on the role of theory in social science methodology and highlighting the explanatory potential of abductive and retroductive reasoning (Yeung 1997, Danermark et al. 2002, Sayer 1992, 2000). Realist reorientation of both quantitative and qualitative methods within the framework of ‘critical methodological pluralism’ entails the modification of the overall purpose of social science and research practice. Despite the differences between the objects of social and natural sciences, I advocate an explanatory role of social sciences – that is, the possibility, desirability and usefulness of the scientific study of the social domain. I take ‘scientific’ to mean causal and explanatory but I differentiate sharply the meaning of realist explanatory research

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from that of its positivist counterpart. The former is based on postulating causal generative mechanisms operating in open systems whereas the latter seeks law-like regularities which are taken to be causal relations, assuming closure. Various versions of interpretivism, social constructionism and relativism dispense with causality altogether because they share exactly the same definition of causality with the positivist paradigm. Thus, it is no surprise that the linking of quantitative methods with positivism and qualitative methods with interpretivism/ constructionism renders their combination either highly risky or impossible. For ‘critical methodological pluralism’, the purpose of social research and of both quantitative and qualitative methods is to ‘[I]dentify generative mechanisms and describe how they are manifested in real events and purposes’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 165). Within this framework, the differences between quantitative and qualitative methods are not ontological and epistemological but are related to different characteristics and dimensions of research objects (e.g. measurable – nonmeasurable dimensions and features) and different research questions. Andrew Sayer (1992: 242) refers to the terms ‘intensive’ and ‘extensive’ research designs as alternative to, but not perfectly overlapping with, qualitative and quantitative. In his words: This dilemma involves a choice between what Harré terms ‘extensive’ and ‘intensive’ research designs. Superficially, this distinction seems nothing more than a question of scale or ‘depth versus breadth’. But the two types of design ask different sorts of question, use different techniques and methods and define their objects and boundaries differently. (Sayer 1992: 242)

It became customary for many realism-inspired books and academic papers about social research methods to include Sayers’ (1992) tabled summary elaboration about intensive and extensive social research. I think it is worth including this elaboration (here give in the form of Table 4.1) here as well because it will help introduce the discussion of a series of crucial issues.

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Table 4.1  Central features of intensive and extensive research INTENSIVE Research question

How does a process work in a particular case or small number of cases? What produces a certain change? What did the agents actually do?

Relations Types of groups studied Type of account produced

Substantial relations of connections Causal groups

Typical methods

Limitations

Appropriate tests

Causal explanation of the production of certain objects or events, though not necessarily representative Study of individual agents in their causal contexts, interactive interviews, ethnography. Qualitative analysis Actual concrete patterns and contingent relations are unlikely to be representative, ‘average’ or generalizable. Necessary relations discovered will exist wherever their relata are present, e.g. causal powers of objects are generalizable to other contexts as they are necessary features of these objects Corroboration

EXTENSIVE What are the regularities, common patterns, distinguishing features of a population? How widely are certain characteristics or processes distributed or represented? Formal relations of similarity Taxonomic groups Descriptive ‘representative generalizations’, lacking in explanatory penetration Large-scale survey of population or representative sample, formal questionnaires, standardized interviews. Statistical analysis. Although representative of a whole population, they are unlikely to be generalizable to other populations at different times and places. Problem of ecological fallacy in making inferences about individuals. Limited explanatory power. Replication

Source: Sayer 1992: 243 (Figure 13, Intensive and extensive research: a summary. © Routledge 1992, reproduced with permission).

I agree with most statements included in Table 4.1, but there are some that need more elaboration. These are related to the potential of generalising qualitative findings and the ability of qualitative methods to be used for the investigation of macro-social phenomena, processes and factors. These issues will be dealt with in the next subsection; for the time being some points about the quantitative– qualitative divide should be made. The employment of quantitative methods is indispensable in social research not because measurement of distinct entities in the domain of the empirical level is the right – that is, the ‘scientific’ – way to go on or because it is a way to trace causal relationships between variables. These reasons are derived from positivist–empiricist notions of social research

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methodology and imply certain ontological and epistemological assumptions – such as methodological individualism, empiricism – and views of social reality characterised by closure and governed by, more or less, stable ‘laws’. Contrary to this, I think that quantitative methods are extremely valuable and useful in social research because certain aspects of social phenomena, processes and realities are measurable or they can and ought to be measured in order to enhance the knowledge of crucial dimensions of social reality. Thus, for example, we need to know how many immigrants (internal and/or international) enter a specific geographical area every year, how they are distributed across different geographical units and different economic sectors, and/or what their educational and training skills are. This knowledge is useful because it results in describing social phenomena and processes in respect of common features and patterns. As Yeung (1997: 57) asserts, quantitative methods are particularly useful to establish the empirical regularities between objects. Although these concrete regularities are not causal relations, the can inform the abstraction of causal mechanisms. Quantitative methods are also useful in drawing attention to the external and contingent relations between objects. Inferential statistical analysis can throw light on, for instance the external relations between objects (e.g. employment and poverty) in society from a sample. One should bear in mind that these statistical generalizations are only ‘universal’ at a specific temporal – spatial intersection. A serious problem of reductionism is incurred if one attempts to treat these contingent generalizations as necessary causal mechanisms. (Yeung 1997: 57)

Hence, quantitative methods are of great help for the establishment of what are known as ‘demi-regularities’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 166) or ‘quasi-closures’ (van Heur 2008: 46) – that is, more or less stable empirical patterns within specific time and space boundaries. These demi-regularities are manifestations of specific generative causal mechanisms at the empirical level that need explanation. They orientate social researchers to ‘go deeper’ and try to elucidate the specific causal factors (that is, the interaction between different internal and necessary relations of entities and their emergent results) that made them possible. Employing quantitative methods in this way contributes significantly to the overall purpose of critical realist social research, which is to address causality and explain social reality. Society, due to its stratified and emergent character and due to the action of social agents, is characterised by qualitative changes, complexity and relationality. Those features either cannot be fully grasped by ‘measuring’ them or are impossible to be ‘measured’. The neglect of those ‘intensional’ features of social reality such as social agents’ ‘beliefs, purpose and meaning’ (Scott 2005: 644) along with other qualitative dimensions of social reality by quantitative methods results in poor outcomes regarding social explanation. As Scott (2005: 644) rightly points out:

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This ‘richness and depth’ that Scott (2005) talks about can be grasped qualitatively, with the aid of the perspectives, interpretations, meanings and experiences of social agents, the examination of characteristics of concrete social contexts, the contents of social relations, concrete social practices and their relations to broader cultural and structural settings and detailed descriptions and explanations of specific social processes and situations. Qualitative methods inspired by critical realism do not confine themselves to ‘understanding’ social phenomena internally – that is, through the perspectives of social actors – but they rather seek to assess their adequacy too (Manicas 2009). They seek to relate these perspectives to certain features of the intransitive realm, agents’ experiences and practices, and to broader cultural and structural contexts in order to causally explain social processes and phenomena (see Maxwell 2004). Thus, critical realism places qualitative-intensive methods of social research at the heart of social scientific endeavour towards causally explaining reality. Theoretically informed, qualitative-intensive research is of great value in orienting social researchers to ‘go deeper’ into social ontology, to elucidate internal and necessary social relations and their interaction with other contextual or contingent factors, and ‘to abstract the causal mechanisms of which quantitative/statistical methods are oblivious’ (Yeung 1997: 57). Let me now refer to two examples from migration studies, indicating the differences between quantitative and qualitative methods and the value of the latter regarding capturing depth processes and features along with its potential to elucidate causal generative mechanisms, mostly unobservable at the empirical level of events. The first example comes from a quantitative study concerning Greece, which has estimated that the contribution of immigrants to Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the country was, at the minimum, between 2.3% and 2.8% for 2004 (Zografakis et al. 2008). The study contains careful estimations of various factors such as, among others, the contribution of immigrant labour to overall employment, income and productivity per sector of economic activity, distribution of added value, income transfers and household consumption patterns. Quantitative studies, such as this one, capture crucial measurable dimensions of the migratory phenomenon and produce valuable knowledge which no qualitative method would ever produce. Such research findings can be used in various ways. For example, they can be used critically in order to support pro-immigrant stances and discourses and to serve as evidence of immigrants’ significant and positive contribution to the economic and labour market. Qualitative methods could be employed for the in-depth investigation of non-measurable processes and phenomena related to the participation of immigrants in the labour market

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and the ‘host’ economy. For example, they could be employed to investigate the features of social and economic relations between immigrants, ‘native’ employees and employers in certain sectors, concrete labour market processes and conditions, or the intersection between certain cultural factors with labour market and socioeconomic arrangements. Furthermore, qualitative methods would be of valuable importance in questioning the proliferation of official and everyday discourses of ‘rational management’ of immigrant labour in terms of cost and benefit and elucidating their role in legitimising and reproducing power relations within the economic sphere and elsewhere. The second example concerns a study undertaken in western Greece in order to investigate, among others, the stances and attitudes of the local population towards immigrants residing and working in the area (see Iosifides et al. 2007a). The study was mostly descriptive-quantitative and correlated individual stances and attitudes towards immigrants with a series of variables such as age, gender, income level, political preferences, educational level, area of residence, occupation and other. The study produced a series of demi-regularities – for example, the positive correlation between high educational level and favourable attitudes towards immigrants – and we took them to be what they really are – that is, simple correlations between empirical events and not causal explanations. Causally explaining stances and attitudes would require a move beyond the quantitative ‘variable approach’ towards the detailed and in-depth qualitative ‘case approach’ (Miles and Huberman 1994, Ragin 2000). It would require carefully selecting several ‘cases’ – that is, real people residing in the area – and examining in detail their interpretations, meanings and beliefs regarding various phenomena related to contemporary migration in their area of residence along with their experiences, socio-cultural contexts, practices and actions. A realist approach would require moving beyond expressed stances and lay interpretations and towards apprehending the complexities of social life of agents and its embeddedness within certain ideational and material systems and subsystems which condition their actions and practices. It would require the investigation of the social practices of agents separate from their concepts of those practices since ‘[T]he practice or referent is usually more important that its concept’ (Sayer 2000: 93), and along with the unintended consequences of those practices and their dependence either on prior practices or on networks of coordinated practices (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999). Hence, such an approach would require the employment of modes of inference able to guide the researchers (quantitative and qualitative alike) beyond the surface level of the empirical and the actual to the level of the real – that is, to the level of causal generative mechanisms. For critical realism, traditional modes of inference, such as deduction and induction, are not sufficient to account for causal tendencies, powers and mechanisms, which may be unobservable at the level of empirical events or remain unexercised. These modes, especially induction, are associated mostly with empiricist social research. ‘Induction gives no guidance as to how, from something observable, we can reach knowledge of underlying structures and

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mechanisms; it is limited to conclusions of empirical generalizations and regularities’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 87). Apart from induction and deduction, realist social research employs the modes of inference known as ‘abduction’ and ‘retroduction’ (Yeung 1997, Danermark 2002). Abduction entails reconceptualisation of phenomena and processes in novel ways – that is, it places them within certain theoretical frameworks (Yeung 1997, Danermark 2002). For example, immigrant friendships with other immigrants of the same or different nationalities or with non-immigrants in the ‘host’ country may be conceptualised under the conceptual framework of ‘immigrant social networks’ or that of ‘social capital’. Abduction entails theoretical re-description and reinterpretation of events, processes or phenomena (Danermark et al. 2002) and thus abstraction – that is, the identification of internal and necessary relations between entities and the separation of them from the external and contingent (Yeung 1997). Now, retroduction entails ‘moving’ or ‘going backwards’ (van Heur 2008: 39, Easton 2010: 123) – that is, tracing ‘transfactual conditions’ (Schuyler House 2010: 19) that make the events, processes and phenomena at the empirical level possible. According to Danermark et al. (2002: 80), retroductive reasoning means the following: ‘[F] rom a description and analysis of concrete phenomenon to reconstruct the basic conditions for these phenomena to be what they are. By way of thought operations and counterfactual thinking to argue towards transfactual conditions’ [emphasis added]. Retroductive reasoning, together with abduction, may be viewed as thought operations (Danermark et al. 2002) characterised by experimental logic (Tacq 2010), aiming at shedding light on deep causal factors and mechanisms. This logic entails posing counterfactual questions such as ‘[W]ould this object be possible without the relations with X?’ (Hedberg 2004: 47) or ‘[H]ow would this be if not…? Could one imagine X without…? Could one imagine X including this, without X then becoming something different?’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 101). Apart from counterfactual thinking, retroductive reasoning may be facilitated by ‘[S]tudying pathological circumstances and extreme cases’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 104) or engaging with comparative analysis. Returning to our example on immigrant networks, retroductive thinking would involve the conceptualisation of basic conditions for their existence and operation in the way they do. It would involve a reconstruction of the historical trajectory of their formation along with the elucidation of certain internal and necessary links between cultural, structural/ institutional and agential features. For example, possible necessary conditions for the development and operation of dense social networks of immigrants of a certain ‘ethnic’ background in a given society might be the absence of formal institutional arrangements for the social incorporation of immigrants, institutional deficiencies and limitations, widespread discrimination in the labour and/or housing markets and elsewhere, proliferation of modes of social organisation along ‘ethnic’ lines and so on. Of course, each of these possible antecedent conditions and factors should be investigated in depth and in its interaction with other conditions and factors because usually causal mechanisms are multiple, complex and operate at different levels of reality.

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It should be noted that critical realist social research utilise various forms of reasoning and inference (induction, deduction, abduction) neither autonomously nor as ends in themselves but in order for them to be used in retroductive thinking. Thus, according to van Heur: it must be emphasized that retroduction is a much more encompassing logic of inference than either deduction or induction and should actually be understood as the recursive interplay between abduction, deduction and induction. The research cycle, following such a retroductive approach, is thus constructed as follows: first, the observation of an interesting or surprising fact is followed by abductive reasoning, which tries to make a guess that could explain the fact; second, deductive reasoning is applied to explicate the guess (through the formulation of a general rule); and third, inductive reasoning is used to test and evaluate the guess (on the basis of observation). (van Heur 2008: 40)

Now, several critical realist scholars have developed various models to conduct realist, causal-explanatory, social research. Three of them are described and analysed by Raduescu and Vessey (2008), notably the ‘morphogenetic cycle model’ of Margaret Archer (1995), the ‘explanatory model of social science’ by Berth Danermark and his colleagues (2002), and the realistic evaluation model by Ray Pawson and Nick Tilley (1997). The morphogenetic model of social research practice is based on the realist assumptions of separability between structural, cultural and agential properties and powers and on the notions of stratification, emergence and temporality (Archer 1998b: 203). Social explanation of certain phenomena and processes ideally entail the reconstruction of morphogenetic cycles of the type ‘structural or cultural conditioning/social interaction/structural or cultural elaboration’ (see Archer 1998a: 202), employ the specific critical realist meta-theoretical precepts of SEPs, CEPs and PEPs (Cruickshank 2003a) and investigates how their interaction produces certain outcomes. Raduescu and Vessey (2008: 12) summarise, in a comprehensive and useful way, the potential practical steps of social research inspired by the morphogenetic model: i. Identify the internal and necessary relations within and between social structure; that is identify the structural emergent properties via the transcendental argument (i.e., asking questions about what needs to be the case, what needs to be present for X to be such it is, and not what people think, tell, or believe it is). ii. Look for causal influences exerted by social structures on social interaction. iii. Look for causal relationships between various types of agents at the level of social interactions. iv. Identify how social interaction elaborates upon the composition of social structures by modifying the current internal and necessary structural relations and introduce new ones in the case of morphogenesis. The congruence between both sets of powers (structural and people’s causal powers) results in transformation. Alternatively, if the social interaction reproduces the existing

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The second model (see Raduescu and Vessey 2008: 20–22) developed by Danermark et al. (see 2002: 109–110) comprises six stages, notably ‘description’, ‘analytical resolution’, ‘abduction/theoretical redescription’, ‘retroduction’, ‘comparison between different theories and abstractions’ and ‘concretization and contextualization’. This model utilises the realist notion of moving between abstraction and concretisation through what is coined as ‘iterative abstraction’ (see Sayer 1992, Yeung 1997). The first stage concerns the qualitative and/or qualitative description of the concrete phenomena under study while the second stage entails focusing on certain parts, ‘components, aspects or dimensions’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 109) of these phenomena (Danermark et al. 2002). The third and fourth stages correspond to the operations of abduction and retroduction analysed previously in this subsection. At Stage 5 ‘one elaborates and estimates the relative explanatory power of the mechanisms and structures which have been described by means of abduction and retroduction within the frame of stages 3 and 4’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 110), while the last stage entails a return to the level of concrete phenomena and processes and involves the assessment of ‘how different structures and mechanisms manifest themselves in concrete situations’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 110). Finally, the realistic evaluation model developed by Pawson and Tilley (1997) has been developed to guide programme evaluation work but it may also guide critical realist research in general. The model aims ‘to present a research process for explaining and evaluating social change’ (Raduescu and Vessey 2008: 33) and employs the scheme ‘Context-Mechanism-Outcome’ (CMO) in order to reach explanations of social processes and change (Pawson and Tilley 1997, Kazi 2003, Raduescu and Vessey 2008). Critical realist research uses theory and theoretical frameworks in quite different ways from those of positivist or relativist methodologies. Rather than viewing theories as ‘hypotheses of relations between observable event/ phenomena’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 116) (positivism) or as mere researcher’s constructions (constructionism), critical realism views theoretical frameworks are parts of the transitive realm that are always related in some way to the intransitive one (Danermark et al. 2002, Judd 2003). Theoretical development entails a dialogue between different non-incommensurable frameworks – that is, between frameworks that share common referents; the overall purpose of this dialogue is the achievement of agreement on the features of those referents that are more practically adequate and truthful than notions previously held (Judd 2003). Hence, in critical realism:

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The relation between theories/theoretical concepts and the properties of objects the concepts are referring to is not unambiguous and simple; nor is it arbitrary. All theoretical descriptions of reality are fallible, but not equally fallible. Theories and theoretical concepts are developed in relation to the experiences we obtain when we use them to understand reality. (Danermark et al. 2002: 116–17)

Realist research, apart from the critical and cautious use of theoretical strategies such as grounded or middle-range theories (see Yeung 1997, Danermark et al. 2002), gives special attention to the value of general theories as ‘instruments to be used in the interpretation and analysis of concrete social situations’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 140). In this way, theories and theoretical concepts help researchers not only to reach to satisfactory explanations of reality but also to trace and investigate new features of social reality deemed to remain unexamined without certain theoretical armory (Mouzelis 2000, Danermark et al. 2002, López 2003). Furthermore, immanent critique of alternative theories – that is, critique ‘on the basis of a theory’s own assumptions’ (Hartwig 2007: 254) – helps to enhance the explanatory power of retroductive reasoning employed in realist research practice (Danermark et al. 2002, López 2003). This enhancement is, of course, subject to reflexivity and testing of realist theoretical concepts ‘in research practice, in social theory and empirical studies’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 148). In 1997 Yeung noted that ‘method in critical realism is underdeveloped and misunderstood, resulting in a methodologically handicapped philosophy’ (56), and in 2004 Carter and New pointed out that ‘realist approaches in social sciences are a comparatively recent development’ (15). Nevertheless, the progress noticed in critical realist research practice in the contemporary era is, at least, impressive. Critical realism inspires empirical social research in a range of academic disciplines and in interdisciplinary topics characterised by the use of a vast array of different qualitative, quantitative and mixed methodologies. This explicit utilisation of realist principles in contemporary empirical social research may be partly ascertained by the contents of Table 4.2. The table contains only a portion of specific examples of realist social research, both qualitative and quantitative, including examples of realist migration research. In the next subsection, I will turn my attention to the ways that critical realism can transform and enhance the explanatory power and usefulness of qualitative research methods.

Table 4.2  Examples of critical realist social research Study or Paper

Research topic, approach and methods

Sims-Schouten, W., Riley, S.C.E., Willig, C. 2007. Critical Realism in Discourse Analysis, A Presentation of a Systematic Method of Analysis Using Women’s Talk of Motherhood, Childcare and Female Employment as an Example, in Theory and Psychology, 17 (1): 101–24.

The study concerns ‘a three-stage procedure that enables a systematic critical realist discourse analysis using women’s talk of motherhood, childcare and female employment as an example’ (101). It contains a thorough critique of relativist epistemologies in discourse analysis and aims to relate material and extra-discursive with discursive practices. Methodologically it is mainly based on 40 semi-structured, qualitative interviews with ‘married mothers with at least one child who was 2 years old or younger’ (110).

Carter, B. 2000. Realism and Racism, Concepts of Race in Sociological Research. London and New York: Routledge.

This is a sociological approach of race and race concepts. The book is about a critique of social constructionist, post-structuralist and postmodernist notions of discourse, race and identity. It employs a critical realist morphogenetic approach to examine the implications of race concepts for British migration policy regulations from 1945 to 1983. Carter (2000: 108) employs the ‘historical narrative as a research method’ and the study is based on primary archival, documentary sources located at the Public Record Office, UK.

Olsen, W. 2004. Methodological triangulation and realist research, an Indian exemplar, in Making Realism Work, Realist Social Theory and Empirical Research edited by B. Carter and C. New, London and New York: Routledge, 135–50.

The study concerns data and methodological triangulation of research on grain markets in India. It is a political economy, socio-economic study and employs a critical realist perspective combining qualitative (combination of ethnography, in-depth interviewing and examination of records of labour use and government services) and quantitative (survey) approaches. It also offers three ‘rules of thumb’ as to how to conduct realist research, notably the consideration of a stratified ontology, ‘value analysis rather than pretended neutrality’ and the use of retroduction (Olsen 2004: 145–7).

Hart, A., New, C., Freeman, M. 2004. Health visitors and ‘disadvantaged’ parent-clients, designing realist research in Making Realism Work, Realist Social Theory and Empirical Research edited by B. Carter and C. New, London and New York: Routledge, 151–70.

The study is mostly sociological and is concerned with realist research design on health inequalities focusing on processes connected with health visiting to ‘disadvantaged’ parentclients and client–professional interaction. The study was designed to be qualitative and multimethodological. It aimed at employing various qualitative, methods such as focus groups, semi-structured interviews, non-participant observation and documentation analysis.

Iosifides, T. 2003. Qualitative migration research: some new reflections six years later, in The Qualitative Report, 8 (3): 435–446. (http:// www.nova.edu/ssss/QR//QR8-3/iosifides.pdf ).

This study concerns the methodological strategies adopted in investigating the characteristics of three groups of immigrants (Albanians, Egyptians and Filipinos) to Athens, Greece, paying special attention to labour market and housing arrangements. It is a sociological/geographic study that adopts a critical realist approach and reflects (six years after its completion) upon various issues related to qualitative data analysis, ‘practical problems’, ethical maters, the role of power in research encounters and the dimension of action. Methodologically, the study is based on a mixture of methods such as quantitative questionnaire research, in-depth interviews and participant observation.

Iosifides, T. and Politidis, T. 2005a. Conducting qualitative research on desertification in western Lesvos, Greece, in The Qualitative Report, 10 (1): 143–62. (http://www.nova.edu/ssss/QR//QR10-1/ iosifides.pdf ).

This study is mostly sociological/geographic and concerns the methodological strategies employed in investigating the relation between socio-economic development and desertification in Lesvos, Greece. It adopts a critical realist approach in order to develop a causal-explanatory model of patterns related to desertification in the study area. Methodologically, the study is mostly based on a series of qualitative, in-depth interviews with local producers in rural areas of Lesvos, Greece.

Iosifides, T. and Politidis, T. 2005b. Socioeconomic dynamics, local development and desertification in Western Lesvos, Greece, in Local Environment: The International Journal of Justice and Sustainability, 10 (5): 487–99.

Adopting an implicit realist rationale, this sociological/geographic study concerns the most basic findings of a predominantly qualitative empirical research on the links between socioeconomic dynamics, local development and desertification in Western Lesvos, Greece. Through a series of in-depth, qualitative interviews with local livestock breeders, the study links causally local production practices, socio-economic conditions, the rural policy environment and the evolution of a local primary sector to processes of environmental degradation and desertification.

Hedberg, C. 2004. The Finland-Swedish Wheel of Migration. Identity, Networks and Migration 1976–2000. Ph.D. Thesis, Uppsala University, Sweden.

This thesis examines sociologically and geographically the dynamics and processes of migration of the members of the Swedish-speaking minority in Finland to Sweden. The study is concerned with the complex causes of this migratory process and issues related to identity formation and social integration. It adopts an explicit critical realist rationale and a multimethodological approach. Regarding qualitative methods, the study adopts a biographical approach. ‘An individually based, statistical data set focused on the extension of the FinlandSwedish migration pattern, whereas an in-depth interview study was used to analyse the deeper causes of migration and integration’ (Hedberg 2004: 2).

Table 4.2  continued Van Heur, B. 2008. Networks of Aesthetic Production and the Urban Political Economy. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Earth Sciences, Free University of Berlin, Germany.

This thesis is a political-economy study of the relations between aesthetic production networks, ‘capital accumulation and state regulation in urban environments’ (Van Heur 2008: 285). The study is based on an explicitly critical realist rationale, and employs a range of methods and strategies such as discourse analysis, semi-structured interviews and quantitative analysis of spatially referenced data.

Yeung, H.W. 1997. Critical realism and realist research in human geography: a method or a philosophy in search of a method?, in Progress in Human Geography, 21 (1): 51–74.

This paper explores the potentialities of developing a critical realist research methodology in social sciences and contains a specific research example where realist methodological rationale was applied. The specific research example concerned the investigation of the causal factors behind spatial organisation of Honk Kong transactional corporations. Methodologically, the study employed quantitative analysis for mainly descriptive purposes and qualitative interviewing as a means for identifying underlying causal mechanisms.

Oelofse, C. 2003. A critical realist perspective on urban environment at risk: a case study of an informal settlement in South Africa, in Local Environment, 8 (3): 261–75.

The paper concerns the identification of causal mechanisms of urban environment risk at local level and adopts an explicitly critical realist rationale for achieving this. The paper reports findings from a case study in the informal settlement of Hout Bay, South Africa and, methodologically, is based on a range of mainly qualitative methods such as participatory action research and in-depth and semi-structured interviews. The basic causal mechanisms identified are ‘globalisation and urbanisation, poverty and vulnerability, the social construction of environmental problems, gender relations, the rise of civil society organisations, political governance and the spatial distribution of risk’ (Oelofse 2003: 261).

Mitchell, L.R. 2007a. Discourse and the Oppression of Nonhuman Animals: A Critical Realist Account. Ph.D. Thesis, Rhodes University, South Africa.

In this study, Mitchell employs a critical realism inspired discourse analysis to investigate the oppression of nonhuman animals in human society. The author identifies the discourses of ‘production’, ‘science’ and ‘slavery’ as playing a major role in the oppression of nonhuman animals and the overall framework adopted is that of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). The study is based on the analysis of 22 articles referring to animals from the periodical Farmers Weekly, from 26 December 2004 to 20 May 2005 (Mitchell 2007a: 52).

Clement, F.C. 2008. A Multi-level Analysis of Forest Policies in Northern Vietnam: Uplands, People, Institutions and Discourses. Ph.D. Thesis, School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences, School of Geography, Politics and Sociology, Newcastle University, UK.

This thesis concerns forest policies in northern Vietnam and is based on the examination of two cases of forest policy frameworks. The study utilises theories on land-use change, institutional analysis and power relations, and places them within the ontological and metatheoretical framework of critical realism. Methodologically, it employs a mixture of qualitative (ethnographic fieldwork, observation, interviews, historical and archival research) and quantitative methods (socio-economic statistics, forest-cover areas calculated from remotely sensed images, biophysical data) (Clement 2008: 43).

Hayes, M.G. 2003. Investment and Finance under Fundamental Uncertainty. Ph.D. Thesis, University of Sunderland, UK.

This thesis concerns the investigation of causal mechanisms that link corporate finance and industrial investment. The study adopts a critical realist approach for examining this phenomenon. What is highly innovative about it is that, apart from quantitative methods, which are common in such studies, it employs qualitative methods as well. These are related to the examination of annual reports of firms and the research on 35 case studies of individual firms.

Gilmour, L.E. 2008. Realism Approach to Theory and Implementation of Knowledge Translation: A Case of a Patient Safety Intervention within an Adult Acute Care Setting. Ph.D. Thesis, Department of Community Health Sciences, University of Calgary, Canada.

The basic research question of this study was ‘[H]ow do front-line health care managers working in urban adult acute-care hospitals within the Calgary Health Region implement an evidence-based package of patient safety policies?’ (Gilmour 2008: iii). In order to answer this question, the author employs the realist Context-Mechanism-Outcome (CMO) approach (see Pawson and Tilley 1997). The study is based on a mixed-method approach utilising survey and case study research.

Han, G-S. and Davies, C. 2006. ‘Ethnicity, health and medical care: towards a critical realist analysis of general practice in the Korean Community in Sydney, in Ethnicity and Health, 11 (4): 409–30.

This study concerns medical practices of Korean-speaking doctors and health-care service provision to Korean immigrants resided in Sydney, Australia in the mid-1990s. The study adopts a critical realist framework for the investigation of immigrants’ health conditions and associated medical practices and is based, almost exclusively, on qualitative interviews with eight Korean-speaking General Practitioners (GPs) in Sydney and complementary to interviews with ‘other informants, in the Korean community in Sydney’ (Han and Davies 2006: 412).

Table 4.2  continued Livock, C. 2009. Alternative Schooling Programs for at Risk Youth – Three Case Studies. Ph.D. Thesis, School of Cultural and Language Studies, Queensland University of Technology, Australia.

This thesis concerns a comparative investigation of three case studies of alternative schooling programmes for youth at risk and its basic aim is to develop an explanatory critique of their social outcomes. It is based on Danermark et al.’s (2002) model of critical realist methodology and it employs a predominately, qualitative case study approach. The most widely used methods of data collection are focus group and individual interviews. What makes this study paradigmatic is the application of various qualitative methods within a highly systematic, detailed and rigorous realist metatheoretical framework.

Han, G-S. and Humphreys, J.S. 2006. Integration and retention of international medical graduates in rural communities, a typological analysis, in Journal of Sociology, 42 (2): 189–207.

The authors of this study use a critical realism oriented life history, qualitative methodology in order to investigate processes of integration and retention of international medical students in rural Victoria, Australia. The study is based on 57 in-depth, life history interviews with international medical students practicing in rural Victoria and the authors, through a typological analysis, explore the causal factors and mechanisms that ‘facilitate or inhibit their integration into rural communities and consequently affect their intention to stay in rural practice’ (Han and Humphreys 2006: 189).

Sealey, A. 2009. Probabilities and surprises: A realist approach to identifying linguistic and social patterns, with reference to an oral history corpus, in Applied Linguistics, doi:10.1093/applin/amp023: 1–21.

This study reports findings of an investigation of the relation between language and identity. The data are derived from 144 oral history interviews where participants ‘were asked to reflect on their lives’ (Sealey 2009: 1). The author analyses the interview data using insights from realist social theory and complexity theory. She identifies complex causal processes that explain linguistic and social patterns along with social action and behaviour.

Archer, M.S. 2007. Making Our Way Through the World. Human Reflexivity and Social Mobility. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

This work of Margaret S. Archer along with her book on ‘internal conversation’ (Archer 2003) enhances significantly our theoretical and methodological capacities for the application of biographical/life history qualitative methods in a realist manner. ‘Using interviewees’ life and work histories, she shows how ‘internal conversations’ guide the occupations that people seek, keep or quit; their stances towards structural constraints and enablements; and their resulting patterns of social mobility’ (Archer 2009: backcover).

McEvoy, P. and Richards, D. 2007. Gatekeeping access to community mental health teams, in International Journal of Nursing Studies, 44: 387–95.

This study concerns the generative causal mechanisms that influence gatekeeping decisions of community mental health teams. The study adopts a critical realist rationale and is based solely on qualitative methods, namely 29 interviews with gatekeeping clinicians and service managers in northern England. What makes this study worth noting is that the authors utilise qualitative data in order to identify contextual factors, mechanisms and real relations that influence decisions and agential interpretations related to mental health care gatekeeping access.

De Vaujany, F-X. 2008. Capturing reflexivity modes in IS: a critical realist approach, in Information and Organization, 18: 51–72

This paper reports findings based on a meta-analysis of 120 semi-structured interviews in order to investigate modes of reflexivity in information systems organisations. It adopts a critical realist approach to reflexivity based on Margaret Archer’s internal conversation theory.

Source: Compiled by the author.

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4.1.2 Realist Qualitative Methods and Examples of Realist Qualitative Research Right from the start, I should mention explicitly that the kind of qualitative methods I advocate in this book is a scientific – that is, causal-explanatory – one. With some exceptions – see, for example, Miles and Huberman 1994, Robson 2002, Maxwell 2004 – interpretivist or social constructionist thinking inspires much of today’s qualitative research practice and the reasons of that are analysed in more detail in Chapter 3. Nevertheless, there is a relatively recent and quite clear trend to employ qualitative methods in realist social research, either autonomously or in combination with quantitative methods (see Table 4.4). Thus, one of the main tasks of this subsection (and of the whole book) is to strengthen this trend. I strongly believe that the irrealist twist of qualitative research methods under constructionist and interpretative notions has resulted in a crisis regarding the application and wider appreciation of qualitative methods (see Hammersley 2008). As Hammersley points out: In part this [the crisis of qualitative methods] derives from the fact that, in some fields, after a period of dominance, or at least of benign tolerance, it has recently come under increasing external pressure to demonstrate its value, and in particular its practical value for policymakers and practitioners of various kinds. Like other forms of publicly-funded activity, it is now being required to show that it ‘adds value’, and there have been attempts to steer funds back towards quantitative research, partly on the grounds that this alone can provide evidence of ‘what works’ in terms of policy and practice. (Hammersley 2008: 1)

In Chapter 3, I stressed that there is nothing intrinsic or necessary that connects qualitative methods with an irrealist stance. On the contrary, I am a strong supporter of the position according to which qualitative research methods may, due to their very character, bring social researchers ‘closer’ to social reality than quantitative methods (see also Miles and Huberman 1994: 10). In other words, they may contribute, to a substantive and significant way, to exploring, in depth and in detail, real people along with their social relations and causal powers, real contexts and real situations, and for that reason they are perfectly compatible with the critical realist rationale. Within a critical realist framework, qualitative methods can serve as powerful means to bring back ontology and ontological questions in social research practice and take them away from their preoccupation with and their confinement to epistemological frames (see Hartwig 2007). The combination of the ‘holy trinity’ (Hartwig 2007: 238) of critical realism – that is, the principles of ontological realism, epistemological relativism and judgemental rationalism (Wight 2004) – with the inherent strengths and features of qualitative research methods can result in enhancement of explanatory power of social research practice as a whole.

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Table 4.3  Some guidelines on how to conduct realist qualitative research 1

Take into full account the interpretations, meanings and perspectives of social agents and try to comprehend the social phenomenon or process under study ‘internally’. Engage yourself with serious interpretative, ‘understanding’ work and be reflexive of your own biases and prejudices (see Miles and Huberman 1994, Maxwell 1996, Hay 2000, Wengraf 2001, Rubin and Rubin 2005, Seidman 2006, Willis 2007, Creswell 2007).

2

Always link public or agential discourses and discursive practices to extraor non-discursive material, social, relational or ideational realities and make efforts to elucidate how they constitute or influence each other (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Fairclough 2003, Fleetwood 2005).

3

Make efforts to asses the adequacy of agents’ discourses, meanings and interpretations (see Manicas 2009). This assessment is usually not possible when relying solely on actors’ discourses and thus, additional sources of information and data – either qualitative or quantitative or both – need to be taken into account.

4

Focus on the referents of agents’ accounts, interpretations, meanings and discourses. Focus on the practices and actions of social agents and separate them from agential or public conceptualisations of them (see Sayer 2000).

5

Focus on agents’ intentionality and purposes and the unintended consequences of their actions along with unacknowledged conditions of actions (see Archer 1995).

6

Focus on social agents’ experiences and try to elucidate their cognitive component (see Moya and Hames-Garcia 2000).

7

Focus on social agents’ social location, social position and their available recourses of any kind, which make certain actions possible (see Pawson and Tilley 1997, Moya and Hames-Garcia 2000, Kazi 2003).

8

Focus on agents’ social relations and their embeddedness within various networks of practices (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Fairclough 2003).

9

Always locate social agents’ experiences, identities, practices and actions within structural and cultural contexts. Make efforts to link culture, structure and agency and their emergent properties together without prioritising, in principle, or a priori, any of those properties (see Archer 1995, 1996, 2003, 2000). Focus on the complexities of social relations, either structural or cultural, and their causal emergent properties along with their interplay with the emergent causal powers of people (Archer 1995). Try to locate the ‘qualitative’ element of social relations of any kind, that is the character and nature of relations (internal and necessary or external and contingent) and to establish its role in causally explaining social phenomena and processes (Sayer 1992).

10

Be theoretically sensitive, engage in theoretical dialogue and immanent critiques of alternative theoretical frameworks (see Danermark et al. 2002, Hartwig 2007).

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Table 4.3  continued 11

Do not confine research purposes to ‘what’ and ‘how’ questions only. Ask ‘why’ questions as well. Engage in causal-explanatory work and use qualitative methods and data in order to elucidate causal generative mechanisms through abductive and retroductive reasoning (see Miles and Huberman 1994, Danermark et al. 2002).

12

Place special emphasis on social complexity and adopt systemic thinking. Consider seriously processes such as social embeddedness and path dependency (see Bunge 2003, Sawyer 2005, Bunge 2006, Walby 2009).

13

Be critical. Locate relations of power asymmetries, exploitation and domination and develop explanatory critiques (see Sayer 2000, Hartwig 2007).

14

Engage in micro-, meso- and macro-analyses. Qualitative research is not appropriate only for researching phenomena at the micro-level. Units of analysis may be individual agents, households, social groups, networks of social relations and practices, social fields, organisations or spatial units of any scale (see Mouzelis 2000).

15

Do not be afraid to generalise (see Danermark et al. 2002, Easton 2010).

16

Use multiple sources of primary and secondary data (Maxwell 2004, Lipscomb 2008).

Source: Compiled by the author.

In the rest of this subsection I briefly discuss some specific principles of conducting critical realist qualitative research. These principles are summarised in Table 4.3 in the form of guidelines. Before starting the discussion, I should note that these guidelines do not exhaust the whole range of possible realist principles for doing social research, that they are mostly general, play an orientation role and focus on ontological and epistemological rather than on technical/procedural issues. Perhaps, the most widely mentioned strong point of qualitative research methods in almost every research handbook and qualitative research paper is that these methods are powerful means towards ‘[U]nderstanding the meaning, for participants in the study, of the events, situations, and actions they are involved with and of the accounts that they give of their lived experiences’ (Maxwell 1996: 17) (see Guideline 1). Realist approaches incorporate, utilise and take into full account the social agents’ interpretations, meanings and discourses into explanatory schemes because they acknowledge that they are integral parts of social reality (Maxwell 1996). Thus, ‘discourse, language, genres, tropes, styles, signs, symbols and semiotized entities, ideas, beliefs, meanings, understandings, explanations, opinions, concepts, representations, models, theories and so on’ (Fleetwood 2005: 200) are real in the sense that they participate in the social causal order because, when acted upon, they are causes, have real consequences and bring change in the

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world (Fleetwood 2005, Manicas 2009). Neglecting social agents’ perspectives, taking them for granted, or guessing them a posteriori, is a common flaw of much of quantitative research, as in many instances agential social practices and actions are partly dependent on those perspectives. Furthermore, social agents’ perspectives or views may influence the social actions and practices of others in a significant way. Hence, neglecting ‘intesionality’ (Scott 2005: 644) by quantitative research results in losing a large proportion of valuable insights into how social processes function, and in compromising the explanatory power of research findings. Thus, we read in Hammersley (2008: 23) that: ‘[Q]uantitative research was criticised for either ignoring these perspectives completely, focusing on external behaviour, or eliciting attitudes by structured means, which were believed by qualitative critics to introduce serious distortions. These arose, they argued, from the preoccupation of quantitative researchers with measurement.’ The positivist conviction that the most crucial dimensions of reality are those that can be measured or that the non-measurable aspects of phenomena cannot be taken into account in scientific research practice has resulted in the undermining of a series of qualitative dimensions of social reality which are central to any meaningful causal explanatory endeavour. One of these dimensions is, of course, meaning which can be grasped through ‘interpretative understanding’ (Sayer 2000: 17) but cannot be measured. Other dimensions include context, lived experience and the content of social relations or social practices. Regarding meaning, we should distinguish between two extreme positions that, according to critical realist thinking, are both flawed and fallacious. The first position is related to the positivist assumption that grasping meaning is direct and unproblematic (Sayer 2000) while the second position, derived form relativist assumptions, considers that the achievement of improved validity in the understanding of meanings and interpretations of social agents is almost impossible (Manicas 2009: 7). According to the latter, what qualitative researchers can do is to offer their own interpretations of agents’ meanings without judging their adequacy or adjudicating between more and less valid or ‘truer’ interpretations. They can just offer another interpretative version of social situations and phenomena resembling literary criticism rather than engaging themselves in serious explanatory work (see Yoshida 2007). Against both these positions, realist qualitative researchers accept that every interpretation is conceptually mediated (so ‘epistemological relativism is unavoidable’ (Wight 2004: 202)) but strongly assert that, due to the distinction between the transitive and intransitive domains of reality, the adequacy of interpretations can be and have to be assessed in practice (so judgemental rationalism is both desirable and possible). Thus, realist qualitative researchers move beyond understanding of social agents’ interpretations, meanings and discourses and towards assessing their adequacy (Manicas 2009). This assessment entails an investigation of ‘whether the actors have an adequate understanding of their action’ (Manicas 2009: 3) (see Guideline 3). It also entails the investigation of the character of the referents (Sayer

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2000, Wengraf 2001) (see Guideline 4) of agential meanings and discourses and their origins – that is, their placement within wider cultural and structural contexts, networks of social practices and social relations (see Guidelines 2 and 7–9) – along with the examination of the unintended consequences or unacknowledged conditions of agential action (see Guideline 5). Thus, for example, the usual blame on immigrants for unemployment or criminality that is common in social agents’ meanings, interpretations and discourses about migration is an important topic that realist qualitative research can investigate in a comprehensive way. The investigation entails understanding of actors’ lived experiences, desires, motives and reasonings along with causal explanations of the origins of actors’ discourses and their wider role and functionings. In other words, it entails theorisation through retroductive thinking that always goes beyond lay understandings, revealing their inadequacies (or adequacies), distortions and errors. To realist qualitative researchers, social actors’ meanings, interpretations, understandings and discourses are always embedded within wider cultural-structural contexts; they partly orientate social action but they are also strongly influenced by non- or extra-discursive, material or socio-cultural factors (Fairclough et al. 2004) (see Guidelines 8 and 9). The existence of specific relations between actors’ understandings of social reality and referents of those understandings – which exist independently of identification, or of knowledge of them (Fleetwood 2005) – can orient realist qualitative researchers to theorisation of certain links between agency, structure and culture. In other words, understanding and explaining agential discourses and interpretations with the aid of the employment of realist qualitative methods is an endeavour that always points beyond interpretations – that is, to structural and cultural features and conditions that made them possible or that made their impact important. For critical realism, agential causal powers are not exhausted in their discursive dimension. One has to take into account other, equally or in many instances more, important aspects of these powers, such as embodied, natural and practical dimensions of the formation and evolution of subjectivity and personal and social identity (Archer 2000). Thus, ‘semiosis presupposes embodied, intentional, practically-skilled social actors, social relations, material objects, and spatio-temporality’ (Fairclough et al. 2004: 28). Of course, realist qualitative researchers are not interested solely in social actors’ meanings and interpretations, in understanding and explaining them, but also in wider public discourses, cultural features and ideas – that is, in the ideational environment which (along with the structural one) conditions social action. As shown in Chapter 3, realist accounts of culture, socio-cultural interaction and cultural change employ the same analytical dualist rationale as in the case of structure–agency relations (see Mutch 2009), and qualitative researchers can draw on this framework as a guide in order to enhance causal cultural analysis and avoid conflationary and reductionist theorisations of empirical findings. Apart form actors’ meanings and public discourses, qualitative research – which usually requires prolonged involvement with the lives, or aspects of the lives, of social actors – is more adequate than its quantitative counterpart for

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researching the role of context in agential interpretative understandings and actions, analysing processes that make possible certain events and phenomena to take place (Maxwell 1996: 17, 19) – lived experiences, social relations, social practices and social complexity (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Walby 2007, 2009, Iosifides 2008). Realist qualitative researchers pay increased attention to thorough and indepth investigation of social practices as a means to achieve reconstructions of the complex interplay between structure, culture and agency within specific social domains and fields (see Guidelines 4 and 9). Social practices have an intermediate position between social structures and social events – that is, between structural potentialities and actual happenings (Fairclough 2003: 23). Social practices are not exhausted in discourse. To assume this, as certain versions of social constructionism do, results in misleading reductionism. Apart from discourse, which is a kind of practice as well, social practices include ‘action and interaction, social relations, persons (with beliefs, attitudes, histories etc.) and the material world’ (Fairclough 2003: 25). Usually, actual social practices and their coordinated networks include some or all of the above elements in various analogies and their qualitative investigation can lead to an account of generative causal mechanisms and the underlying factors and processes behind immediately observable events. The qualitative investigation of social practices presupposes the synchronic examination of the dynamics of social action and interaction, the content, character, consequences and impact of social relations along with the characteristics of social agents (their habitual dispositions, personal and social identities, collective agential action and so on). It also presupposes the analysis of the diachronic dimensions of social practices and, more specifically, the material and socio-cultural conditions of their occurrence, their embeddedness within wider systems of social relations and the emergence of novel features resulting by prior social interaction. The simultaneous and dialectic qualitative investigation of the synchronic and diachronic dimensions of social practices serves the main task of realist qualitative research well – that is, the identification of the causal generative mechanisms of events, interpretations, discourses, social processes and phenomena. Privileging social practices in their totality and complexity over other allegedly determining elements such as language, discourse, reified mind or social structures, critical realism and associated research endeavours overcome in a comprehensive way the pitfalls of ‘mentalism, textualism and intersubjectivism’ (Reckwitz 2002: 246). It is important to stress here that the absolute priority that strong social constructionism, post-structuralism and postmodernism – along with the qualitative research inspired by those paradigms – give to discourse and language obscures the character of discursive practices themselves. Thus, as Reckwitz rightly points out: discursive practices must, as practices, be more than chains of signs or ‘communication’ (in the sense of Luhmann), but they are not identical to speech acts. A discursive practice also contains bodily patterns, routinized mental

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Let me give one simple example of one kind of social practice from migration studies. This example concerns the social practice of using certain public areas in urban centres (i.e. usually squares) as meeting places by immigrants of specific ‘ethnic’ backgrounds for primarily information exchange and recreation and derives from research on immigration in Athens, Greece, in the mid-1990s (see Iosifides and King 1998). This social practice of spatially based social networking should be investigated qualitatively from different angles, using a range of methods. Realist qualitative research may be utilised in order to shed light on the character of immigrant social networks in these areas and the differences between those networks and other types of non-spatially based immigrant networks. It may also be utilised to explore the structure of such networks, the social hierarchies developed within them along with their specific causal powers (i.e. orienting newcomers to specific niches of the labour market or contributing in certain ways to spatial organisation). Furthermore, realist qualitative research practice would seek to explain the emergence of these areas as spaces of immigrant presence and networking, taking into account the perspectives, motives and purposes of the immigrants themselves, the structural and cultural environment within which immigration takes place and the linkages between micro- processes of immigrant incorporation and meso- or macro-processes of economic, labour market and spatial restructuring and reorganisation. It should be noted, that within such a framework, understanding the perspectives and interpretations of immigrants themselves is not sufficient in order to apprehend and explain the phenomenon under study. These perspectives need – besides understanding – explanation as well, and the best way to achieve this is placing them within the whole complexity of social practices, their conditionings and consequences. Possible methods for such a complex investigation may be, among others, observation and participant observation in the public areas, indepth interviews with immigrants and non-immigrants in these areas, use of secondary, documentary and archival sources, content analysis of media coverage of the phenomenon and interviews with real estate experts and officials in central and local administrative or other agencies. Now, as mentioned earlier, social relations are part of social practices but because they are of crucial importance in the indication of causal mechanisms, they deserve a brief separate examination (see Guideline 8). I use the term ‘social relations’ to indicate not only relations between individual social agents (e.g. social relationships) but also relations between social groups, between institutions and relations between systemic entities and components. This usage derives from the acknowledgement that human societies are inherently relational and systemic (Bunge 2003, 2006) and consist of various entities that are linked together in certain ways and that these linkages and their dynamics matter considerably

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regarding the production of certain outcomes, processes, events and phenomena. Now, while meanings, interpretations and discourses that accompany, constitute, legitimise or are produced by social relations may be of an extreme variety, the real character of those relations varies much less (Fairclough 2003). What I mean by the real character of social relations is the degree of power differentials that social relations incorporate and/or reproduce. In other words, social relations vary much less when they are more hierarchical, unequal and domination oriented and are more equal when they are reciprocal or solidarity oriented (see Fairclough 2003: 75, Martin 2009). This character of social relations is part of the intransitive realm of social reality – that is, it exists objectively and independently of agential identification and social agents’ interpretations and discourses. In many instances, interpretative understandings of social relations necessarily obscure their real character, this being a condition for their persistence and smooth reproduction (Agger 2007). Furthermore, social relations always have a material dimension and are characterised by independent causal powers. Douglas Porpora (1993) gives an example of this when referring to social relations of control and coercion: Thus, however much control is a function of rules, control is nevertheless something analytically distinct and something consequential. That something is a relationship, a relationship that is fundamental to all rules of allocation and authorization matter. (Porpora 1993: 220) The independent efficacy of relationships also becomes apparent in the case of coercion. Rules of allocation may make workers dependent on capitalists for jobs, but that dependency itself is neither a behavior nor a rule. There are no rules saying that workers are to depend on capitalists for their livelihood. Such dependency is a relationship. This relationship, to be sure, is a consequence of rules of allocation, but it is a consequence that itself has consequences. It enables the capitalist to coerce the worker into submitting to (among other things) the rules of authorization that obtain at the job site. (Porpora 1993: 220)

Now, realist qualitative researchers investigate social relations at every level (micro-, meso- or macro-) and scale, paying special attention to all of their dimensions (discursive and material) and to their linkages on various public discourses available regarding this character. They rather try to relate them to their real, objective nature, the causal powers they exert and to the degree, conditions and circumstances of their realisation. This presupposes researching real causal social groups and engaging in ‘structural analysis’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 45, Sayer 1992), using ‘iterative abstraction’ (Yeung 1997: 58) to differentiate between internal and necessary from external and contingent relations (see Guideline 9) and to judge the plausibility of hypotheses and theoretical elaborations in practice. For example, qualitative research is extremely useful in examining the relational background of working conditions of immigrants’ livelihoods. Starting with observable events – the fact that, for example, certain immigrants from certain

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‘ethnic’ backgrounds sell various goods in the streets for as long as 12 or even 14 hours per day – a realist qualitative researcher may identify and investigate, indepth and in detail, the various systems of social relations those immigrants are part of, their real character and their causal powers which exist independently of their interpretation. A researcher of this kind might discover that social relations between immigrants and their suppliers are highly asymmetrical and domineering and result in a significantly low profit margin for the street vendors. Hence, spending numerous hours in the streets is a result of causal powers exerted by social relations between immigrant vendors and suppliers – in other words, working long hours is the only ‘realistic’ option in order for immigrants streetvendors to make ends meet. Apart from interpretations, meanings, social practices and social relations, qualitative researchers give special emphasis to social agents’ experiences and identities (see Guidelines 7–9). These research topics are probably the most heavily dominated by interpretative – and, more recently, by social constructionist, post-structuralist and postmodernist – rationales. Qualitative researchers can contribute significantly to the investigation of agential experience and identity by abandoning the flawed assumptions of much post-structuralist and postmodernist thinking such as: (1) the assumption that social relations are analogous to language and therefore experience and identity are ‘indeterminate and hence epistemically unreliable’ (Moya 2000a: 5); (2) the general either/or logic of post-structuralism and postmodernism regarding issues such as constructedness and reality, truth and objectivity, that indicates commonalities with positivist thinking and its replacement with a both/and logic1 (Moya and Hames-Garcia 2000); and (3) assumptions related to the notion of the self as a mere effect of discourse (Archer 2000, Creaven 2000, Moya and Hames-Garcia 2000). These assumptions obscure the relations between experience and sociocultural identity with elements of the social world that exist independently of them and exert causal influences on them; their ultimate result is an unproductive, and essentially uncritical, self-contradictory relativism. It is the acknowledgement of the existence of these relations, this reference of experiences and identities to relative intransitive societal realities, that makes possible their thorough examination in realist terms. Furthermore, the existence of these relations allows realist qualitative researchers, through the in-depth investigation of agential experiences and identities, to apprehend the complex and multiple ways that culture, structure and agency interact. For realists, social experiences of people 1  So, for example, to post-structuralists and postmodernists, identities and selves, have to be either totally ‘unified’ or entirely ‘fragmented’. The possibility of being characterised by elements of durability, stability and change and being ‘subjects of multiple determinations and a continual process of verification that takes place over the course of individual’s life through her interaction with the society she lives in’ (Moya 2000b: 84) is not thought of (for the either/or logic of post-structuralism and postmodernism. see also Andriakaina 2009).

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are causally related to their social location (Moya 2000b) – that is, their position within complex systems of social relations – and identities are ‘complex theories about (and explanations of) the social world, and the only way to evaluate such theories is to look at how well they work as explanations’ (Mohanty 2000: 64). Thus, identities have a ‘cognitive component’ (Moya 2000b: 83), ‘“refer” outward to the world…’ (Moya 2000b: 84), and the adequacy of this reference can be assessed and evaluated. As Moya stresses: A postpositivist realist theory of identity, in contrast to a postmodernist one, thus insists that we acknowledge and interrogate the consequences – social, political, economic, and epistemic – of social location. To do this, we must first acknowledge the reality of those social categories (race, class, gender, and sexuality) that together make up an individual’s social location. We do not need to see these categories as uncontestable or absolutely fixed to acknowledge their ontological status. We do, however, need to recognize that they have real material effects and that their effects are systematic rather than accidental. A realist theory of identity understands that while identities are not fixed, neither are they random. There is a nonarbitrary limit to the range of identities we can plausibly ‘construct’ or ‘choose’ for any individual in a given society. (Moya (2000b: 87)

Now, this realist theory can be of great value for qualitative researchers who wish to understand agents’ social experiences and identities and simultaneously explain their formation and their relation to other intransitive societal realities. One of the best methodologies to achieve this is, in my view, realist biographical research (see, for example, Han and Humphreys 2006). Placing this at the centre of qualitative inquiry about identity formation and dynamics, along with the use of other, multiple, primary or secondary, sources of information and data, can be proved extremely fruitful for breaking away from notions based on the allegedly ‘arbitrariness’ and ‘self-referentiality’ of experiences and identities and for gaining adequate knowledge regarding the linkages between actors’ interpretations of their experiences and identities and wider structural and cultural realities. In migration studies, the biographical approach may be employed in researching a variety of different phenomena and processes such as, among others, decision-making, motivation, identity dynamics, social networking, social incorporation processes, social exclusion or social mobility (Iosifides and Sporton 2009). Iosifides and Sporton (2009: 103) give an example of how the employment of realist qualitative methods in general, and realist biographical research in particular, can contribute to more adequate understandings of social processes related to migration, and how they can conduce to explaining them. This example is related to the different meanings, that some migrants within certain contexts, attach to ‘friendship’ and in particular to ‘friendship with natives’. For them, ‘friendship with natives’ means ‘superficial friendly contact’ and not ‘more

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies or less stable relations of reciprocity and solidarity’. So the positive response to a question about whether migrants have native friends refers to the former concept of friendship and not to the latter (Iosifides et al.. 2007). Thus, only the in-depth investigation of the life course of immigrants and their biographical experiences of social relations in the host country may highlight the reasons [emphasis added] for the adoption of this particular meaning of ‘friendship with natives’ rather than other alternative meanings and interpretations. (Iosifides and Sporton 2009: 103)

The preceding analysis of realist qualitative research on actors’ meanings, interpretations, practices, relations, experiences and identities points to the centrality that causal explanation has for realism and the associated research practices, qualitative and quantitative. Currently, causality and causal explanation are very unpopular notions in qualitative inquiry inspired by interpretivism, constructionism or post-structuralism, and the specific reasons for this have been analysed in Chapter 3. The fallacious abandonment of causal thinking and research practice in much contemporary qualitative inquiry is due to the idealist (Miles and Huberman 1994) and reductionist inclinations of interpretivism and constructionism and is an unfortunate consequence of the adoption by them of a ‘flat ontology’ (Hartwig 2007). It is also a consequence of the acceptance of the positivist definition of causality and the inability to imagine other more fruitful and constructive definitions of it. Furthermore, the rejection of causal explanation by interpretivist, constructionist and post-structuralist qualitative researchers is related to a view of social complexity that renders any attempt of deep understanding of reality impossible. For example, Maxwell (2004: 245) quotes Lincoln and Guba (1985: 141) who assert that ‘the concept of causality is so beleaguered and in such serious disarray that it strains credibility to continue to entertain it in any form approximating its present (poorly defined) one’. The same scholars continue by stressing that: Everything influences everything else, in the here and now. Many elements are implicated in any given action, and each element interacts with all of the others in ways that change them all while simultaneously resulting in something that, we, as outside observers, label as outcomes and effects. But the interaction has no directionality, no need to produce that particular outcome. (Lincoln and Guba 1985: 151 quoted by Maxwell 2004: 245)

The preceding quotation indicates some of the flaws of constructionist thinking, notably its resemblance to the currently discredited (within social science) ‘chaos theory’ or ‘the second wave of general systems theory’ (Sawyer 2005: 14), the portrayal of social reality as formless and structureless, the denial of social dynamics and ontological depth due to emergent phenomena and the dependence of reality on agential (and researchers’) conceptualisations and interpretations. Rather than being an obstacle to causal explanation, social complexity, points to

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other kinds of explanatory schemes that depart from those of positivism and are significantly closer to the realist notions of social causality (see Bunge 2003, 2006 and especially Walby 2009 and Hammersley 2008). In this respect, qualitative methods have an important and indispensable role to play in causally explaining the social world, and, indeed, what I strongly support in this book is that the main task of qualitative methods has to be just that. Critical realism places increased emphasis on the inherent strengths and advantages that qualitative methods have in engaging with causal explanation and indicating the functions of various causal generative mechanisms that produce outcomes, events and phenomena (see Guidelines 11 and 12) (see Sayer 1992, 2000, Miles and Huberman 1994, Maxwell 1996, 2004, Yeung 1997 and Table 4.2). These strengths and advantages are related to the emphasis that qualitative methods give to context, process, temporality and complexity (Miles and Huberman 1994, Maxwell 1996, 2004) along with their disposition in researching concrete, real situations, real social relations of any kind and causal social groups. Thus, the realist conception of social causality – as characterised by the separation of necessary from contingent social relations and the employment of the notions of social emergence, context, conditions, powers and liabilities of social objects and entities due to their structure, and mechanisms (Easton 2010) – is perfectly compatible with qualitative research methods. More than this, realist researchers increasingly view qualitative methods as more appropriate for causally explaining social reality than quantitative ones (see Sayer 1992, 2000, Miles and Huberman 1994, Yeung 1997 and Table 4.2). Hence, as Miles and Huberman point out: We consider qualitative analysis to be a very powerful method for addressing causality. […] Qualitative analysis, with its close-up look, can identify mechanisms, going beyond sheer association. It is unrelentingly local, and deals well with the complex network of events and processes in a situation. It can sort out the temporal dimension, showing clearly what preceded what, either through direct observation or retrospection. It is well equipped to cycle back and forth between variables and processes – showing that ‘stories’ are not capricious, but include underlying variables, and that variables are not disembodied, but have connections over time. (Miles and Huberman 1994: 147)

Maxwell (2004) distinguishes between variance and process approaches or, in other words, between regularity/variable and case-oriented approaches to causal explanation, with the former corresponding mainly to quantitative methods and the latter to qualitative (see also Ragin 2000, 2008, Byrne and Ragin 2009). While the confinement of causality to relations and associations between variables points to the positivist account of causal explanation, the in-depth, qualitative investigation of cases may result in substantive and comprehensive apprehension of the operation of multiple causal mechanisms. As Miles and Huberman (1994: 147) point out: ‘[E]ven the most elegant quantitative procedures, at bottom, deal with associations, not really causes. They can only develop plausible possibilities

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“smoothed” across many persons and situations.’ The reconfiguration of causality by the realist approach as powers and liabilities of social objects – due to their structure, that is, due to the character of relations between their parts – makes qualitative methods the most appropriate for causal explanation. This is because qualitative methods investigate the ‘qualities’ of social objects and entities, their character along with the process of their formation and their consequences. Qualitative methods deal with the ‘the fundamental nature and capabilities of things that we research rather than simply their measurable properties’ (Easton 2009: 120). Nevertheless, because certain relations are more essential and necessary than others, they tend to produce effects that are observable at the domain of the empirical in the form of ‘demi-regularities’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 166). Thus, finding quantitative demi-regularities usually shows that there is need to proceed to the qualitative investigation of the causal mechanisms that produce them. In this respect, Maxwell (2004) proposed three helpful strategies that qualitative researchers may employ to locate causal mechanisms. The first is the ‘intensive, long-term involvement’ (Maxwell 2004: 254) of the qualitative researchers in the field and with the social realties, phenomena and processes under study, while the second is related to the collection of ‘rich data’ (Maxwell 2004: 254), that is detailed, nuanced, multi-sourced and multidimensional. The first two strategies are strongly related to some of the most basic features of qualitative methods anyway, while the third (which concerns more qualitative data analysis) – that of employing ‘narrative and connecting analysis’ (Maxwell 2004: 255) – points to an orientation towards the investigation and establishment of causal mechanisms. It points to the formation of ‘causal networks’ (Miles and Huberman 1994: 148) that is, networks of causal relations and real connections between social entities, objects, processes and phenomena. Furthermore, one of the most significant potentials of qualitative methods is its ability to account for complex and multiple causal factors and mechanisms within specific social contexts (see Callaghan 2008). This account departs form the common conception of causal factors as discrete and additive and towards a conception of causality as ‘conjunctural’ (Miles and Huberman 1994) and complex (Byrne 2005, Ragin 2000, 2009, Walby 2007, 2009). ‘The causes are not only multiple but also “conjunctural” – they combine and affect each other as well as the “effects”. Furthermore, effects of multiple causes are not the same in all contexts, and different combinations of causes can turn out to have similar effects’ (Miles and Huberman 1994: 146). It has to be noted that multiple, causal complexity, operating simultaneously at different levels of reality, is inevitably local in character but the differentiation between necessary and contingent relations allows for theoretical and analytical generalisations beyond the initial context (Payne and Williams 2005, Iosifides 2008, Schuyler House 2010). Now, critical realists assert that underlying causal processes and mechanisms belong to the domain of the real – that is, are not usually directly observable at the empirical level (Yeung 1997, Archer 1995, 1998). For example, positivist and interpretivist research on health inequalities focus exclusively on observable phenomena – on discrete facts related to income distribution and health outcomes

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or to agential conceptions of health respectively – whereas realism-oriented research locates causality in fundamental social relations such as class relations and the causal powers they exert, as well as in the interaction between necessity and contingency resulting in certain observable effects (see Wainwright 2000). However, the non-observability of phenomena and relations at the empirical level does not mean that these phenomena and causal relations are not researchable or are not testable in practice. As Manicas (2009: 13) rightly points out: ‘among competing explanatory mechanisms, there are different consequences and these are testable’. Qualitative methods have the potential to do just that – that is, to go deeper in reality and to contribute to reconstructions of the causal mechanisms and conditions of effects and outcomes. This may be done by retroducing alternative theoretical formulations, abstractions and hypotheses and flexibly directing and redirecting research efforts and collection of data with the aim of increasing the plausibility of some of these formulations. Thus, for example, the increased attachment of certain immigrant groups to religion and religious institutions within specific socio-cultural contexts may be explained by examining in detail the totality of their life-course, exploring the nature of context and institutional arrangements, researching processes of value conflict or by examining the relations between social location, experience and identity formation. The foundation of such a research to actors’ discourses and interpretations alone would confine its findings to mere description, leaving explanatory questions about the conditions and complex causal mechanisms that made identity change possible unanswered. Qualitative inquiry includes the traditional rationale of Znaniecki’s ‘analytic induction’ (see Hammersley 2008, Chapter 4) which advocates that causal mechanisms ‘can only be identified by in-depth study of one or a small number of cases, aimed at identifying the functional relations among the features belonging to the type of the phenomenon concerned’ (Hammersley 2008: 71). Much of today’s interpretivist and constructionist qualitative inquiry has abandoned the tradition of employing qualitative methods to identify causal mechanisms (Hammersley 2008), but contemporary critical realism contributes significantly to the return of causal thinking in qualitative research practice (see Table 4.2). Another widespread contemporary notion is the alleged appropriateness of qualitative research for investigating only the so-called ‘micro-level’, either the individual agent or social interaction (see Guideline 14). This notion derived from the proliferation of interpretivist, interactionist and micro-constructionist approaches to qualitative research is largely flawed as it misconceives both agency and structure, the meaning of micro- and macro-levels, and results in reductionism and conflationism. From a critical realist point of view, no methodological paradigm is exclusively linked to the investigation of either micro-, meso- or macro-levels because the basic purpose of social theorising and research is to account for the interplay between different levels that play a central role at every unit of analysis. Thus, as Scott stresses:

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Furthermore, social interaction does not always belong to the micro-level of analysis and investigation of structural properties to the macro-level (Mouzelis 2000). The distinction between micro- and macro-levels of analysis lies in the differences in the range of the impacts and consequences of social processes, relations and phenomena, and it does not corresponds with the distinction between agency and structure. Thus, the face-to-face interaction of state leaders in order to formulate new migration policies in the European Union is not a micro-level event (for a similar example, see Mouzelis 2000: 41), and the examination of the structural properties of a local immigrant network in a rural area of Greece does not entail macro-analysis. Within this reconceptualisation, it becomes evident that realist qualitative methods are capable for investigating of both micro- and macrophenomena, keeping in mind that in any case the linkage between structure and agency is central. Finally, realist qualitative methods have the potential to contribute to critical social theorising through the development of the so-called ‘explanatory critiques’ (New 2003, Lacey 2007) (see Guideline 13). Explanatory critiques contribute significantly to the empowerment of certain social groups by indicating the mostly hidden or unobservable conditions or structural features that reproduce unequal power relations along with false, flawed or distorted beliefs, interpretations and discourses that are necessary for their reproduction (Lacey 2007, Agger 2007). Thus, explanatory critiques entail explanation of certain social phenomena and processes in such a manner that the interlocking of specific ideological constructions with specific relations and structures of exploitation, domination and power asymmetry become apparent (New 2003, Lacey 2007). By investigating the multidimensional and complex links between agential interpretations, public discourses, social experiences, practices and relations, realist qualitative methods can account thoroughly for the outcomes of the interplay between culture, structure and agency. The detailed reconstruction of this interplay can contribute to acquiring valid knowledge of how unequal power relations are formed, sustained and reproduced and the role that conceptual distortions, ‘false consciousness’ (Lukes 2007) and ideology play in this respect. This knowledge is indispensable for social change since only by actively and consciously modifying internal and necessary relations between social objects or entities is progress towards more enabling and empowering structural conditions for agential action possible to be achieved. For example, in migration studies, realist qualitative research can

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contribute significantly even to disciplines that, for the time being, are mainly quantitative-oriented, such as economics. Thus, the in-depth investigation of immigrants’ economic practices, their economic relations in ‘host’ countries, and the conditions and terms of their participation in the labour market and the economic sphere in general can result in the identification of structural and cultural constraints of immigrants’ equitable economic incorporation. Explanatory critiques of unequal regimes of economic incorporation of immigrants in the ‘host’ countries, through realist qualitative inquiry, can overcome the danger of reductionism (either structural or individualistic) and complement constructively quantitative studies in the field (see Bommes and Colb 2006). Another example indicating the potential of explanatory critique through realist qualitative research is immigrants’ political participation in the ‘host’ countries (Bauböck et al. 2006). Based on a variety of sources such as official or unofficial documents, archival collections, media reports and immigrants discourses, experiences, practices and relations within the political domain and broader socio-cultural contexts, realist qualitative researchers can contribute to explaining the formation, reproduction and consequences of constraining ‘political opportunity structures’ for immigrants (Bauböck et al. 2006: 66). As Bauböck et al. (2006) clearly shows, the topic is rather complex because a series of structural, cultural and agent-related factors are in interplay and have certain outcomes. Thus, the thorough examination of the interplay between, say, dominant values of nationhood, migration inclusion (or exclusion) policy regimes, institutional and social discrimination patterns, legal status and national or transnational citizenship regimes and immigrants’ individual or collective action and choices (Bauböck et al. 2006) may indicate the ‘internal logic’ of exclusionary social arrangements (Squire 2009) along with the social interests that lie behind it or the purposes it serves. The preceding analysis of the potentials of a critical realist approach to qualitative research is inevitably partial and somehow generic, but my main purpose was to highlight some ways of thinking about qualitative methods and data that are in contrast with the established interpretative or constructionist rationales. These ways of thinking about and doing qualitative research become more apparent in the following subsections which concern qualitative migration research. In the remainder of this subsection, I present two examples of explicitly realist qualitative research outside migration studies, while the next subsection includes three specific examples of explicitly realist qualitative migration research. The first example concerns a study by Sims-Schouten et al. (2007) on the relations between motherhood, childcare and female employment, and employs an explicit realist discourse analysis approach. This example is important for a series of reasons namely because it breaks away from the ‘tradition’ of relativism in contemporary discourse analysis and because it can serve as an exemplar for the employment of realist discourse analysis in other issues, including migration. Sims-Schouten et al.. (2007: 102) stress that the confinement of social reality to discourse and the associated conflation of discursive and material, non-discursive practices by relativists results in serious failings, which are related to the inability

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to account for the reasons of usage of certain constructions by social agents and not others, the neglect of non-discursive, non-linguistic social experiences and the downplay of the ways that material, non-discursive practices impact on the discursive ones. Realist discourse analysis can highlight the ways that discursive and non-discursive practices are interrelated, resulting in certain social outcomes. This approach grants a separate ontological status to material practices which possess causal powers of their own that are irreducible to those of discourse. SimsSchouten et al. (2007: 103) cite several studies by realist scholars who identify nondiscursive, material factors such as ‘missing limbs’, ‘the physical nature of objects in the world’, ‘the power of institutions’, ‘direct physical coercion’, ‘the material organization of space’, ‘the habitual and physical orientation of the individual to discourse’ and ‘relatively enduring structures that may be biochemical, economic or social’. In respect to the specific study of concern, the authors identify, as potential material, non-discursive factors such as ‘a parent or child’s health, access to amenities, or current government policy towards childcare provision’ (SimsSchouten et al. 2007: 103). The study was based on 40 in-depth semi-structured interviews with ‘married mothers with at least one child who was two years old or younger were interviewed using in-depth semi-structured interviews. There were 20 participants who were Dutch and 20 who were English. The participants came from two similar sized rural towns, which were approximately 15 miles away from urban areas’ (Sims-Schouten et al. 2007: 110). Furthermore, a literature review was conducted for the identification of possible impacts of non-discursive factors, such as ‘embodiment, institutions and materiality’ (Sims-Schouten et al. 2007: 108), on women’s experiences of motherhood, childcare and employment. Finally, additional complementary research was carried out in order for the participants’ social and physical conditions of existence and action to be investigated. The systematic application of this kind of discourse analysis that prioritises the relations between the discursive and the material non-discursive realm has produced a series of meaningful findings. These are related mainly to the analysis of the relations between discourse and materiality in the case of availability of informal and formal care facilities, the analysis of the relations between discourse and institutional power regarding employment opportunities for women and the role that financial reasons play in women’s choices and actions. However, there is a point in this study that is contested from the critical realist point of view advocated in this book. This point is related to the taking into account of non- or extra-discursive factors only when participants refer to them. The authors assert that: ‘by only incorporating extra-discursive features into the analysis when the participants oriented to them, our approach provided a systematic method of addressing the concerns of researchers (e.g. Schegloff, 1997) who have argued that the analysis of participants’ talk should include only aspects to which the participants themselves orient’ (Sims-Schouten et al. 2007: 110). This is a serious concession to constructionist and, more specifically, to ‘conversation analysis’ orientations (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 7–8). In my view, the operation

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of material and non- or extra-discursive factors may remain unacknowledged or partially acknowledged or misinterpreted by social actors. Thus, realist qualitative researchers should insert into their analyses the role that materiality and nondiscursive factors and practices play in social life even when social actors do not make use of them in their discourses. For this absence may be equally important or even more important than its presence in the reproduction of certain social arrangements and in the persistence of certain and usually necessary (mis) interpretations of these arrangements. The second example concerns a study by Oelofse (2003) on urban environmental risk in the informal settlement of Hout Bay, South Africa. Here environmental risk is defined more broadly and includes social factors as well. It concerns ‘floods’, ‘biodiversity reduction’, ‘poverty’, ‘urban crime and violence’, ‘health risks as a result of poor drainage and sanitation, air pollution’ (Oelofse 2003: 262). Through the employment of an explicit critical realist approach, the study aims at identifying the causal mechanisms that result in risk and vulnerability of marginalised communities who ‘live at a close interface with the environment and hence stress in the environment affects their day-to-day lives’ (Oelofse 2003: 261). As a case study, the author investigates processes in the problem-ridden informal settlement of Hout Bay and she employs a series of mostly qualitative methods such as participatory action research, interviews with informal settlers and semistructured interviews with ‘members of the civic association, a Councillor and local government officials for a study on migrants in the settlement…’ (Oelofse 2003: 266). The study is also based on a mixed (qualitative and quantitative) survey of formal residents’ perceptions of environmental quality in the area. Oelofse (2003) identified seven causal mechanisms and two contingent conditions that play a major role in the production of risk in informal settlements of South Africa as Hout Bay. The causal mechanisms are ‘globalisation and urbanisation’, ‘urban poverty and vulnerability’, ‘patriarchy’, the ‘spatial distribution of risk’, the ‘social construction of risk’, ‘political governance’ and ‘civil society’ (Oelofse 2003: 267–72). The contingent conditions are ‘local variations’ and ‘timing of events’ (Oelofse 2003: 272–3). The author employs her multi-sourced and diverse qualitative data in order to establish connections between the postulated causal mechanisms and the ways they operate locally resulting in the production of risk. To give an example of this, the author refers to the experiences and practices of the positive impact of agential actions in the settlement, through the formation of local forums, while at the same time she refers to the limits of such action due to mainly structural constraints ‘such as lack of access to power structures, weak partnerships between local authorities and local communities and inaccessible environmental legislation and policy…’ (Oelofse 2003: 269). Oelofse concludes by reflecting on the advantages of employing a critical realist approach to research on environmental risk and social research in general: Risk can be better understood using a critical realist model that relates social structures and human action (causal mechanisms) and local and temporal

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4.2 Realist Qualitative Research on Migration In this section, I briefly discuss three specific studies that employ a critical realist approach to migration research. I also focus on the ways qualitative methods, data and analysis are used within the realist rationale that underpins all studies. The main purpose of this section is to reflect on some central issues about realist qualitative research practice, discussed in Section 4.1, with illustrations of concrete empirical examples from migration studies. The first example concerns a study included in a book authored by Bob Carter (2000), Realism and Racism: Concepts of Race in Sociological Research. The study seeks to explain the transition from unrestricted immigration to the formulation and implementation of immigration controls, regarding ‘inflows’ from the colonies into the UK, between 1941 and 1981. More specifically, the study concerns: ‘the development of race ideas (the race making process); the employment of these by social actors in the pursuit of immigration restriction and struggles over definitions of citizenship and national identity; and how these struggles have shaped the politics of racism and antiracism’ (Carter 2000: 97). What makes this study paradigmatic for the purposes of this book is the explicit and detailed employment of the realist morphogenetic approach, developed by Margaret Archer (1995, 1996) (see Section 3.1), along with its overall methodological orientation. Following Archer’s morphogenetic scheme, Carter (2000) divides his analysis of this transition into three stages: the first stage is about the identification of structural and cultural conditions of agential action; the second is about social and sociocultural interaction which resulted to the transition from ‘unrestricted entry to controls’ (Carter 2000: 112); and the third concerns social and cultural elaboration – that is, the examination of ‘the effects of introducing controls’ (Carter 2000: 132). The main structural conditions at the beginning of the morphogenetic cycle, were according to Carter (2000), the specific form of class relations in the post-war capitalist economy of the UK, and more importantly, the need for rapid economic growth and therefore of an ‘adequate supply of labour’ (Carter 2000: 106). Due to prior social interaction resulting in certain political decisions such as ‘the Labour government’s decision to raise the school leaving age to 15…’ (Carter 2000: 106), labour shortages became the most crucial emergent structural condition in the

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country. Furthermore, the relations between different components of the social system resulted in a situational logic that left little choice apart from the option of recruitment of immigrant labour (Carter 2000: 107). At the same period the main cultural conditions, quite incompatible to each other, were ‘the use of race ideas in connection with notions of colour and the deployment of both in the designation of colonial status; and the formal public commitment by politicians to the notion of a “multiracial” Commonwealth whose democratic credentials and moral leadership were captured in the equal rights of all British subjects’ (Carter 2000: 107). Subsequently, Carter (2000) analyses at length how social and socio-cultural interaction at Stage 2 resulted eventually in certain outcomes, notably in the imposition of restrictive immigration policies. This interaction involved various political, social and economic agents and actors, and Carter’s in-depth and extremely detailed analysis shows how their action evolved within the incompatibilities and contingencies that certain structural and cultural situational logics created. The replacement of free colonial immigration policies in the UK with a restrictive (or more precisely with a selective) immigration control regime resulted in certain effects and various unintended consequences, which are analysed at Stage 3, that of social and cultural elaboration (Carter 2000: 132). Those effects were mainly related to the establishment of selective immigration policies, mainly according to skill level, the difficulties of meeting labour demand, the proliferation of the ‘national identity’ discourse as a means to exclude and discriminate, changes in immigrant organisation patterns, the rise of antiracist discourses and movements, the enhancement of divisions within the working class across ‘ethnic’ lines and the growth of racist violence (see Carter 2000: 132–7). Apart from the detailed story of how complex causal mechanisms at the structural, cultural and agential level and their interplay resulted in certain outcomes, what is more important for the purposes of this book is the methodological dimension of this study. It is important because it has wider implications regarding the employment of qualitative methods within the realist morphogenetic approach. It should be noted though that this approach is more adequate for the examination of wide-range phenomena and processes that are part of or result in major social changes and occur over relatively long time spans.2 It also makes a paradigmatic case for the employment of qualitative methods for the examination of processes and phenomena that are essentially macro in character, especially when viewed in their totality or regarding their consequences upon whole societies and beyond. Carter (2000: 108) adopts the methodological approach of ‘historical narrative’ as the most appropriate within the realist morphogenetic framework and he uses primary documents located at the Public Records Office, UK, as evidential sources that support this approach (Carter 2000: 109). Carter (2000) convincingly offers a series of reasons for adopting the ‘historical narrative’ approach within a realist research framework. The first reason is related to the compatibility of 2  For an application of the morphogenetic approach to the examination of the emergence of nations and national forms of social organisation, see Uzelac 2002.

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narrative with the realist morphogenetic approach due to the emphasis they give to temporality and temporal sequence. This is also evident from the emphasis that Archer (1995) puts on the provision of ‘analytical histories of emergence’ (Carter 2000: 96) as the main purpose of the realist morphogenetic model of causal explanation. The second reason is related to the realist notion according to which ‘the effects of reflexivity and consciousness (and of what social actors and agents do) occur within the causally open system of the real world. The narrative form is most appropriate for exploring these ontological features of agency’ (Carter 2000: 108). Furthermore, this reason is crucial for realist qualitative research methods in general, because by examining intentions, desires and doings of social agents we can come to know the structural and cultural contexts within which they act along with their constraining or enabling causal powers. As Carter points out: ‘By assessing actor’s projects and tracing empirically their efforts to accomplish them we can pick out retroductively the relevant structural and cultural conditions, those structured features of social reality that frustrate or further people’s efforts either to keep things as they are or to change them in some way or another’ (Carter 2002: 99). Returning to the advantages of employing a narrative approach under realist premises, Carter (2000: 108–9) refers to Porpora who highlights them in a comprehensive way. These advantages are related to the enhanced contextual understanding of social action, to the compatibility of the approach to a causalexplanatory theoretical language, the potentialities of empirical grounding, and therefore, contra relativism, the non-arbitrariness of narratives and to the ability of narratives to capture ‘the stratified nature of social reality…’ (Carter 2002: 109). The second example of realist qualitative migration research concerns a study by Han and Davies (2006) on medical practices of Korean-speaking doctors and health-care service provision to Korean immigrants resided in Sydney, Australia, in the mid-1990s. The study is mainly based on qualitative interviews with eight Korean-speaking General Practitioners (GPs) in Sydney and complementary interviews with ‘other informants, in the Korean community in Sydney’ (Han and Davies 2006: 412). The reason for selecting this example as a case of realist qualitative research on migration-related processes and phenomena is the clarity of the ways that the critical realist framework is employed in researching processes related to immigrants’ health and GPs’ practices. Thus, the authors criticise the overemphasis that other studies on immigrants’ health put on the cultural dimensions of the related phenomena and the observable surface aspects of them (Han and Davies 2006). In contrast to this overemphasis, the authors stress that: A basic proposition of critical realism is that an individual agent’s behaviour is enabled and constrained by social structure in a particular historical juncture, but the action, in turn, reproduces or transforms the structure (Bhaskar 1989b; Sayer 2000). We argue that a critical realist view considers not only individuals’ lived experiences, but also essentially examines the social origins of illness and the allocation of health resources in the context of unhealthy working conditions,

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the market economy, social relations and social reality […]. (Han and Davies 2006: 410)

Within this framework, the authors use qualitative methods and data in order to link health outcomes and observable processes and events to other ‘deeper’, mostly unobservable factors that are usually ignored or underplayed both by interpretivist and constructionist researchers and by biomedical practice. These factors are mainly related to differences within the Korean immigrant community in Sydney regarding social position and conditions, structural conditions that result in strong linkages between ‘work, stress and illness among Korean men in Sydney’ (Han and Davies 2006: 416) and in the consequences of marketisation and professionalisation of GP and health-care provision in general for medical services offered by Korean-speaking GPs to the Korean immigrant community in Sydney. The study indicates how qualitative methods and data may be utilised in a manner that corrects one-sided, individualist, structuralist or culturalist approaches to immigrants’ health-related processes and phenomena (Han and Davies 2006). The authors conclude the study by stressing that: When Korean patients demand ‘Korean care’ and Korean doctors are accommodating it in Australia to some degree, medical care provision becomes complex. That is, the provision of, and access to health care in an ethnic community are both enabled and restrained by the given socioeconomic climate to which members of the migrant community are exposed. As a consequence, we are observing a unique aspect of the phenomenon of medical care provision as well as similarities within the broader Australian community. A critical realist perspective is an alternative to the approach that is preoccupied by either ‘agentrelated’ or ‘structure-related’ factors, and consequently offers a fuller picture of reality. (Han and Davies 2006: 427)

Finally, the third example of realist qualitative research on migration concerns a Ph.D. thesis by Hedberg (2004) on the migration of Finland Swedes (a minority of Finish speaking Swedes) from Finland to Sweden. What makes this study worth being discussed here is the complexity of the phenomena it addresses, its multi-methodological character and the employment of qualitative biographical methods in a way that corresponds to critical realist meta-theory. The basic research questions raised in the study are about the identification of causal factors and mechanisms which tend to produce migratory flows of Finland Swedes from Finland to Sweden and the consequences of this phenomenon for the identity formation and change of Finland-Swedish migrants (Hedberg 2004: 15). Hedberg (2004) employs an explicit critical realist meta-theoretical framework, which is used as a guide for both the theoretical grounding and critical appropriation of various theoretical concepts (such as identity, cultural migration, migrational circularity and networks, integration and assimilation) (see Hedberg 2004: 25–40) and for the design of the methodological strategies (see Hedberg 2004:

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41–63). The author adopts a mixed-method strategy, but in the context of this book I refer mainly to the qualitative part of the study. In accordance with various methodological elaborations of critical realist scholars (Sayer 1992, 2000, Danermark et al. 2002), Hedberg views qualitative methods as a means of identification of causal mechanisms that lie at the level of the real. These methods – when employed in a realist manner and focused on material practices and necessary relations between agents, groups and systemic components – can point to the ways that relatively unobservable causal mechanisms operate and produce certain outcomes. As the author rightly points out: When a researcher collects data, it is never a neutral process but one that is already ‘(pre-)conceptualized’ […]. Nonetheless, the concepts refer to an object that is real, constituted by necessary relations, and they involve important dimensions of material practices […], such as social institutions and power structures. It is the task of the researcher to come as close to the real dimensions as possible, by way of conceptualisation and practice. (Hedberg 2004: 43)

The inherent characteristic of ‘closeness to reality’ of qualitative methods is fully utilised in this study, where the ontological depth of migratory processes between Finland and Sweden is taken into account. Thus, Hedberg (2004) examines the social relations within the group of Finland Swedes in order to identify causal, structural factors that tend to motivate towards migration, separately from the immediate reasons for actual migratory decisions of certain individuals (Hedberg 2004: 45). Furthermore, she abstracts internal and necessary relations – for example, relations between minority and majority groups – from external and contingent ones in order to come to valid conceptualisations of the functions of certain causal mechanisms (Hedberg 2004: 45). Concrete, intensive (that is, qualitative) research is used in order to test conceptual abstractions in practice. Thus, the author stresses that ‘[T]he advantage of an intensive research design is its concreteness: “By looking at the actual relations entered into by identifiable agents, the interdependencies between activities and between characteristics can be revealed” (Sayer 1992: 242). The concrete case thus shows that the objects are internally connected by way of abstract analysis…’ (Hedberg 2004: 48). In a more straightforward manner, the author explicitly declares that: ‘[Q]ualitative methods have been used to analyse internal relations and structures and to produce an understanding of the individual in the situation of migration and integration’ (Hedberg 2004: 48). Data obtained through biographical interviews with migrants were ‘analysed by means of the inferential methods of abduction and retroduction’ (Hedberg 2004: 49). The qualitative part of the study is based on 27 in-depth biographical interviews with Finland Swedish migrants from three different case-study areas. The point that differentiates the realist biographical research Hedberg employs from other approaches is the emphasis put on the truthfulness of events, the lived materiality of participants and viewing participants’ experiences as pointers to the function of wider societal structures (Hedberg 2004: 57–8).

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Additionally, participants’ conceptualisations are treated not as an exhaustive of reality but rather as ‘tools’ to uncover or identify deeper realities. The study produced a series of illuminating findings regarding the causal mechanisms of migration of Finland Swedes from Finland to Sweden. First, research findings include the identification of the causal powers of individual and institutional networks, which ‘contribute to maintaining the circular migration process over time’ (Hedberg 2004: 70). Second, the peculiarities of identity formation of Finland Swedes along with its impact on integration processes are identified and analysed. Finally, a series of structural causes – notably the process of identification and the operation of social networks – and contingent factors, such as, among others, spatial patterns, the role of the media and labour market conditions, are marked as explaining the phenomenon. In accordance with the realist paradigm, the author separates the causes that operate at the individual level (motivations and resources regarding study, work and so on) from the causes and factors that operate at the group level (see Hedberg 2004: 74, Figure 4). In this way, the phenomenon of emergence is accounted for and the result is an empiricallygrounded model that goes beyond surface phenomena and is characterised by much more explanatory power than that of both descriptive-quantitative (positivist) and interpretivist/constructionist (relativist) notions. It is a model that accounts for the complexity of interactions between internal and necessary relations (structural factors) – both at the individual and at the societal level – with contingent ones that produce certain outcomes at the empirical domain of reality. 4.3 Qualitative Migration Research Design: Key Principles This section is dedicated to a relatively brief discussion of some key principles of qualitative research design in migration studies. It is not possible (and also undesirable and unnecessary) to cover the vast and geometrically growing literature on qualitative research design in migration studies in all its diversity and richness. Instead, my first aim is to highlight some important issues related to qualitative research design within a critical realist rationale. My second aim is to give, when appropriate, hypothetical or real examples of these issues from migration studies. The themes discussed in this section are related to the rationale of formulating and posing research questions, the use of theoretical frameworks, the logic of selecting the appropriate methods for data collection and sampling strategies. The above are deliberately referred to as ‘themes’ or ‘issues’ in qualitative research design rather that as ‘phases’ or ‘stages’, mainly because such designs are usually non-linear but reflexive and cyclical (Iosifides 2008). Within a realist framework of qualitative research design it is fully acknowledged that ontological concerns play a vital role both to substantive theoretical elaborations and to methodological strategies. This means that realism advocates consistency ‘between ontology, methodology and practical social theory…’ (Archer 1995: 3) or, in other words, maintains a strong ‘ontology-methodology link’ (Schuyler

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House 2010: 22). Hence, the crucial realist ontological premises – notably reality stratification, emergence in open systems and the culture–structure–agency links – act as guiding precepts (Cruickshank 2003a, 2003b) of substantive theoretical and methodological strategies and choices. For qualitative methods, this means the abandonment of implicit ontological and epistemological assumptions that connect them predominately with micro-level analyses, descriptive endeavours, interpretivism and relativism and their employment for investigating stratified social complexity and causality. Of course, the preceding remarks have direct and significant consequences for the kind of ‘research questions’ that realist qualitative researchers ask. In general, Maxwell (1996: 4) explains what ‘research questions’ are as follows: ‘[W]hat specifically, do you want to understand by doing this study? What do you not know about the phenomena you are studying that you want to learn? What questions will your research attempt to answer, and how these questions related to one another?’ Furthermore, it should be stressed that qualitative research questions should be ‘qualitative’ – that is, should aim to address phenomena and processes in which measurement is not the central preoccupation and purpose. As Bradshaw and Stratford (2000: 40) point out, qualitative (intensive) methods ‘require that we ask how processes work in a particular case (Platt 1988). We need to establish what actors do in a case, why they behave as they do, and what produces change both in actors and in the contexts in which they are located.’ Qualitative research questions, which of course may be modified in the course of the research process, aim to address processes and phenomena described in Section 4.1 and in Table 4.2, that is, to investigate social actors’ meanings and interpretations, public discourses, social experiences, practices and relations. Very schematically, research questions in qualitative research may aim to describe phenomena, events or situations (‘what’ questions), understand social processes (‘how’ questions) and/or to explain events or outcomes (‘why’ questions). For example, a research question about the kind of economic activities that international migrants residing in a specific area are engaged with is a ‘what’ question, a research question about the most usual ways that these immigrants get their jobs is a ‘how’ question and a research question about the causes of economic and labour market specialisation of certain immigrant groups within specific socio-economic contexts is a ‘why’ question. Realist qualitative research may engage with all the above types of questions and research purposes but it certainly prioritises explanatory, causal ones. This does not mean that ‘what’ or ‘how’ questions are neglected; far from that, since these types of research questions are fully integrated into wider causal – explanatory – endeavours; the primary purpose of realist qualitative research design is to undertake ‘structural or causal analysis’ (see Bradshaw and Stratford 2000: 39, Box 3.1) of social phenomena and processes. Directly linked to the preceding point is the distinction that Maxwell (1996) and Wengraf (2001) make between ‘instrumentalist’ and ‘realist research questions’. Instrumentalist questions aim to investigate observable or measurable phenomena (Maxwell 1996: 56), confining social reality to these levels or dimensions. This is

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characteristic not only of positivistic quantitative research but also of interpretivist and constructionist qualitative research as well. The latter tends to address research questions at the level of agential interpretations or public discourses only, abandoning any explanatory ambition, which is considered futile. Limiting qualitative research to posing research questions of this type results only in serious compromise of any ability to gain truthful and valid knowledge beyond mere lay interpretations or constructed beliefs. Moreover, research findings derived from answering research questions of this type may be viewed as just another – equally acceptable – interpretation or social construction of reality. As Maxwell asserts: Realists, in contrast, do not assume that research questions and conclusions about feelings, beliefs, intentions, prior behavior, effects and so on need to be reduced to, or reframed as, questions and conclusions about the actual data that one uses. Instead, they treat their data as fallible evidence about these phenomena, to be used critically to develop and test ideas about the existence and nature of the phenomena […]. (Maxwell 1996: 56–57)

In addition, as Wengraf (2001: 59) points out when referring specifically to qualitative interviews: ‘[I]t is because I am interested in going beyond people’s interview self-report (truthful, partly deceptive, often self-deceptive, etc.) that I need to be aware that anything that is said, done, or apparently expressed in an interview is, as Maxwell points out fallible evidence of extra-interview realities.’ Research questions indicate the exact purpose and scope of any qualitative investigation of aspects of the social world. The fact that much contemporary interpretivist and constructionist qualitative research has abandoned the posing of causal questions and questions about real phenomena, processes and relations – the answers to which may enhance our knowledge about transfactual conditions and realities – results in unsustainable scepticism and self-refuting relativism (Hammersley 2008). The whole irrealist twist of constructionist qualitative research has a severe impact on the kind of research questions this paradigm tends to pose. Hammersley (2008: 173) summarises excellently the relation between the constructionist view of the social world and the kind of research questions it favours or aspects of reality it prioritises: What is distinctive about constructionism, in the broad sense of that term, is that it takes the fact that social phenomena are culturally constructed and draws from it the conclusion that these phenomena can only be understood by describing the processes by which they are culturally constituted as the things they are. In other words, a re-definition of the goal of inquiry is required. The focus becomes, not the phenomena themselves, and certainly not what might have caused them or what effects they produce, but rather the discursive processes by which they are constituted and defined by culture members. (Hammersley 2008: 173)

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Moreover, as Best (2007) – criticising the limitations of strict social constructionist research on social problems – shows, research questions within the strict constructionist paradigm focus solely on examining the ways social actors make claims about the various aspects of the world – that is, of the ways they make sense of these aspects in their discourses and interpretations, without any evaluative ambition or empirical reference to extra-discursive realities. As he (2007: 132) also points out, the definitions of social problems (and social phenomena in general) that strict constructionists adopt, ‘radically shifted the focus of the sociology of social problems away from social conditions and onto the process of collective definitions or claims-making’. Of course, this is the result of ontological flatness and discursive reductionism, both of which are strongly opposed by critical realists. Realist qualitative researchers pose research questions with the aim of identifying causal, generative mechanisms, integrating ‘what’, ‘how’ and ‘why’ questions and viewing ‘interpretative understanding’ and ‘causally explaining’ the social world as perfectly compatible, noncontradictory and mutually reinforcing engagements. Let me give some examples from migration studies. In a predominately qualitative study on the relation between immigrant incorporation in Greece and various forms of social capital, the main research question concerned ‘the investigation of the positive and negative impact of various forms of social capital on processes of social incorporation of Albanians in Greece’ (Iosifides et al. 2007b: 1346). This basic research question aimed to investigate deeper causal factors and mechanisms that link various forms of social capital – notably bonding, bridging and linking social capital – with processes of immigrant incorporation in Greece. Answering this question entailed asking a series of more specialised questions that had descriptive, processual, interpretative and explanatory character. There was an interest in how immigrants make sense of their lives, social situations and social relations and how they make specific choices. There was an interest in establishing the existence of various forms of social capital and understanding their functions within specific socio-economic contexts. Moreover, one of the aims was to elucidate the background structural and contingent conditions and circumstances that influenced the formation of specific kinds of social relations (social capital). Finally, a crucial aim was to identify the ways that various causal powers at different levels (structural, collective, individual) interact with each other and tend to produce certain positive or negative impacts on important aspects of immigrant social incorporation such as housing arrangements, labour market placements or transmission of critical information. Another example comes from a discussion of experiences and various other crucial aspects of conducting qualitative migration research (Oxford 2007). One such experience concerns a qualitative study on Somali refugee women in Memphis, USA (Oxford 2007), where the value of qualitative research, regarding flexibility in research design and reflexivity regarding the relations between researcher and research participants’ views, is indicated. Thus, the initial research question in that study changed considerably in the course of the research process

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due to insights offered by an interviewee which created a ‘turning point’ (Oxford 2007: 119) for the whole endeavour. The researcher ‘changed the research question from “How do Somali refugee women experience changes in gender status during resettlement?” to “How do Somali refugee women experience downward mobility during resettlement?”’ (Oxford 2007: 119). Another research experience concerns the investigation of gender-based asylum policies in the USA. Again, initial research questions changed considerably during the research process. The initial questions ‘[W]hat is gender? What does it mean to be persecuted? What does it mean to be persecuted on account of one’s gender?’ (Oxford 2007: 120) were modified as follows: ‘How and why did gender-based asylum policies and laws in the United States come to exist? How are genderbased asylum laws and policies applied? How do asylees and human rights activists interpret ideas about gender-based persecution?’ (Oxford 2007: 121). The initial and subsequent research questions in both examples are, of course, perfectly adequate and extremely useful for conducting meaningful qualitative research. Hence, although a qualitative researcher inspired by the critical realist approach would ask similar questions to those that Oxford (2007) posed, she would place them within a broader causal-explanatory rationale or would use qualitative data derived from answering those questions differently. For example, a realist qualitative researcher would use immigrants’ experiences and interpretations as fallible evidence (Maxwell 1996) to identify more fundamental social relations of domination and complex processes than those that are articulated and interpreted (or misinterpreted) by social actors. Moreover, the realist qualitative researcher would be interested in acquiring knowledge of the relations between experience, discourse and materiality, of structured, multilayered social relations that exist and exert causal powers, irrespective of agential identification or acknowledgement, and the mechanisms that result in proliferation of dominant interpretations and discourses or misinterpretations of social reality. Now, asking research questions within realist qualitative designs presupposes the use of theory and theoretical concepts in a manner that is consistent with realist principles. Some of the commonest ways to use theories in contemporary non-realist qualitative research derive either from the social constructionist rationale or from applications of the Grounded Theory (GT) approach (Danermark et al. 2002). For strict versions of social constructionism, theories are constructions of reality made by social researchers, but adjudication between different constructions/theories is seriously mitigated because the distinction between transitivity and intransitivity in the social world is denied (see Danermark 2002: 116). GT, on the other hand, is an inductive approach to the generation of theories grounded on empirical, qualitative data. The approach is widely applied to contemporary qualitative inquiry, and in quite different ways, but its most serious problems – which mark its inadequacy as a generic approach to critical realist research – are its inductivism and empiricism along with its heavy reliance on agential interpretations and meanings (Yeung 1997, Danermark et al. 2002). This does not mean of course that GT is useless for realist qualitative researchers. On the contrary, when GT is not

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used in a self-sufficient manner (see Danermark et al. 2002: 130–34 and especially 135), it can contribute significantly to the main purposes of realist research – that is, the identification of causal generative mechanisms through abduction and retroduction. Thus, as Yeung asserts: The grounded theory method reinforces iterative abstraction in realist research by providing a mediation between theory and practice. First, theoretical categories must be grounded in empirical evidence so that abstractions do not occur in a vacuum. In other words, they must be abstracted from concrete or empirically observable phenomena. An emerging realist theory can achieve much practical adequacy through such a method because `it moves the research away from the idea that “producing’’ theory is something of a sacrosanct activity reserved only for those who have been initiated into the mysteries of some “master” framework or perspective’ (Layder, 1993: 53). Secondly, the practice of realist research would be guided by a quest for theory rather than by an utter empiricism. Theoretical sampling, a process through which the choice of subjects for extensive empirical investigation is driven by intensive theorization or conceptualization, helps avoid much decontextualization of objects in statistical methods and facilitates the choice of valid objects for investigation and retroduction. The grounded theory method come in handy for the practice of realist research by complementing the functioning of iterative abstraction and by grounding realist theories of causal mechanisms in concrete phenomena. (Yeung 1997: 62)

Within the preceding framework of using GT in realist research, Livock (2009) applies a modified form of GT for theoretical redescription of causal categories. This application of GT serves abduction and theoretical redescription that corresponds to Stage 3 of Danermark et al.’s (2002: 110) realist, explanatory research model (see Livock 2009: 170). Furthermore, within Livock’s realist methodological framework, GT is applied in a modified form according to which prior theories and theoretical concepts play a crucial role in guiding ‘the development of research questions and initial categories with which to code the data…’ (Livock 2009: 171). Other realist qualitative researchers apply modified versions of GT, so as to serve retroductive purposes and move away from simple inductivism as well. For example, Jefferson (2007) uses GT within a critical realist framework in order to investigate processes related to women’s retirement savings practices. Another potentially useful modification of GT that allows its application to realist qualitative research is its combination with systems theory (see Gibson et al. 2005, Mitchell 2007b). Within the critical realist framework, theories are not used to explain and predict events at the empirical level; they are not mere ‘constructions’ and they are not derived solely by surface data in an inductive way (Danermark et al. 2002). For critical realism, theories are fallible interpretations of social reality, but, because the distinction between the transitive and the intransitive domains is maintained, it is

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always possible to adjudicate between them and to come to conclusions regarding their differential adequacy for describing and analysing real causal mechanisms (Danermark et al. 2002). Prior theories and theoretical, abstract concepts play a vital role in realist social research (Sobh and Perry 2006) in different ways. First, various theoretical frameworks are immanently critiqued for revealing their theory/practice inconsistencies (see Judd 2003). Second, different theoretical frameworks may be used simultaneously to ‘[I]nterpreting/recontextualizing the same empirical data…’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 146). An example of this is a multimethod study by Olsen (2004: 136) on the causes of ‘“distress” sales of foodgrains among peasant farmers in southern India’. Third, for critical realist research the use of general theory (Danermark et al. 2002) is indispensable. Those general theories – that is, ‘theories of foundational (transfactual) social structures and mechanisms’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 139) – are used as ‘instruments/resources’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 140) in guiding research practice, posing interesting new questions about the social world and engaging in causal explanations. All the preceding usages of theories within critical realist research aim at ‘theory development’ (van Heur 2008: 7) – that is, the constant dialectic relationship between theoretical concepts, abstractions, empirical data and deeper generative mechanisms and processes. The main purpose of critical realist theory development is the formulation of conceptual schemes that are related more adequately and appropriately with intransitive social realities; in other words, that capture validly the ways that causal generative mechanisms operate regarding the specific phenomenon under study. In migration studies and, more specifically in qualitative migration research inspired by the realist approach, theoretical frameworks may be used in various constructive ways. Topic-specific theories can be utilised by being placed within more generic frameworks about migratory phenomena and processes. For example, researching the relations between social capital and immigrant incorporation in a specific country and socio-economic context entails taking into account topic-specific theories of social capital formation and impact and of social integration, assimilation and incorporation of immigrants into ‘host’ societies (see Iosifides et al. 2007b). Researching labour-market arrangements of various immigrants groups within specific spatio-temporal contexts may entail the critical use of theoretical frameworks such as those of informalisation, socio-economic restructuring and labour market segmentation (see Iosifides 1997a, 2003). Of course, in realist qualitative research these topic-specific theoretical schemes are questioned about their explanatory power in terms of realist ontological principles and empirical data the study generates. This questioning aims at theory development and is better accomplished when these topic-specific theories are placed within or considered alongside generic frameworks concerning migratory processes and movements. These generic frameworks should be compatible with the basic premises of realist ontology, or insights from these frameworks should be used in ways that are compatible with realist ontological assumptions. Relating generic frameworks to topic-specific theories in a critical way can prove extremely useful for theory development since phenomena can be conceptualised in new

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ways, methodological strategies may be redirected towards the investigation of previously under-researched and under-theorised aspects of reality, and causal generative mechanisms may be identified in an accurate way. Such a generic framework – which can prove extremely useful for migration research, including qualitative migration research – is that of ‘multiple complex, intersecting inequalities’ as developed by Walby (2009). This complex realist framework which is based on contemporary complexity theory and modified systemic thinking is characterised by the emphasis it places on the ontological depth of social phenomena and power relations. Insights and notions derived from this framework such as ‘path dependency, varieties of development, critical turning points, tipping points, the coevolution of complex adaptive systems, in changing fitness landscapes, the catalysing and dampening of the rate of change, and waves’ (Walby 2009: 99–100) along with concepts such as system/environment relations, intersectionality, multiple and complex social inequalities, institutional domains, regimes of inequality, modernity and globalisation (Walby 2009) can open up new directions in researching migration-related phenomena. When combined with topic-specific theories related to migratory processes, it can contribute significantly to the methodological strategies applied to concrete domains and fields as well as to the explanatory potential of theoretical elaborations derived from empirical findings and from ‘critical dialogue’ with other, alternative conceptual schemes. Another potential useful generic framework for migration research is the ‘social transformation’ framework proposed by Castles (2007). The framework advocates a transnational and interdisciplinary orientation of migration studies and a multi-level approach that places ‘social transformation’ processes at the heart of contemporary inquiry on migration. This framework addresses in an adequate way the complexity and multidimensionality of contemporary migratory phenomena, and is quite compatible with realist principles since it avoids modes of conflationism and reductionism common to other or older theoretical schemes about migration. Methodologically, Castles (2007: 367) explicitly asserts his preference for ‘participatory research methods’, of which qualitative/intensive methods are the major component. Castles (2007: 367) offers a series of basic principles underpinning this generic framework, which are worth being quoted: – Interdisciplinarity: sociologists should work in interdisciplinary teams in larger projects, and make use of the research findings of other disciplines in smaller ones. – Historical understanding of sending, transit and receiving societies is vital in understanding any specific migration situation. – Comparative studies of experiences in different societies can increase awareness of general trends and alternative approaches. – Migration researchers need to take a holistic approach, linking their specific research topic to broader aspects of migration and its embeddedness in social relations at various spatial levels.

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– In this era of globalisation it is essential to examine transnational dimensions of social transformation as a key factor in migration. However, social transformation is always an interaction between global, national, regional and local factors, which together shape economic, political, social and cultural relations. Thus multi-level analysis is essential. – It is vital to investigate the human agency of the migrants and of sending and receiving communities, and the way this agency interacts with macro-social organisations and institutions. – This implies the need for participatory research methods, which give an active role to migrants and other persons affected by migration in research processes. (Castles 2007: 367)

What should be borne in mind from the preceding analysis and examples is that realist qualitative research on migration is theoretically driven and theoretically oriented. The systematic collection of qualitative data of any kind is guided by theoretical questions and preoccupations and results in the refinement of theories that hopefully approximate social reality better in comparison to alternative approaches. Theoretical concerns, the character of the specific research topic and the research questions posed determine which qualitative methods are more appropriate for the selection of and application to any research case. The heterogeneity and character of research problems and topics along with practical considerations are an important influence on the selection of the research method or methods, and these issues are discussed in more detail in the next section. Finally, an integral component of any qualitative research design is the strategy employed for the selection of participants, cases or units of analysis – that is, ‘qualitative sampling’ (Iosifides 2008). In most instances, qualitative researchers investigate just a few cases or even a single case or select a limited number of participants for investigating social phenomena. This allows the research to focus on depth rather than on breadth; that is, it gives emphasis on detail, multidimensionality and context (Miles and Huberman 1994, Ragin 2000). The most common type of qualitative sampling is the so-called ‘purposive sampling’ (Miles and Huberman 1994: 27, Bradshaw and Stratford 2000) in contrast to the representative sampling advocated mainly by quantitative methods: That tendency [of sampling in a purposive way] is partly because the initial definition of the universe is more limited (e.g., arrest-making in an urban precinct), and partly because social processes have a logic and a coherence that random sampling can reduce to uninterpretable sawdust. Furthermore, with small number of cases, random sampling can deal you a decidedly biased hand. (Miles and Huberman 1994: 27)

Miles and Huberman (1994: 28, Figure 2.6) summarises the various sampling strategies employed in qualitative research. This summary includes strategies

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such as ‘maximum variation’, ‘homogeneous’, ‘critical case’, ‘theory based’, ‘confirming and disconfirming cases’, ‘snowball or chain’, ‘extreme or deviant case’, ‘typical case’, ‘intensity’, ‘politically important cases’, ‘random purposeful’, ‘stratified purposeful’, ‘criterion’, ‘opportunistic’, ‘combination or mixed’ and ‘convenience’. It is not my purpose here to analyse qualitative sampling rationales and strategies either in general or in detail but rather to offer some insights for qualitative sampling in realist research designs, accompanied by examples from migration studies. Realist qualitative research aims to discover the ways that causal generative mechanisms operate and tend to produce certain outcomes. In other words, it aims to investigate social processes and phenomena in their ontological depth, through abductive and retroductive reasoning. Thus, some types of cases or participant selection are more appropriate for conducting realist qualitative research than others. This is because these types allow abduction and retroduction to be accomplished smoothly. One such strategy is to include ‘pathological or extreme cases’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 170) in the sample. The logic behind this inclusion is that in the case of extreme instances of a social process or phenomenon under study, generative mechanisms become more graspable or that social ‘conditions are challenged and the mechanisms are disturbed’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 104). Thus, in a study on the mechanisms of social exclusion of immigrants within a specific spatial-temporal context it is wise to include cases of extreme social exclusion and marginalisation (e.g. cases of the social situation of Roma immigrants) where the factors behind their exclusion can be elucidated more easily. Another sampling strategy for realist qualitative research is ‘maximum variation’ (Miles and Huberman 1994), which ‘documents diverse variations and identifies important common patterns’ (Miles and Huberman 1994: 28), thus allowing comparisons between different cases to be made. As Danermark et al. (2002: 105) point out ‘[W]hat makes it so productive to compare different cases is precisely this, the comparison provides an empirical foundation for retroduction, a foundation to sort out contingent differences in order to arrive at the common and more universal.’ For example, a comparison between different cases of immigrants regarding their social mobility trajectory in a specific country and area, through detailed biographical interviews, may result in the identification of a series of necessary common factors and conditions facilitating upward or downward mobility irrespective of the exact operation in every case. It is also constructive to search and investigate extreme cases too. Thus, extreme cases of rapid deterioration or advancement of immigrants’ life chances and social positions can reveal the existence and ways of operation of crucial causal factors and mechanisms in a more straightforward manner. Maximum variation can be achieved in various ways. Sometimes the very character of research rationale, purpose and questions inevitably results in accounting for all the variation that exists. For example, a study of the organisations of a group of immigrants of the same ‘ethnic’ background leads inevitably to the investigation of the operation of all organisations that include exclusively members of that group. In other cases,

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and this is common in qualitative migration studies, selecting participants and ensuring for maximum variation is facilitated by so-called ‘snowball or chain sampling’ (Miles and Huberman 1994: 28). This strategy entails the researcher identifying ‘cases of interest from people who know people who know what cases are information-rich’ (Miles and Huberman 1994: 28). Of course, when applied without care, snowballing may yield minimum rather that maximum variation. Hence, it is the researcher’s responsibility to spread her initial contacts as much as possible so that heterogeneity and differentiation characterise the sample. An example of the application of snowball sampling in a way that maximum variation is guaranteed comes from a study on labour market and housing arrangements of three immigrant groups (Albanians, Egyptians and Filipina) in Athens, Greece (Iosifides 2003). The author describes the sampling strategy employed in the study, as follows: Within this context I tried to reduce the ‘biases’ of the [snowballing] technique and to increase ‘representativity’ through various ways. One way was to ask individual migrants to guide me to other migrants who had different characteristics than theirs (for example ‘long-stayers versus newcomers, workers with different employment type etc.). Another way was to disperse the initial contact points over as wide a geographical area as possible and broadening the sources of initial contacts in order to cover as much as possible of the population diversity. (Iosifides 2003: 438)

Finally and unlike quantitative methods where the research process tends to be more linear, qualitative ones are more of a cyclical type. Sampling is often a process that occurs simultaneously with data collection and is driven by theoretical considerations. This kind of ‘theoretical sampling’ does not characterise GT alone (see Glaser and Strauss 1967, Glaser 1992). In a modified fashion, it can prove extremely useful for realist qualitative research as well. The interaction among prior topic-specific theories, generic frameworks and theoretical concepts and abstractions based on concrete data can lead realist qualitative researchers to select cases and participants in order to test hypotheses or to investigate further antecedent conditions and causal mechanisms that are abstracted from other cases. An example of a GT-inspired, theoretical sampling strategy is a study by Talwar (2007) on the relations between immigration and the American fast-food industry. The study concerned processes and phenomena related to the formation of immigrant enclaves or ‘ethnic’ economies, the role of big companies within them, along with the role and position of immigrant labour. Research was based on 52 in-depth qualitative interviews with participants, occupying positions across the hierarchy within the industry – ‘crewmembers, managers, and owners’ (Talwar 2007: 161) – and the advantages of theoretical sampling adopted in this study are described as follows:

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies The comparative framework (between neighborhoods and restaurants) provided the basis for theoretical sampling on the micro level to examine variations between categorical patterns. Theoretical sampling allowed discovery of the features of categories, the conditions which give rise to them, and how they were connected to other categories (Charmaz 2006). It also provided the basis for understanding local variations and the global–local relationships that characterized the industry. (Talwar 2007: 174)

4.4 Main Qualitative Methods and Data Analysis Strategies in Migration Studies In this section, I discuss some aspects of various qualitative methods and data analysis strategies that are applied to migration studies. This discussion is not detailed and exhaustive, as this would probably require a book or two for each method or strategy. Instead, the discussion is highly focused on some principles that can guide the application of each method or strategy within a realist framework and provides hypothetical and, where appropriate, real examples from migration studies. The qualitative methods and strategies discussed in this section are qualitative interviewing, ethnography and participant observation, biographical research, critical discourse analysis and case study research along with strategies for analysing qualitative data. Of course there is a plethora of other methods and strategies for engaging in qualitative research such as, among others, Action Research (AR), Participatory Action Research (PAR), focus groups, qualitative content analysis, evaluation research, visual methods, and Internet-related qualitative research. Nevertheless, the basic arguments made for the design and application of qualitative methods and strategies within the realist meta-theoretical principles contained in this section apply to them as well. 4.4.1 Qualitative Interviewing Qualitative interviewing, either in its unstructured or semi-structured version, is probably the most widely used method of data collection in qualitative social research. There are many kinds of in-depth qualitative interviewing, such as for example responsive interviewing (Rubin and Rubin 2005), phenomenological interviewing (Seidman 2006) or dramaturgical interviewing (Berg 2001, 2007), but there is a clear tendency of employing this method within interpretivist or social constructionist rationales. In-depth interviewing is usually defined as a communicative interaction between the researcher and the research participants with the purpose of ‘obtaining interviewees’ interpretations of their experiences and their understanding of the world in which they live and work’ (Rubin and Rubin 2005: 36). As a critical realist, I fully endorse the view that depth interviews can be powerful means for interpretative understanding of participants’ points of view, lived experiences, preferences and perspectives. But, along with the

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aim of understanding participants’ perspectives from the ‘inside’, realist social researchers view interview data as evidence pointing to ‘extra-interview realities’ (Wengraf 2001: 6). In other words, depth interviews can also be viewed as means for gathering critical information about the social world. Qualitative interviewing is capable of producing data about agential interpretations, meanings, perspectives, social situations, relations, practices and actions that can be adequately understood and explained only by taking account the ‘stratified nature of social reality’ – that is ‘the embeddedness of all human action within a wider range of social processes…’ (Pawson and Tilley 1997: 64). In-depth interviewing, within realist research designs, can generate data that, through theoretical redescription and abstraction, can serve as pointers to deeper generative mechanisms and the interaction between contingent factors with underlying enduring structures and powers at different levels of reality. Thus, interview data may be appropriate not only for understanding agential perspectives but also for explaining them, assessing their adequacy, relating them to with wider social contexts and using them to identify of causal mechanisms operating at different levels of social reality. It may be true that ‘we do not uncover real social structures by interviewing people in-depth about them’ (Archer 1998a: 199), but it is equally true that rich insights, data and information obtained through depth interviewing always tell us something about social reality and its real causal powers because agential social practices and actions are related to, conditioned and influenced by emergent structural and cultural properties. Through retroduction, the interaction among structural, cultural and agential emergent powers can be grasped and rich, retailed, deep, complex and multidimensional interview data can serve well in causal-explanatory endeavours under realist principles. The meaning that Wengraf (2001) gives to the term ‘depth’ in in-depth interviewing is the one that could be accepted by any realist qualitative researcher. Wengraf (2001: 6) asserts that ‘[T]o go into something in depth is to get a sense of how the apparently straightforward is actually more complicated, of how the “surface appearances” may be quite misleading about “depth realities”.’ The same author goes on to suggest that the kind of knowledge acquired through depthinterviews is that of discourses, objective referents and subjectivity (Wengraf 2001: 6–15). Non-realist qualitative researchers focus either on discourse or subjectivity (or on both); in contrast, realist ones take into full account all three. Regarding the neglected ‘referent element’ of interviews, ‘[T]he individual subject is being asked to talk so that some information, not about him or her, but about a present or past “context” which happens to be “carried” by him or her, can be obtained’ (Wengraf 2001: 9). The role of qualitative methods – such as in-depth interviewing in the facilitation of retroduction of possible, underlying causal mechanisms – may be proven to be indispensable. This is because of their flexible character as qualitative methods can be adapted more easily to pursue alternative lines of inquiry in the search for retroductive explanations. It is obviously far easier to

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies change a line of inquiry as potential explanations emerge during the course of a series of conversational interviews, as the interviewer is not committed to the measurement of predetermined variables. (McEvoy and Richards 2006: 75)

Thus, theoretical abstractions about possible generative mechanisms emerged during the research process can be explored further by in-depth interviewing either participants that have already been interviewed previously or new ones. Within this approach, qualitative interviews and, especially, ‘repeated interviews’ ‘can be used in a largely quasi-experimental design’ (Kazi 2003: 59). Let us suppose, for example, that some interviews with immigrants in a certain locale reveal that the primary means of finding a job in the local labour market is through immigrants’ social networks of relatives and friends residing in the same area (see Iosifides et al. 2007b). This finding can point to further investigation into the possible causal powers of such networks, their qualities and the wider conditions that influenced their formation and evolution. One possible causal power may be the reciprocal and obligatory character of such networks because of their structured hierarchical organisation, either formal or informal. The existence and causal efficacy of such a power can be explored through interviewing again the initial participants (and adding new ones), focusing this time on the detailed exploration of immigrants’ social relations, activities, actions and practices that are conditioned by conforming to specific rules that their participation in networks entail. Within the realist approach, researchers’ theoretical assumptions and hypotheses in the form of abstractions about possible generative mechanisms interact with interview data in a dialectical way. Pawson and Tilley (1997: 155) contrast the ‘data-driven’ approaches of structured and constructivist, unstructured interviews with the ‘theory-driven’ approach of realist interviewing. In their words: ‘on the realistic model, the researcher’s theory is the subject matter of the interview, and the subject (stakeholder) is there to confirm, to falsify and, above all, to refine that theory’ (Pawson and Tilley 1997: 155). Although, Pawson and Tilley’s (1997: 164) model of ‘realist(ic) interview’ has been developed to conduct evaluation studies, its insights have wider implications and its principles can be applied, with appropriate modifications, to other social scientific topics as well. For example, the insight on the centrality of theoretical abstractions about causal mechanisms is important for realist qualitative interviewing in every topic (and for realist qualitative methods in general), as in most cases researchers’ explanations and theoretical interpretations of phenomena and processes differ considerably from those of social agents. Although agential reasons participate in the causal complexity of the social world, they do not fully explain social action, processes and phenomena. For social reality is characterised by stratification, ontological depth and emergence, and social action occurs within contexts and circumstances that are only partially acknowledged and is strongly influenced by past and present unintended consequences (see Pawson and Tilley 1997: 163, Figure 6.3). The status of knowledge acquired through in-depth interviews is contested by various theoretical and epistemological approaches, especially by social

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constructionism. The main line of argument supports that knowledge derived from interviews has no relevance beyond the ‘communicative interaction’ between the researcher and the interviewee; in other words, it does not and cannot refer to extra-interview realities, either internal and subjective or to phenomena and processes occurring in an independently existing social realm (Hammersley 2008). This results due to the allegedly ‘performative character of interview talk’ (Hammersley 2008: 90) and ‘reactivity’ – that is, the strong influence of interview context and that of researchers upon the interview content (Hammersley 2008: 90). This of course, as Hammersley (2008) rightly asserts, is a form of epistemological scepticism that it is impossible to maintain because it is self-refuting. In his own words: As has been recognised for over two millennia, we cannot claim that it is impossible to know anything without simultaneously implying that we can know at least one thing, namely that no knowledge is possible. Moreover, it is impossible to engage in any form of action, to live one’s life or even to do empirical research, if one treats epistemological skepticism as valid […]. (Hammersley 2008: 96)

Furthermore, if all knowledge is derived from performative ‘discursive practices’, this leaves the knowledge of the existence of strong ‘reactivity’ without any grounding in the ‘realities’ of interview situations. Realist qualitative researchers strongly reject the dismissal of the possibility of obtaining reliable knowledge through in-depth interviewing, although they are fully aware of the various ways that the interview context and the interaction between interviewers and interviewees may affect the content and the information provided. However, this awareness does not need to confine interview data to the narrow ‘discursive realm of the interview situation’ or to lead to judgemental relativism. Research practices in various fields and the everyday experience of people shows that contextual influences and background ‘assumptions, preferences and interests’ (Hammersley 2008: 97) do not preclude reference to external realities with different degrees of accuracy (Yeung 1995, Hammersley 2008). Thus, researchers’ biases can be mitigated, and the context of interview interaction can be modified in such ways that its effects become an advantage for the specific research purposes. Moreover, interviewees’ modes of reasoning and the expression of their experiences can point to conditions of social existence which influence both reasoning and action. As Crouch and McKenzie point out: in-depth interviews can generate new knowledge, or at least understanding, for the respondents. In addition to improved self-understanding, this knowledge may also include better insight into the social conditions of their lives. As researchers, we too seek insight into those conditions as they are reflected in our respondents’ experience, but as investigators we need an incisive view of the terms in which our new knowledge is to be framed, which in turn depends

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Qualitative Methods in Migration Studies on our understanding of the relationship between interviewing and our particular research question. In other words, it is necessary to have clarity with respect to the theoretical grounds on which we choose such a research strategy. (Crouch and McKenzie 2006: 487–8)

By taking into account the mutual positioning of researcher(s) and participants and power relations within the interview interaction context, realist qualitative researchers can become aware of the ways that they influence the content of interviews and the kinds of data they produce, avoiding both the naive realist and relativist assumptions about knowledge derived from in-depth interviews (see Warin et al. 2006). In the concluding part of her book Being Human: The Problem of Agency, Archer (2000: 306–19) refers to the problems of subjectivism and objectivism, and offers the realist alternative to interpretivist or constructionist notions of their alleged split. This alternative holds that human reasons, interpretations and meanings are agential causal powers that interplay with structural and cultural causal powers. Qualitative interviewing (and qualitative methods in general), through depth examination of human causal powers and actions, can elucidate their interaction with structural and cultural causal powers and contribute to causal explanations of social phenomena and processes (see Archer 2000: 310–11). In migration studies, qualitative interviewing is common, but here I briefly discuss two examples of migration-related studies that use qualitative, in-depth interviews in ways that are quite compatible and consistent with the realist approach. The first example concerns the value and theoretical potential of migrants’ stories (Lawson 2000) and it is based on a qualitative study on internal (rural to urban) migratory processes into Quito, the capital city of Ecuador. Drawing on theoretical concepts derived from transnational research, Lawson (2000) places special emphasis on migrants’ stories – derived from in-depth interviews – in order to explore the interplay of immigrants’ subjectivities, desires and identities with dominant narratives on development, citizenship and the nation along with ‘particular political-economic contexts which have produced those migrations and discourses’ (Lawson 2000: 174). The author points out that: These sorts of complex questions about identity and subjectivity call for critical in-depth interviews, centered on the stories of migrants themselves. Migrant stories can reveal the empirical disjuncture between expectations of migration, produced through dominant and pervasive discourses of modernization, and the actual experiences of migrants. Their stories illustrate that access to labor markets, state assistance or social networks, are not merely unique individual experiences but, rather, are systematically shaped by social relations of gender, class, ethnicity and migrant status [emphasis added]. Migrant stories provide a rich account of the social and cultural costs of neoliberal development, revealing how peoples’ experiences are framed by systematic processes of privilege and discrimination. Migrant stories are also informative theoretically, as their

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expressions of ambivalence about their experience of modernity reveal the contradictions embedded within modernization itself: contradictions that are rarely voiced in ruling-group discourses. (Lawson 2000: 174)

Lawson’s approach is extremely fruitful because it entails an account of migrants’ stories as data with theoretical and analytical potential regarding the investigation of the interplay between structural and cultural factors with agential subjectivity, identity, reasoning and action. Lawson (2000) places her discussion of various migrants’ stories within the context of neo-liberal modernisation and restructuring in Ecuador in the 1980s and 1990s, and investigates the hopes and desires of immigrants that influenced their migratory decisions and choices, the ‘idealisation’ of modernisation processes and changes, the ambivalence of immigrants’ experiences of modernity along with their experiences of alienation and exclusion in the city. The theoretical and explanatory potential of rich and detailed migrants’ stories, in the way Lawson (2000) treats them, lies in the fact that some discourses and interpretations – those derived from immigrants’ experiences – capture in a more reliable and truthful way, the real, systemic and structural contradictions inherent in the modernisation process than the dominant ones. In her own words: ‘[M]igrant stories are also informative theoretically, as their expressions of ambivalence about their experience of modernity reveal the contradictions embedded within modernization itself: contradictions that are rarely voiced in ruling-group discourses’ (Lawson 2000: 174). The second example concerns a detailed, holistic and multidimensional study by Hatziprokopiou (2006) on the processes of social incorporation of Albanian and Bulgarian immigrants in Thessaloniki, Greece. The study reports the findings of a multi-method, theoretically informed, empirical research whose primary objective was ‘to examine the parallel but opposing processes of social exclusion and integration of Albanians and Bulgarian immigrants in Thessaloniki’ (Hatziprokopiou 2006: 19). This research is worth noting and is briefly discussed here, due to a series of significant reasons. First, the study is implicitly realist and its basic aim is explanatory. Although the author does not make any explicit reference to critical realism, the study’s rationale, aims, theoretical grounding and methodological execution are highly compatible with the realist approach. The author seeks to explore the interplay of immigrants’ agential powers, perceptions, understandings, practices and actions with objective, largely invisible, structural, institutional and ideational factors that condition and influence their lives (see Hatziprokopiou 2006: 20–21). Moreover, the author seeks to identify the causal mechanisms of exclusion and integration of immigrants and to ‘provide a basis for comparison and generalisation’ (Hatziprokopiou 2006: 21). Second, the study is theoretically informed and uses theory in an innovative way. It builds on a critique of various conceptual schemes about immigrant ‘exclusion’ and ‘integration’ and uses the concept of ‘incorporation’ in order to account for the multi-layered and complex linkages between structure and agency. He views exclusion and integration as ‘dynamic processes’ (Hatziprokopiou 2006: 60) that are produced

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by systemic properties. Systemic thinking is another feature that makes this study compatible with realism and its value much broader and more general. Third, the study accounts for the complexity of social reality – that is, its multi-layered character – and investigates immigrants’ incorporation through the examination of four interacting levels: ‘governmental policy and welfare’, civil society, public opinion and culture’, ‘socio-economic structures and employment’ and ‘sociospatial dynamics and place’ (Hatziprokopiou 2006: 64). Finally, the study adopts a multi-methodological approach. The author combines various quantitative and qualitative methods, such as systematic observation, analysis of daily press content, a quantitative survey of 208 Albanian and Bulgarian immigrants and 49 qualitative, in-depth, semi-structured interviews with immigrants residing and working in Thessaloniki, Greece. The qualitative methods and more specifically interviews are strategically combined with quantitative data and theoretical concepts in order to facilitate causal explanations. In the author’s words: the qualitative material drawn out of the interviews has been used in order to frame or re-frame hypotheses, to explore relationships, to construct and/or support arguments and to further interpret the raw numeric evidence coming out of the rest of the survey. Therefore, no special attention is given to the discourse or the wording/phrasing of the answers; what was primarily he focus of the interview analysis was the content of the answers as such, regarding ‘objective’ conditions and ‘subjective’ understandings of the interviewees’ migration experiences. (Hatziprokopiou 2006: 79–80)

The preceding quotation points to three extremely crucial points regarding the utilisation of qualitative interviewing and interview data within the critical realist perspective. It points, first, to the dialectical relationship between conceptual abstraction and the practices of qualitative interviewing and data analysis; second, to the usage of qualitative methods as means for interpreting quantitative data (that is, for facilitating the identification of causal generative mechanisms at work); and third, to the ability of qualitative interviews to refer to external and internal realities (that is, to realities beyond the interview situation). Through qualitative interviewing, Hatziprokopiou (2006: 335–40, Appendix B2) explores issues, processes and phenomena such as migration dynamics, labour market, housing and institutional social exclusion and discrimination, formal and informal networks of support, racism and identity, media and cultural inclusion and exclusion and immigrants’ future plans. 4.4.2 Ethnography and Participant Observation While qualitative interviewing is a, more or less, indirect way of acquiring knowledge of social agents’ perspectives, social relations, practices and structural-cultural circumstances, ethnography and participant observation is

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probably the methodological strategy that best entails directness, intense and extensive engagement with the social lives of research participants. Ethnography and participant observation have been defined in various ways (see Morse and Richards 2002, Hay 2000, Herbert 2000, Robson 2002, Lüders 2004), but their most central features lie in the prolonged and intense engagement and immersion of researcher(s) within social situations, groups, processes and relations, the active interaction between the researcher and research participants in various ways and the researcher’s participation in ‘naturally situated’ social activities and practices, in various degrees. Although ethnographic studies are usually and traditionally associated with investigating cultural practices, meanings and constructions of participants within specific social contexts, here I use the terms ‘ethnography’ and ‘participant observation’ interchangeably without reducing the scope of ethnographic research to investigating ‘culture’ alone. Another reason for this choice is that usually ethnographic studies entail a strong element of participant observation despite the fact that ‘no method or data collection is ruled out in principle’ (Robson 2002: 188). Ethnography–participant observation may be viewed as an ‘umbrella method’ in which various techniques of collecting data and gathering information are employed (Iosifides 2008). These include, among others, observation (systematic or not), informal conversations, individual or group in-depth interviews, participation in everyday social activities and practices, commissioning questionnaires or collecting and analysing written or other documents and artefacts. Above all, the strength of participant observation studies lie in experiences and insights derived from ‘being there’, participating (to various degrees) in people’s social life, social situations and social processes. What is interesting for the purposes of this book is the potential utility of ethnography–participant observation as a method for realist qualitative research in general and, more specifically, for realist qualitative research on migration-related phenomena and processes. The inherent features of ethnography–participant observation – notably directness and intensity of the research process – along with their potential to produce rich, detailed and nuanced data about a vast array of phenomena – social meanings and perspectives, social relations, practices, experiences, contextual influences and so on – make ethnography and participant observation valuable ‘tools’ for realist qualitative researchers. Indeed, as Robson (2002: 188) points out ‘[C]lassically, ethnography was seen as a way of getting close to the reality [emphasis added] of social phenomena in a way which is not feasible with experimental and survey strategies. The Chicago sociologist Herbert Blumer talks about using ethnography to “lift the veils” and to “dig deeper”, illustrating his realist assumptions [emphasis added] […]’. Indeed, there is a rich tradition of naturalist and realist ethnography, and as Savage stresses: Much of the ethnography carried out by anthropologists […] has been naturalist ethnography, which is underpinned by an ontological assumption that people can only be known through observing them in their ‘natural’ or everyday world. Realist ethnography is in many ways similar, but is perhaps more clearly

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Moreover, and closely related to the remarks in the preceding quotation, Hammersley (2008: 131) points out that ‘ethnography had usually sought to provide factual representations of cultures, institutions, or patterns of social interaction; and as part of this, to document the perspectives of the people involved’. Nevertheless, the proliferation of constructionist, post-structuralist and postmodernist modes of thinking in social sciences and qualitative inquiry resulted in a relativist and scepticist twist that affected significantly (and negatively) both ethnographic research practice and researchers’ account of data and insights produced by it. From a relativist point of view, ethnography abandoned any ambition to represent reality beyond what participants (and the researcher) take it to be, prioritised the so-called ‘emic’ over ‘etic’ perspective (see Hunt 2007), turned to description, rejected the possibility to causally explain social phenomena and processes, embraced fully the doctrines of discursive and linguistic reductionism, adopted a mode of ‘paralysis’-induced reflexivity (May 2004: 173) and made efforts to imitate modes of reasoning derived from literature and art (see Yoshida 2007, Hammersley 2008). The inescapable problems and flaws of such relativism and scepticism have already been highlighted mainly in Subsection 3.2.3. Above all, these are related to the self-refuting, contradictory and unsustained character of relativism and scepticism, to their reliance on ‘false premises’ (Hammersley 2008: 135) and to the adoption of an unconstructive ‘either/or’ logic (see Moya and Hames-Garcia 2000). Thus, as Hammersley rightly points out: scepticism takes over a fundamental and mistaken assumption from what it opposes. It assumes that in order for language to represent real phenomena it must be transparent and unmotivated. And it is concluded by this that since it cannot be transparent and unmotivated it cannot represent phenomena that exist independently of it. But why should we accept the initial premise here? There seems no good reason to do so. Indeed, ironically, it is a premise that is wedded tο the metaphysics of presence, the target of Derridean deconstruction. (Hammersley 2008: 151)

Critical realism offers a viable solution to the problems caused by the domination of relativist doctrines in much contemporary ethnographic, qualitative research. From a critical realist meta-theoretical point of view, ethnographic and participant observation methodologies can be powerful means for investigating social complexity, taking into full account ontological depth and stratification of the social world and can contribute significantly to causal explanations of social processes and phenomena. Critical realist ethnography integrates understanding of meanings and agential perspectives with accounts of multiple influences that social forms, entities or objects – which exist independently of agential identification – exert

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on meaning-making and social action. This entails an engagement with causally explaining the effects of complex and multidimensional interaction between structure, culture and agency. Porter and Ryan explain: Such a qualitative approach [realist ethnography], by taking due account of individual understandings, enables the researchers both to examine how individuals, through their actions, either maintain or transform social structures, and to test hypotheses about the nature and effects of social structures upon those actions. […] the purpose of critical realist ethnography is not simply to uncover the unique experiences of individuals but to use examination of those experiences to shed light upon the relationship between individual agency and social structure. Thus, while accepting the necessity of emic understanding, critical realist ethnography also enables the researcher to focus upon wider issues of social structure. (Porter and Ryan 1996: 416)

A critical realist ethnographic practice aims at identifying causal generative mechanisms that tend to produce observable events; it seeks to reveal the ‘counterphenomenality’ (Banfield 2004: 60) that characterises, in many instances, social reality; it is theoretically informed and theory-oriented; it seeks to formulate adequate generalisations about the existence of causal mechanisms that transcend the specific case or cases under study; it is engaged in testing interpretations and conceptual schemes against empirical evidence embraces clarity in presenting research findings (see Hammersley 2008: 137–43). For realist ethnographers, theoretical assumptions and presuppositions are not obstacles to explanation but tools to guide concrete research practices. Retroductive reasoning is facilitated in an effective way due to the richness, complexity and multidimensionality of data and insights produced through dedicated and systematic ethnographic research practice. Generated in the field, conceptual hypotheses about possible causal mechanisms can be tested in various ways – notably by being accounted for by conceptual consistency and coherence and being verified against independent empirical evidence (Sayer 1992: 218–19, 223). In migration studies, ethnographic and participant observational methods are becoming more and more appreciated as the inadequacies of positivist, neopositivist or scientistic-managerial accounts of migration-related phenomena become more apparent (see McHugh 2000). Here, I would focus on contemporary ethnographic migration research, which is highly compatible or consistent with the premises of critical realism, despite the absence of explicit usage of realist terminology. My focus is on ethnographic research practice guided by the principles of the so-called ‘Extended Case Method’ (ECM) (see Burawoy et al. 1991, Burawoy et al. 2000, Burawoy 2006, Fitzgerald 2006, Ó Riain 2009). The ECM entails a series of ‘extensions’ of the ethnographic case. The first is ‘the extension of the observer into the world of participant’ (Burawoy 2000: 26) that is common to all ethnographic and participant observational studies. The second ‘refers to extensions to observations over time and space’ (Burawoy 2000: 27).

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This entails a breaking away from practices of local, ‘bounded’ and confined ethnography and engagement with multi-sited ethnographic research (Fitzgerald 2006). ‘Ethnographers don’t stick their toe in the water only to pull it out a second later. They spend extended periods of time following their subjects around, living their lives, learning their ways and wants’ (Burawoy 2000: 27). The third ‘refers to extending out from process to macro forces…’ (Burawoy 2000: 27). This extension aims to incorporate wider geographical and historical contexts into the analysis of social processes and the role of broader social forces in shaping local phenomena. As Burawoy (2000: 27) stresses ‘the discovery of extralocal determination is an essential moment of the extended case method’. Finally, the fourth extension is that of theory (Burawoy 2000: 27). The scope of the ECM is to develop existing theory through the identification of observed ‘anomalies’. ‘What makes the field “interesting” is its violation of some expectation, and an expectation is nothing other than some theory waiting to be explicated’ (Burawoy 2000: 28). Now, the ECM is characterised by some central premises that makes it highly compatible with the critical realist rationale.3 First, the ECM opposes both relativism and positivist-empiricist universalism (Burawoy 1991: 276). Second, it is theory-driven and theory-oriented. It seeks to formulate theoretical generalisations ‘by constituting the social situation as anomalous with regard to some preexisting theory (that is, an existing body of generalizations), which is then reconstructed’ (Burawoy 1991: 280). Third, it is explanatory. It advocates a notion of causality that departs from the regularity notion of it and is implicitly realist. Thus, according to Burawoy (1991: 281), ‘[C]ausality then becomes multiplex, involving an “individual” (i.e. undividable) connectedness of elements, tying the social situation to its context of determination’. Fourth, it accounts for social complexity and the role of power in social relations. Finally, it avoids conflating micro- and macro-levels. ‘It takes the social situation as the point of empirical examination and works with given general concepts and laws about states, economies, legal orders, and the like to understand how those micro situations are shaped by wider structures’ (Burawoy 1991: 282). 3  Another kind of ethnography that is quite compatible with the principles of critical realist meta-theory is a modified version of what is called ‘peopled ethnography’ (Brown-Saracino et al. 2008). This version places emphasis on the investigation of ‘embedded social actors’ (Brown-Saracino et al. 2008: 549) and their social interaction and engages with multi-level analysis. Other principles of ‘peopled ethnography’ that make it compatible with critical realism are its theoretical and explanatory orientation, the ambition for producing generalisable findings, the emphasis on the ‘analytical objectivity’ of the researcher and the acknowledgement of the need for taking into consideration emergent social phenomena (Brown-Saracino et al. 2008). Regarding the latter, BrownSaracino et al. (2008: 564) assert that: ‘interaction isn’t everything; collectivities are more than the sum of their interactions. This is in part why the peopled ethnography of large collectivities requires researchers to supplement observation with additional data sources, such as interviews and texts, which reveal aspects of social structure that may not be apparent from the focus on interaction alone.’

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In the rest of this subsection I briefly discuss two examples of ethnographic migration research based on the ECM and a third one that can be considered as generally consistent with realist principles. The first example concerns an ethnographic study conducted by Sheba George (2000) on the relationships between gender and class in transnational migration. George was engaged in intensive, multi-sited ethnography in Central City, USA, and Kerala, India, to investigate how the processes of migration of Christian Indian women from Kerala to the United States – in order to work there as nurses – influence gender and class relations both in immigrant community in the States and in the area of origin. For 18 months in Central City, USA and during six months of travelling to Kerala, India, George was engaged in ethnographic fieldwork, interviewing individual immigrants and couples, participating in activities, discussing with participants and collecting information. The study highlighted the processes through which major social changes occurred due to the disruption of traditional gender roles caused by the upward mobility of Indian women in the USA. The opportunities created for work in the nursing profession in the USA enabled Indian women from Kerala to gain a great degree of independence by migrating independently to the country. The opposite occurred when subsequent migration of their husbands took place. ‘When the husbands arrived, even when they had professional experience or advanced degrees, they had to take up menial jobs’ (George 2000: 144). This major disruption of gender roles led to only ‘partially successful’ (George 2000: 144) attempts of men to assert and preserve their status in the church (in the immigrant congregation with Kerala origin of St George in Central City, USA) and to a reaffirmation of gander power relations through the constructions of the ‘lost’ and ‘dirty’ nurse in Kerala, India (George 2000: 170). Of course, it is impossible to discuss at length the whole range of issues and processes that this study highlights. What is worth asserting here is that through the investigation of the ‘dense flows of meaning, people, and commodities between the two locales’ (George 2000: 145), the author offered an ethnography of migratory experiences and processes that fully accounts for the role of global connections, structural employment opportunities, cultural constructions and gendered and classed social relations. It is an ethnography which focuses on the investigation of social complexity, the interplay between structure, culture and agency and the causal effects of real social relations. The second example concerns a study carried out by Salzinger (1991), on the social organisation of domestic work by Central American immigrant women in the San Francisco Bay Area. The author was engaged in ethnographic research and participant observation of two job-distribution cooperatives for women immigrants in the area, with the aim of accounting for the role of structural context – with the constraints and opportunities this entails – in conditioning agential social action (Salzinger 1991). Salzinger found that the two cooperatives under study covered the demands of two highly differentiated segments of potential employers: ‘the elderly, working-class parents and single mothers with little money to spare; and professionals already accustomed to paying relatively high wages for work

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packaged as a personalized and professional service’ (Salzinger 1991: 152). Hence, one co-op placed emphasis on the quantity of domestic work and was characterised by ‘individualized occupational strategies’ (Salzinger 1991: 153). In this co-op, domestic work was viewed as ‘essentially unimportant’ (Salzinger 1991: 153) and as a ‘necessary evil’ for making some money and cope with life’s burdens. On the contrary, the other co-op placed emphasis on the quality of domestic work, and on ‘professionalization’. Immigrant women in this co-op ‘are collectively redefining domestic work as skilled labor, and that basis struggling for increased pay and security and for autonomy and control over their work’ (Salzinger 1991: 153). The author of this study explains that the causes of this marked differentiation lie in factors such as the duration of stay in the country and the class background of immigrant women (Salzinger 1991). This ethnographic study teaches us some extremely important lessons. First, broad change in social organisation of work and socio-economic restructuring in general modify considerably the structural environment within which social action takes place. Second, ethnographic research and participant observation can produce rich data that can be used to identifying the way that structure and agency interact and produce certain outcomes. Third, closely related to the previous point, ethnographic data can serve as powerful means for causal explanation. Fourth, theoretical frameworks (in this case ‘global cities’ and ‘dual labour market’ theory) can be constructively utilised in order to make critical connections between local processes and wider socio-economic change and developments. Fifth, the ‘dialogue’ between the researcher and the research participants contributes greatly to conceptual and theoretical development. As Salzinger stresses: ‘Immersed in another world, watching, analyzing, gossiping, matching hypothesis to reality – moment by moment, participant observation is deeply engaging. But the analysis is another story. In the privacy of head and home I can only sustain research as part of a larger project to understand the world in order to change it’ (Salzinger 1991: 158). My third example is an ethnographic study conducted by Christopher Lawrence (2007) on the position and function of immigrant labour in rural Greece. This example is included here because it is characteristic of the employment of intensive ethnographic and participant observational research on migration that is highly consistent with realist principles. Although the author does not use the critical realist framework explicitly, his study presents – in a remarkably straightforward and theoretically informed manner – the ways that culture, structure and agency interact and produce certain migration-related outcomes. The author was engaged in prolonged participant observation in three labour- (and immigrant labour-) intensive agricultural villages in the Argolida area of Greece, and studied the nature of social relations between non-immigrants and immigrants there. He collected rich ethnographic data about the dynamics of these relations and made fruitful efforts to explain their form and type by accounting for broader socio-economic and political processes such as neo-liberal, globalisation-related restructuring and social transformation caused by the accession of Greece to the

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European Union. Lawrence (2007) studied in depth changes in gender relations in these rural areas, identity-formation dynamics and local ‘resistance’ to neo-liberal globalisation through the exploitation of immigrant labour. However, instead of confining his ethnographic accounts to lay interpretations alone or to ‘cultural’ constructions of various types, the author effectively related them to real social relations and conditions, notably class relations and relations of production. Lawrence (2007) makes a paradigmatic case of using ethnographic data to verify the close interconnection between ‘nationalist discourses’, ‘national identity’, neo-racism and subordination/marginalisation/exploitation of immigrant labour in the Greek countryside. In other words, Lawrence (2007) accounts for complex interrelations between broader structural socio-economic conditions, nationalist discourses and social relations of domination and exploitation among immigrants and non-immigrants and shows how systemic contradictions are ‘partly resolved through the nation-state and the production of national identity’ (Lawrence 2007: 180). In the author’s words: nationalism is a response to the conditions of globalization that undercut the ability of rural Greek households to reproduce exploitative labor. Under these conditions, nationalism and concepts of national identity have taken on a new importance as they serve to organize the new relations of agricultural production and facilitate the incorporation of the region into EU markets. (Lawrence 2007: 170) Nation and state are still called upon today to resolve the contradictions of capitalist production [emphasis added], but the particulars of their arrangement have changed. One of the most important changes has been a repositioning, or rearticulation, of the nation as resistant to the transnationalizing state. This resistance, however, is paradoxical in the sense that its expression, rather than threatening the transnational project of the state, in fact strengthens it [emphasis added]. (Lawrence 2007: 174)

4.4.3 Biographical Research Qualitative biographical research aims at reconstructing social processes and experiences regarding the life-course or aspects of the life-course of agents through their perspectives and interpretations. As Miller (2008: 61) asserts: ‘[B]iography, as both genre and research method, involves not only gathering data about a specific individual, either living or deceased, but also interpreting these data in order to create a representation or portrayal of particular aspects of the subject’s life and times.’ Biographical research includes various modes of theoretical and methodological strategies – such as life history, oral history, memoirs or autobiographies (Miller 2008: 61) – and, practically, biographical data may be derived by a series of research strategies such as formal and personal archival research, documentary research, in-depth interviewing, ‘video- and audiorecordings of the subject…’ (Miller 2008: 61) and participant or non-participant

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observation (Miller 2008: 61). Nevertheless, the most central (and common) strategy for conducting qualitative biographical research is the ‘biographical narrative interview’ (Apitzsch and Siouti 2007, Tsiolis 2006). As Iosifides and Sporton point out, the biographical narrative interview differs considerably from other types of interviewing, for example from the more focused in depth qualitative interviewing. The main difference lies to the special role of the researcher as an ‘active listener’ of the life story/ biographical narrative of participant which is the result of a well designed and carefully formulated ‘generative question’ (Tsiolis 2006). The main purpose of the biographical interview is the production of a detailed biographical narrative with the least possible interventions by the researcher. After the narration phase, a more active interaction between the participant and the researcher, in the form of classical qualitative interviewing, may follow (Iosifides 2008). (Iosifides and Sporton 2009: 102)

As in the case of every method or strategy discussed in this chapter, my aim is neither to cover in detail the methodological procedures for carrying out biographical social research nor to account for the whole range of theoretical and conceptual notions that are associated with them or guide them. Instead, my aim is to point to some crucial ontological and epistemological dimensions of biographical research so as to indicate the potential this method has for conducting realist qualitative research. Another aim is also to make some more specific references to the employment of biographical methods in realist, qualitative migration research. It should be noted that biographical methods are usually linked with theoretical and epistemological orientations such as phenomenology, symbolic interactionism, ethnomethodology (see Apitzsch and Siouti 2007: 7) or structuration theory (for example Halfacree and Boyle 1993). The problems with these epistemological orientations of biographical research lie in their inherent inclination towards extreme subjectivism, relativism or various forms of discursive reductionism along with voluntarism and inadequacies in linking structure and context with human agency (Steensen [date unknown]). Theoretically oriented, realist biographical researchers can overcome these problems by viewing and utilising detailed biographical data as evidence of multiple and complex linkages and dialectical interrelations between subjectivity and objectivity, action and context, structure and agency. Thus, ‘biographical methods may lead to detailed and comprehensive reconstructions of linking chains between events, meanings/interpretations, actions and practices. As regards practices, the examination of their genealogy and evolution may result in theoretical propositions of embeddedness within broader social structures which function quite independently of interpretations of actors’ (Iosifides and Sporton 2009: 104). Realist researchers give their full attention not only to the interpretation and understanding of biographical narratives from the perspective of research participants but also to placing these perspectives

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and associated courses of actions within specific contextual circumstances and contexts – that is, within structured, material social relations. As Steensen stresses: life story and biographical research should be carried out not just to document how people’s lives evolve in the subjective sense, but rather that biographical interviews should be used in order to explain life trajectories [emphasis added] as they take place in modern societies accounting for underlying social structures and present day societal restructuring and change. (Steensen [date unknown]: 11)

Realist qualitative researchers employ biographical methods and utilise data derived by these methods in order to elucidate causal generative mechanisms related to the specific ways that interaction between agency, structure and culture results in specific phenomena. Within this framework, subjectivity and objectivity are not viewed in opposition but in interplay. Subjective interpretations are always interpretations of ‘something’; subjectivity, meaning-making and intentionality are real causal powers that partly condition social action and courses of action are always enabled or constrained by emergent structural and cultural properties of social interaction (Archer 1995, 2003). Realist researchers can identify these generative mechanisms by collecting rich and detailed biographical data, utilising specific theoretical frameworks, assessing agential interpretations through comparison and ‘independent evidence’ (Sayer 1992: 218–19) and by relating lay experiences, interpretations, discourses and courses of actions to the causal powers of structures and cultural forms. The potential for employing biographical research methods in an explicitly realist manner has been significantly enhanced since the relatively recent development of Archer’s theoretical and methodological framework of ‘internal conversation’ and ‘human reflexivity’ (see Archer 2003 and especially 2007). This framework is based on realist social theory (Archer 1995) and views the subjective causal powers of human reflexivity as mediating those of structure and culture. According to Archer (2007: 5): ‘[T]he subjective powers of reflexivity mediate the role that objective structural or cultural powers play in influencing social action and are thus indispensable to explaining social outcomes’. Human reflexivity in this respect ‘is exercised through people holding internal conversations. This capacity to conduct inner dialogue is a personal emergent property (PEP) which is dependent upon, though not reducible to, a neurological base’ (Archer 2007a: 63). In other words, subjective causal powers (reflexivity through internal conversation) are viewed as real, emergent and relational personal properties irreducible to stable psychological states or socio-cultural influences (Archer 2007a: 315). These powers are activated when specific courses of action are pursued and mediate structural and cultural causal powers. The mediation of structural and cultural emergent properties by agential causal powers evolves at three stages. At the first stage ‘[S]tructural and cultural properties objectively shape the situations which agents confront involuntarily and possess generative powers of constraint and enablement in relation to (agent’s concerns subjectively defined)’ (Archer 2003:

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135). At the second stage ‘[C]onstraints and enablements become activated in association with agents’ own constellations of concerns, as subjectively defined in relation to the three orders of natural reality – nature, practice and society’ (Archer 2003: 138). Finally, at the third stage ‘[C]ourses of action are produced through the reflexive deliberations of agents who subjectively determine their practical projects in relation to their objective circumstances’ (Archer 2003: 138). Moreover, it is crucial to note that human reflexivity comes in different modes, thus making societies essentially open systems, since people who find themselves conditioned by similar structural and cultural forces do not react in similar ways and do not pursue similar courses of action (Archer 2007a: 84). What make Archer’s framework extremely useful for conducting realist biographical research are the following reasons. First, employing the framework allows realist researchers to explain social phenomena and processes by examining the role that the interplay of internal (subjective) with external (objective) realities has in producing them. Second, by investigating in depth the courses of actions of social agents, realist researchers can learn a great deal about subjective modes of reflexivity and orientation in relation to objective structural and cultural conditions and influences. Third, Archer (2007) has already applied this framework to the empirical investigation of patterns of social mobility and proved its value for guiding empirical biographical research. Thus, Archer ‘[U]sing interviewees’ life and work histories, … shows how “internal conversations” guide the occupations that people seek, keep or quit; their stances towards structural constraints and enablements; and their resulting patterns of social mobility’ (Archer 2007a: backcover). From this realist point of view, conducting biographical research is in my opinion extremely promising, since it facilitates the departure of these methods from the influence of various versions of irrealism, extreme subjectivism and relativism, and consequently enhances their explanatory potential. Furthermore, this framework can be applied to any topic that biographical methods turn their attention to, including migration-related phenomena and processes – for example, social mobility of immigrants, processes of immigrant social incorporation or migration decision-making. The employment of biographical methods has great potential in migration studies. Breckner (2007) summarises some of the most crucial dimensions and aspects of migration-related phenomena and processes that biographical methods are appropriate for investigating: − With case-oriented approaches, migration can be reconstructed as a process with an open beginning and an open end. Hereby the concrete social contexts in which migration is embedded and experienced by those involved become visible. − The perspective of migrants which develops from their experiences in the contexts of both departure and arrival is part of the subject matter. − The extent to which migration implies or requires changes of orientations and action patterns and the extent to which it allows or supports the continuation

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of orientations is revealed. General aspects and dynamic structures of social processes of continuation and transformation can be analysed in this field. − With a biographical perspective addressing an entire lifetime and the interrelations between different life spheres it can be shown: - how experiences of migration and trajectories are connected with dynamics and trajectories in other life spheres (e.g. the professional or the family sphere). - how migration experiences interact with specific life phases, careers, or status passages. - how the meaning of migration can change over the course of time and in relation to different biographical and societal contexts. - how members of the same immigrant community experience migration differently. Immigrant communities no longer appear as homogeneous or even monolithic ‘otherness’, but as a space of interactive negotiation about experiences connected to life in the societies which were left and present positions of being migrants in a receiving society. (Breckner 2007: 118)

What is worth stressing when we account for the preceding migration-related aspects that biographical methods investigate is that the critical realist employment of these methods presupposes the avoidance of one-sidedness, regarding either subjective or objective factors, and of reducing the one to the other. This avoidance can result in the employment of biographical research methods as a means of identifying the links among (and the interplay of) agential ‘biographical action schemes’ and structurally conditioned ‘collective trajectories’ (Apitzsch and Siouti 2007: 13). Apitzsch and Siouti (2007) offer telling examples of these links: if the single departure of an isolated person seems to be the consequence of a very individual decision, the migration process will typically show up later on as characterised by phases of loss of control and collective exposure to social disorder and profound suffering. Intentional action with the aim of integration in the country of destiny, which at the beginning seemed to be strong enough to generate plans for the next generation as well, will be halted or altered by new experiences, false expectations, the hostility of neighbours and the discovery that strangeness may increase instead of disappearing as time goes by. ‘Biographical work’ in migration processes means the special connection between both of these experiences within the logic of life construction and life constitution (Apitzsch 1999). (Apitzsch and Siouti 2007: 13)

Moreover, biographical methods of migration can highlight the embeddedness of migratory experiences and migration-related actions within social agents’ lives and biographical trajectories, the complex, multi-layered and multidimensional character of migration decision-making and the cultural aspects of migratory phenomena and processes (e.g. the role of social norms, prevailing discourses or ideological formations) (Ní Laoire 2000: 229).

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Now, although there are relatively few biographical studies inspired by explicit critical realist principles so far, the potential for wider application of realist premises to qualitative biographical research, as already noted earlier, is great. One study that utilises biographical research methods within the critical realist framework is that by Han and Humphreys (2006) on ‘integration and retention of international medical students in rural communities’ (Han and Humphreys 2006: 189) in Australia. The study was based in 57 biographical, life-history interviews with International Medical Graduates (IMGs) practising in rural areas of Victoria, Australia. Thirty-seven of these skilled, professional migrants were men and 20 female, while their areas of origin included mainly Asia, the Middle East, Europe/ America, the UK and Africa (Han and Humphreys 2006: 191–2). The objective of the study was formulated according to a critical realist rationale and the main research question was: ‘what fundamentally constitutes the characteristics of the relations between the IMGs and rural communities, and what properties must exist for different IMGs to demonstrate varying degrees of integration, both at the personal and community levels?’ (Han and Humphreys 2006: 192). Thus, the authors aimed to investigate the real, causal generative mechanisms of the differentiation between more and less integrated professional migrants in rural communities under study. They investigated a series of personal, professional and family issues of IMGs along with their interaction with and relations to the rural communities within which they practice and they formulated a typology of four ‘kinds’ of IMGs according to degree of their integration into the communities. These kinds were ‘satellite operators’, ‘fence-sitters’, ‘the ambivalent’ and ‘the integrated’ (Han and Humphreys 2006: 193). The first two are the least integrated into the rural communities, while the last two are the most. The authors identified a series of causal, generative mechanisms, either at the level of social structures or at the level of agency that their interaction results in varying degrees of integration and retention into rural communities. These mechanisms are related to shortages of professionals in rural areas, competition for doctors among different countries, the facilitating role of globalisation processes for international migration, the specialised migration policies of the Australian state and past experiences of IMGs, along with their values, desires, decisions and degree of awareness of regulations regarding practising in rural areas (Han and Humphreys 2006). Thus, as the authors point out, ‘the agency-structure interplay (varying according to place, time, professional and personal needs) strongly influences where individual IMGs live or practise […]’ (Han and Humphreys 2006: 201). The value of such a study derives from demonstrating the advantages of the adoption of a realist approach to biographical research and, more specifically, to biographical migration research. These advantages are mainly related to the fact that the identification of specific generative mechanisms and their workings within certain social contexts could have potentially significant policy implications. Moreover, and going back to the insights of Archer’s framework discussed previously, constructing typologies of agential social orientation through biographical research results in accounting fully for the ontological depth of social reality – that is, for the complex, multi-level and

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multidimensional interplay of real causal powers of social agents, structure and culture. 4.4.4 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) Before proceeding to a brief discussion of the basic principles of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA), it is necessary to refer to Discourse Analysis (DA) as a research strategy and a qualitative method in social sciences in general. DA may be viewed as a heterogeneous group of research strategies and methods aimed at investigating ‘language use and its role in social life’ (Potter 2008: 217). DA is still mostly connected with social constructionism – although, in my view, there is no necessary link between the two (see also Hammersley 2008) – despite efforts for the development of a critical realist DA (see Joseph and Roberts 2004b, Sims-Schouten et al. 2007). Constructionists employ DA as a ‘self-sufficient’ (Hammersley 2008: 101) means for studying social processes and phenomena, and this derives from their ‘flat’ ontological commitments and from their inclination towards reducing social reality to discourse. Thus, constructionists view discourse as a ‘topic’ and not as a ‘recourse’ (Hammersley 2008: 102) due to the fact that they reject the possibility that discourses can refer either to internal (subjective) of external (social) realities (see Hammersley 2008: 102). Of course, this makes ‘discourse’ a closed, self-referential universe that always produces results, ‘constructs’ objects and realities but remains unaffected by social objects and forms, the separate existence of which and their distinct powers are denied (see Fairclough et al. 2004). Moreover, the divorce of discourse form reference and the refusal to acknowledge the role of any extra- or non-discursive factors or relations in structuring social reality (and discourse) is accomplished by the adoption of the thesis according to which discourses are always ‘performative’ (Hibberd 2005: 63–9). The exhaustion of discursive acts to their performative aspects comes from constructionists’ advocacy of ‘internal reference’ and ‘conventionalism’ (Hibberd 2005). The failure of this kind of rationale, due to its inconsistency and self-contradictory character, is shown by an illuminating example that Hammersley offers (2008: 95): imagine that someone told an optician that he experienced pains above the eyes form wearing the spectacles she has prescribed, but the optician insisted on treating what he said as a conventional portrayal of himself as a victim of life’s woes and/or demanding a refund. If people were routinely to interpret one another’s utterances in these ways, social life would be impossible. Nor is there any point in restricting researchers to this approach. (Hammersley 2008: 95)

In the present context, it is not my purpose to engage in a thorough critique of this kind of discursive relativism or to refer to the various problems this relativism creates for social theorising and research practice, as I have done this already elsewhere in the book, and especially in Subsection 3.2.3. What is worth repeating

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here is that this kind of discursive reductionism and relativism backfires on its advocates and seriously undermines efforts for comprehensive research practice. This occurs due to the fact that this line of reasoning is self-refuting and entails an infinite regress that cancels any meaningful argument, including those of social constructionists (see Hammersley 2008, Hibberd 2005). As Hammersley (2008: 118) rightly points out: constructionism seems logically to imply the reflexive application of DA to itself: having documented the discursive production of some phenomenon, it apparently then requires a reflexive analysis of how that documentation was itself discursively constructed; and so on, ad infinitum. And, given that this process of self-explication can never be completed, we might conclude that no progress towards self-explication is ever made. This suggests that the moral and political authenticity to which constructionists sometimes appeal is unattainable. Furthermore, this endless reflexivity undermines any claim for research as an activity distinct from fiction writing. (Hammersley 2008: 118)

The unsolvable problems of constructionist DA need not lead to the conclusion that discourse plays a limited role in social life or that engaging in the analysis of it is of limited value; quite the opposite. What should be done is to dissociate DA from the ontological and epistemological assumptions of social constructionism and to abandon the axioms and doctrines of linguistic idealism and relativism that have haunted social sciences and qualitative research for so long. Linking discourse and DA with the ontological and epistemological premises of critical realism is an appropriate way to appreciate its role in social dynamics and avoid relativism and its inherent limitations and inconsistencies. For critical realism, discourse and semiosis are real factors in social life and are viewed as emergent, relational properties of social interaction at different levels of reality. They are causally efficacious and are always related to extraor non-discursive realities that have properties irreducible to discourse (Joseph and Roberts 2004b, Fairclough et al. 2004). Hence, ‘[A] realist perspective can help us understand the manner in which (non-discursive) social structures are reproduced and transformed through various forms of ideology and discourse’ (Joseph and Roberts 2004b: 6). Moreover, treating discourse as emergent from the interplay of causal powers of structure, culture and agency and as simultaneously ‘socially-structuring and social-structured’ (Fairclough et al. 2004: 27), critical realism reconciles interpretative understanding with social explanation (Fairclough et al. 2004). The overall purpose of realist DA is to locate the role that discourse plays in the workings of specific generative causal mechanisms that produce outcomes under certain contextual conditions and circumstances. The compatibility of DA with critical realism is more evident in the case of the theoretical and methodological approach of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Weninger 2008). Here, I briefly discuss some central principles of the version of

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CDA developed by Norman Fairclough, which explicitly draw on the premises of critical realism (see Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999, Fairclough 2001, 2003, 2005 and also Wodak and Meyer 2001). Inspired by critical and systemic functional linguistics, CDA aims at investigating ‘the subtle ways in which unequal power relations are maintained and reproduced through language use’ (Weninger 2008: 145). CDA of the version that Fairclough developed treats and analyses discourse in a non self-sufficient way since it advocates trans-disciplinarity and relates it to non- and extra-discursive elements of the social (Fairclough 2005): ‘This version of CDA views discourse as an element of social processes and social events, and also an element of relatively enduring durable social practices, though neither are reducible to discourse: they are articulations of discourse with non-discoursal elements (Fairclough 2005: 924). For CDA, discourse includes written and spoken language, non-verbal communication, visual images and other semiotic elements such as music and is the semiotic component of social practices (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 38). CDA combines textual-linguistic and social analysis of discourse and views semiotic elements as layered and stratified. Following the critical realist notion of reality stratification and the interplay between structure and agency, CDA maintains that every stratum of social reality includes a semiotic element. Hence, social structures are related to languages, social practices with orders of discourse and social events with texts (Fairclough 2003: 24). CDA aims at identifying relations between semiosis/discourse and other non-discursive elements of the social – material activity, social relations and processes and mental phenomena (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 61) – in a dialectical manner. As Fairclough explains: The objective of discourse analysis, on this view, is not simply analysis of discourse per se, but analysis of the relations between discourse and nondiscoursal elements of the social, in order to reach a better understanding of these complex relations (including how changes in discourse can cause changes in other elements). But if we are to analyse relations between discourse and nondiscoursal elements, we must obviously see them as different elements of social reality – as ontologically (and not just epistemologically, analytically) different. They are different, but we might say that they are not discrete, in the sense that other elements of the social (e.g. the social relations and material division and structuring of space in organizations), in being socially constructed through discourse, come to incorporate or ‘internalize’ particular discursive elements (including particular discourses) without being reducible to them. (Fairclough 2005: 924)

Inspired by critical realism, the departure of CDA from constructionist notions of the role of discourse and from ways of conducting DA is more than evident in the fact that the main purpose of CDA is explanatory. It seeks to identify causal, generative mechanisms that transform or reproduce real social relations. By

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incorporating interpretative understanding in an overall explanatory framework and by dialectically relating the ‘internal’ language of CDA framework with an ‘external’ language – derived from linking internal language with empirical material (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 67) – CDA engages in a ‘relational/ dialectical logic, oriented to assessing how the discourse moment works within social practice, from the point of view of its effects on power struggles and relations of domination’ (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 67). Moreover, the version of CDA discussed here rejects ‘judgemental relativism’ and advocates judgement of different and competing truth-claims through argumentation and in practical action (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999). Truth claims are ‘judged in terms of “epistemic gain”, the “movement from a problematic position to a more adequate one within the field of available alternatives” […]’ (Chouliaraki and Fairclough 1999: 34). Discourse plays a vital role in processes of structuring and restructuring of social relations that underpin migration-related phenomena. Thinking of the role that discourses of ‘national belonging’, ‘immigration problem’, ‘immigration threat’, and ‘incommensurable cultural difference’ (see also Squire 2009) – to mention but a few – play in structuring social relations of domination, exploitation and inequality is enough to convince us of the centrality of discursive representations and forms in (partly) shaping social relations. Therefore, analysing discourse about migration-related processes and phenomena within a critical realist framework (CDA), and relating discourse to other non- or extra-discursive realities, can be illuminating for understanding and explaining migration realities. In what remains of this subsection, I briefly refer to some examples of studies that employed CDA for the investigation of migration-related phenomena. The first, extremely illuminating, example concerns a study carried out by Van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999) on the role of discourse in legitimising immigration control in Austria. The authors engage in CDA by combining a discourse-historical with a systemic-functional approach in order to investigate the role of various migration-related discourses in legitimising restrictive immigration policies. The focus of the study is on the analysis of discourses contained in the ‘[N]otices Rejecting Family Reunion Applications’ (Van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999: 85) of immigrants residing in Austria and wishing to be joined by their family members there. The authors relate, intertextually, the discursive strategies employed in the ‘Notices’ with ‘other related genres of discourse and strategies of argumentation, and to the history of post-war immigration in Austria generally’ (Van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999: 83) in order to elucidate the different ways by which discursive strategies legitimise migration control, notably through ‘authorisation’, ‘rationalisation’, ‘moral evaluation’ and ‘mythopesis’ (Van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999: 104–11). What this study teaches us is that social practices of immigrant exclusion, discrimination and domination are legitimised by the use of certain discursive practices and that CDA can contribute significantly to identifying the mechanisms of their complex interrelations. As the authors of the study, assert:

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[CDA] assumes a dialectical relationship between particular discursive events and the situations, institutions and social structures in which they are embedded: on the one hand, these situational, institutional and social contexts shape and affect discourse, on the other hand discourses influence social and political reality. In other words, discourse constitutes social practice and is at the same time constituted by it. (Van Leeuwen and Wodak 1999: 91–2)

The second example concerns a study by Del-Teso-Craviotto (2009) on the ‘racism and xenophobia in immigrants’ discourse’ (2009: 571). The author examines how dominant discourses of racism and xenophobia are appropriated and reproduced and also contested and challenged by Argentinean immigrants in Spain. The author engages in CDA of messages posted on ‘PatriaMadre.com, a public Internet forum4 designed by and for Argentine people living or planning to live in Spain’ (DelTeso-Craviotto 2009: 572). In my opinion, the most interesting aspect of this study is the identification of how the employment of elements of dominant xeno-racist discourses by Argentinean immigrants in Spain helps to reproduce wider social relations of power domination. In other words how ‘the local construction of group relations in talk is related to the global historical and socio-political situation’ (Hausendorf and Kesselheim 2002: 265 quoted in Del-Teso-Craviotto 2009: 587). Another extremely interesting aspect lies in the fact that the challenge of xenoracism in immigrants’ discourses is never ‘complete’ (see Del-Teso-Craviotto 2009: 586) and is unable to break away entirely from dominant discourses, such as, for example, cultural ‘proximity and distance’ and ‘group separation’ (DelTeso-Craviotto 2009: 586). In my view, these findings, verify to a great extent the realist, morphogenetic approach to cultural and social dynamics developed by Archer (1995, 1996). Thus, Cultural System ideas related to ‘national belonging’ or ‘national boundaries’ are logically inconsistent with ideas of ‘anti-racism’ and create a certain ‘situational logic’ that directs towards ‘correction’ – that is, reinterpretation of some or all of these ideas (see Archer 1995: 230–31). In the study of Del-Teso-Craviotto (2009), for example, the actors try to reinterpret their ‘xeno-racist’ ideas as merely ‘patriotic’ or try to account for ‘national boundaries’ representing them as not significant or even denying their existence (Del-TesoCraviotto 2009: 586). Of course, the outcome of socio-cultural interaction, either social transformation or reproduction, depends on processes that require time and, as Del-Teso-Craviotto (2009: 588) points out, ‘[T]o what extent this re-definition of 4  Internet-related qualitative research is on the rise in the contemporary era as the Internet can be researched and utilised as ‘a social phenomenon, a tool, and also a field-site for qualitative research’ (Markham 2008). Thus, Internet-related qualitative research can take various, often interrelated forms such as ‘The study of any social phenomenon using the internet as a tool for collecting, sorting, storing, and/or analyzing information gathered’, ‘The study of social phenomena that are mediated by, rely on, or are interwoven with the internet for their composition or function’ or ‘The study of the internet or aspects of it as phenomena in themselves’ (Markham 2008: 454).

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social discourses on the Internet leads to social change and has wider implications remains to be seen, although the proliferation of blogs and forums affiliated with political parties and religious institutions seems to indicate that the Internet has the potential to affect social action’. 4.4.5 Case Study Research Case study is the research strategy mostly associated with the departure from implicitly or explicitly positivist, ‘variable-oriented’ quantitative research (see Ragin 2000). The general opposition between ‘case’ and ‘variable’-oriented social research along with the adoption by the former of a different ‘logic’ of causality and generalisation makes qualitative case study research highly compatible with the principles of critical realism (see Easton 2010).5 Indeed, the very recent publication of the Sage Handbook of Case-based Methods, edited by David Byrne and Charles C. Ragin (2009), explicitly adopts a critical/complex realist approach and contains an extended range of quantitative, qualitative and mixed-method, case study approaches. Blatter (2008: 68) defines case study as ‘a research approach in which one or a few instances of a phenomenon are studied in depth’, while Robson (2002: 178) stresses that ‘[C]ase study is a strategy for doing research which involves an empirical investigation of a particular contemporary phenomenon within its real life context using multiple sources of evidence’. According to Easton (2010: 119), case study research is defined ‘as a research method that involves investigating one or small number of social entities or situations about which data are collected using multiple sources of data and developing a holistic description through an iterative process’ [emphasis added]. The concrete characteristics of case study research, notably its orientation towards the in-depth, mutli-aspect and holistic investigation of one or a small number of instances of wider phenomena and processes results in the near inevitability of employing qualitative-intensive methods, although mixed-method approaches are not rare (see Ragin 2000 and especially Byrne and Ragin 2009). Conducting case study research within the critical realist meta-theoretical framework presupposes the adoption of ontological assumptions that render the so-called ‘case-object’ (Harvey 2009) as relatively independent of researchers’ (and social agents’) conceptions of it. It presupposes an account of depth and 5  An extremely interesting approach that attempts to bridge case-oriented and variable-oriented approaches by combining the positive features of both is the so-called ‘Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA)’. QCA is ‘an approach and a technique launched in the late 1980s by Charles C. Ragin as a “middle road” between quantitative and qualitative strategies’ (Rihoux 2003: 351). According to Ragin (2000: 120), ‘QCA provides analytic tools for comparing cases as configurations of set memberships and for elucidating their patterned similarities and differences. […]. QCA frees social scientists from many of the restrictive, homogenizing assumptions of conventional variable-oriented research without giving up the possibility of formulating statements about broad, cross-case patterns.’

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stratified ontology of social reality and a theoretical-retroductive reasoning of elucidation of real, causal mechanisms by their effects (Easton 2010). Critical realism ‘justifies the study of any situation, regardless of the numbers of research units involved, but only if the process involves thoughtful in depth research with the objective of understanding why things are as they are’ (Easton 2010: 119). Harvey (2009: 30) points to four aspects of the intransitivity (that is independent existence) of the ‘case-object’: ‘[T]he case-object must support a self-standing narrative’ and ‘must also be ‘ontologically complex’; ‘The case-object must be a minimally integrated social system’; ‘Case-objects are open, historically evolving systems’; and, ‘Case-objects are dialectically reproduced by human intentionality and by institutional stasis.’ When case study research is conducted assuming realist principles it can be a powerful strategy that seriously challenges the positivist, variable-oriented, quantitative methods, while simultaneously notions of social causality, complexity and generalisation of empirical findings are retained as its central elements (though in a completely different form). Regarding causality, case study research challenges the identification of causal relations with correlations between variables. This identification of causality with correlation is fallacious because as Ragin (2000: 34) points out: For one, there are typically so many cases that there is no way for the researcher to know if they are all really comparable and thus belong together in the same analysis. Also, it is difficult to determine how something ‘comes about’ by comparing cases with different levels of the outcome. […]. It is also pointless to isolate the ‘independent’ effect of any causal condition when several factors usually must be combined for a particular outcome to occur. (Ragin 2000: 34)

Realist case study research views cases as ‘configurations’ (Ragin 2000: 39) – that is, as ‘systems’ of interacting components, and causality as heterogeneous and ‘conjunctural’ (Ragin 2000: 40). Hence, ‘[I]n case oriented social science, attention typically is directed toward understanding how the different causal conditions combine in each case to produce the outcome in question. A common finding is that different conditions combine in different and some times contradictory ways to produce the same outcome’ (Ragin 2000: 40). The aim of realist case study research to investigate in depth the causal complexity of phenomena is strongly problemand theory-driven (Easton 2010) and theory-oriented. Thus, the identification of complex, causal generative mechanisms in one or in a small number of cases of a social phenomenon or process always has wider implications, which are implications beyond the concrete case or cases. In contrast to the statistical notion of generalisation, ‘case studies, like experiments, are generalisable to theoretical propositions and not to populations or universes. In this sense, the case study, like the experiment, does not represent a “sample”, and the investigator’s goal is to expand and generalise theories (analytical generalisation) and not to enumerate frequencies (statistical generalisation)’ (Yin 1989: 21 quoted in Easton 2010: 126).

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In migration studies, the employment of qualitative case study research assuming realist principles can shed light on the complexities and multidimensionality of instances of various migration-related phenomena, can contribute to explanatory endeavours and have wider implications for the depth understanding of the operation of certain causal mechanisms beyond the case or the cases under study. Cases in migration research may include, among others, individuals (i.e. immigrants or not), households, organisations and geographic areas (i.e. neighbourhoods). Table 4.4 contains some hypothetical examples of qualitative case research in migration studies, despite the fact that details contained in the table are only indicative and inevitably partial and incomplete. What is missing from the Table 4.4 is the specific role that theory has to play in each case. For realist research, theoretical frameworks and abstractions play a key role in the process of retroduction of underlying generative mechanisms since the identification of internal and necessary relations between social objects and forms in different levels and of structural and cultural conditions of social action is difficult to achieve in a straightforward manner. It requires the formulation of abstractions of various plausible explanatory mechanisms, placing these abstractions within certain theoretical and conceptual schemes and examining the truthfulness of alternative explanations in practice. In the rest of this subsection, I discuss a qualitative study conducted by Michael Alexander (2007) on local policy responses to labour migration in four cases – the cities of Amsterdam, Paris, Rome and Tel Aviv. The author does not explicitly use the critical realist terminology and does not employ realist meta-theoretical concepts but the study is characterised by specific merits that every realist researcher would greatly value. Alexander’s study is a theoretically informed, qualitative case research in migration studies that is explanatory, comparative and generalisation-oriented. The author was engaged in depth qualitative investigation of each case in order to test the explanatory power of a specific theoretical framework regarding local responses to labour migration. After identifying the gaps in existing theories of policy responses to migration, both at national and local levels, Alexander uses the theoretical framework of ‘host–stranger relations’ in order to formulate a typology of ‘types/phases of local authority attitudes toward labour migrants’ (Alexander 2007: 14) and ‘types/phases of local policy, elaborated as actual or potential policies in different issue areas’ (Alexander 2007: 14). The explanatory power of different ‘host–stranger relations’ – derived from the conceptualisation of migrants as transient, temporary, permanent with temporary ‘otherness’ and permanent with permanent ‘otherness’ – are tested with the indepth investigation of four case studies that correspond respectively to non-policy (Rome), guestworker (Tel Aviv), assimilationist (Paris) and pluralist (Amsterdam) policy types/phases (Alexander 2007: 35).

Table 4.4  Some hypothetical examples of qualitative case study research in migration studies Topic

Research questions

Type of case and possible research methods

Overall purpose

Differential treatment of immigrants in public hospitals

– What forms differential treatment of immigrants in public hospitals takes?

In-depth and holistic investigation of one or two public hospitals that immigrants are using.

Identification of the causal generative mechanisms of differential treatment of immigrants in public hospitals by examining the interplay between hospital organisational structures, agential action and cultural norms.

Relations between immigrants and non-immigrants at local (neighbourhood) level

What factors contribute to the drawing the line between non-immigrants and immigrants at neighbourhood level?

– What are the causes and consequences of differential treatment of immigrants in public hospitals?

In-depth interviewing with immigrants and non-immigrants, management, administrative and medical staff. Participant observation of treatment of immigrants and of various occasions of interaction between immigrants, non-immigrants and hospital staff. The conduct of specialised focus groups would possibly be of great value. Examination of official records and use of various other sources of data on the socioeconomic and policy environment that public hospitals operate. In-depth and holistic investigation of two neighborhoods for comparative reasons; the one characterised by ‘good’ and the other by ‘bad’ relations between non-immigrants and immigrants.

Elucidation of the complex causal factors that result in local divisions along ‘ethnic’ lines. Identification of why social conflict in local areas take (or does not take) an ‘ethnic’ form.

Table 4.4  continued Structure and action of immigrant organisations

How do immigrant organisations operate and what conditions their function and the outcomes of their action?

Source: Compiled by the author.

Biographical studies with neighborhood residents (both non-immigrants and immigrants), in-depth interviews with neighborhood residents (both non-immigrants and immigrants) on social relations in the area and focused interviews about specific incidents of local conflict Use of various other sources of data on the history and socioeconomic situation of local areas.

Identification of (internal and/or external) causal mechanisms that make an immigrant organisation ‘successful’. Identification of wider structural or other constraints and enablements of organisational action.

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The case study research was based on the analysis of primary and secondary materials and on qualitative, semi-structured interviews mainly with local scholars, municipal officials at professional and political levels, representatives of civic organisations and migrant activists (Alexander 2007: 20). In-depth case study research confirmed to some extent the vital role of perceptions about ‘host– stranger relations’ in shaping policy responses to labour migration but also led to a revision of the original typology by incorporating within it another type/phase of local policy response; intercultural policy type/phase (in the case of Amsterdam) (Alexander 2007: 211). Due to space constraints, a detailed discussion of the methodological and theoretical implications of this study is not possible here but some crucial points – highly relevant to realist qualitative research – should be made. First, Alexander (2007) investigates the roots of the formation of ‘hoststranger relations’ in each individual case study. In realist terms, ‘host–stranger relations’ may be viewed as emergent properties of prior social interaction that exert causal influences in the way that real social relations between immigrant and local, non-immigrant social groups are structured and in the way that local authorities respond to migration-related phenomena and processes. Second, and again in realist terms, ‘host–stranger relations’ may be viewed as a generative mechanisms of local policy responses which are relatively unobservable at the empirical level and underlying. Indeed, as the author himself explicitly points out, ‘host–stranger relations’ is a ‘hidden dimension’ which ‘is often concealed within official discourses on service provision, urban renewal etc.’ (Alexander 2007: 206). The identification of this ‘hidden dimension’, and of its influential role in local policy responses, would be impossible without the combination of detailed, depth qualitative research on actual local policies – in different domains such as the legal-political, the socio-economic, the cultural-religious and the spatial (see Alexander 2007: 211–13) – towards labour migrants in each city-case with a clearly formulated theoretical-explanatory framework. Relying on lay discourses and descriptions alone would be inadequate for reaching comprehensive explanations. Instead, when lay discourses are examined along with actual practices of social agents and are re-described with the help of specific theoretical concepts, then accomplishing such a task becomes easier. Finally, Alexander’s study teaches us that qualitative case research on migration can be not only explanatory but also generalisation-oriented as well. As the author stresses, ‘[S]uch a framework should allow us to generalize beyond any particular city at any particular time, while remaining grounded in empirical findings’ (Alexander 2007: 15). To conclude, Alexander’s study is an excellent demonstration of how qualitative case research about migration-related phenomena can enhance our knowledge and deep understanding of social reality and its complexities. Moreover, the specific characteristics and implications of this enhancement – notably causal explanation, comparability and generalisation – that this study advocates and effectively demonstrates are of self-evident value to every realist qualitative researcher.

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4.4.6 Qualitative Data Analysis (QDA) This subsection is about some central and relatively general principles of conducting Realist Qualitative Data Analysis (RQDA). It is not about specific technical strategies of analysing qualitative data but rather about the rationale of engaging with QDA on the premises of critical realism. Examples of such rationale are offered from migration studies. From an explicitly realist perspective, Miles and Huberman (1994: 10) define QDA ‘as consisting of three concurrent flows of activity: data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing/verification’. The authors conceptualise these three elements of QDA as highly interrelated and embedded with each other: The coding of data, for example (data reduction), leads to new ideas on what should go into a matrix (data display). Entering the data requires further data reduction. As the matrix fills up, preliminary conclusions are drawn, but they lead to the decision, for example, to add another column to the matrix to test the conclusion. (Miles and Huberman 1994: 12)

RQDA is defined here as the whole range of systematic processes of qualitative data organisation, management and interrelation so as to reach theoretically sound and prospectively generalisable conclusions about underlying causal mechanisms of certain social phenomena and outcomes, including the identification of concrete causal processes which link together events, meanings, interpretations, practices, relations and structural/cultural conditions. Hence, the ultimate purpose of RQDA is causal/explanatory despite the fact that descriptive and interpretative moments of data analysis are integral to the whole process and viewed as perfectly compatible with its main purpose. In this respect, qualitative data are conceptualised as tools for addressing theoretical questions, making and/or testing retroductive abstractions, and reaching conclusions that transcend the levels of the empirical and the actual towards the real – that is, towards accounting for the ontological depth and complexity of social entities, forms and outcomes. A diverse theoretical armoury, abstract reasoning and concrete, rich, detailed, multi-sourced qualitative data are in constant cooperation, and are in fact interrelated parts of the complex processes of reaching comprehensive findings described here as RQDA. Thus, what is most basic regarding the rationale of engaging with RQDA is the organisation, management and interrelation of qualitative data in ways that are consistent with realist principles, and their adaptation to the requirements and characteristics of the study at hand. This entails the avoidance of the dangers of both empiricism and interpretivism/relativism. Empiricist QDA – for example, analysis of data collected under the auspices of some versions of grounded theory – usually resembles positivist quantitative reasoning without using numbers, although much of the final conclusions depend on counting. In this mode of QDA, different categories of data as reported by respondents – and implicitly or explicitly

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taken at face value – are related to each other and conclusions are drawn from the intensity of their correlation. Thus, the empirical level is prioritised and become privileged while theory is allegedly derived from data which are largely empirical and observable. The other kind of QDA – interpretivist or relativist of various versions – entails an interpretation of interpretations and meanings of participants or the ways that various discursive practices constitute or construct social objects that are taken to be real. This kind of QDA, then, does not view data as tools for unlocking underlying and often unobservable, relatively enduring and objective realities, but as the ‘reality’ or part of the ‘reality’ itself. And this is simply because for interpretivists and relativists there is no other reality except for the internally meaningful realities of individuals and social groups and the constructed worlds that linguistic/discursive practices create. Neglecting intransitivity, interpretivists and social constructionists alike treat qualitative data as pointers to phenomena related to ‘subjectivity’, ‘lived experience’ or the effects of ‘discursive practices’. In contrast to empiricist and interpretivist/relativist styles of analysing qualitative data, the underlying rationale of RQDA is to organise and manage the data in such a manner that underlying, generative causal mechanisms are identified and tested. This entails the full utilisation of a series of basic realist notions – notably reality stratification, social emergence and complex causality in open systems – in the process of organising, managing, coding,6 categorising, abstracting, conceptualising and theorising (see Morse and Richards 2002, chapters 6 and 7) from qualitative data. It also entails the evolving formulation of coding and categorising schemes that are theory-informed in two highly interrelated ways: through abstractions of necessary trans-factual conditions – that is, internal and necessary relations among social objects and generative causal mechanisms – derived from qualitative data and through concepts derived from existing literature (see Danermark et al. 2002: 136 and Chapters 3 and 5). Qualitative data about agential and wider meanings, understandings, discourses, practices, actions and social relations can serve as powerful tools for the identification of the nature, character and essence – a series of predominately qualitative dimensions – of social objects and of the causal powers and liabilities that these objects possess. This is a vital step towards explaining certain social phenomena and outcomes 6  Coding in QDA is the ‘base’ of analysis, at least for QDA styles that entail some form of data categorisation, thematisation and segmentation. ‘Codes are tags or labels for assigning units of meaning to the descriptive or inferential information compiled during a study. Codes usually are attached to “chunks” of varying size – words, phrases, sentences, or whole paragraphs – connected or unconnected to a specific setting. They can take the form of a straightforward category label or a more complex one (e.g. a metaphor)’ (Miles and Huberman 1994: 56). According to Morse and Richards: ‘There are many ways of coding and many purposes for coding activities across the different qualitative methods. They all share the goal of getting from unstructured and messy data to ideas about what is going on in the data. All coding techniques have the purpose of allowing the researcher to simplify and focus on some specific characteristics of the data. And all of them assist the researcher in abstracting, or ‘thinking up” from the data’ (Morse and Richards 2002: 111).

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through the contingency or necessity of interplay among various social objects and entities, each one possessing distinct causal powers and liabilities due to their structural (relational) make-up. A model of analysing qualitative data in this manner is proposed by Crinson (2001). Crinson’s model, applied to the analysis of focus group data, is valuable – with appropriate adaptations – for analysing qualitative data in general. What is most interesting about this model for the purposes of this book and of the present subsection is its explicit realist orientation. The model comprises five ‘phases’: transcriptions, indexing, interpretation, theorisation and retroduction (Crinson 2001: 10). ‘Phase one’ (transcriptions) refers to the organisation and management of ‘raw’ qualitative data; in Crinson’s case, transcriptions of data derived from focus group research. The second ‘phase’ (indexing) refers to the categorisation and coding of qualitative data. According to the model, this kind of coding is based on issues and insights raised by research participants themselves and has to follow the ‘non-exclusivity’ principle (Crinson 2001: 10). Exclusive coding strategies are linked by Crinson (2001: 5) to non-realist QDA: some non-realist approaches to the analysis of qualitative data appear to begin and end with a coding process which segments, then reassembles the qualitative material in a manner resonant of some Frankensteinian project. Such approaches result in the fragmentation and decontextualisation of research material, and distort the richness and complexity of interactive discourse of informants (in the case of focus group transcript material). (Crinson 2001: 5)

Hence, Crinson (2001) advocates the non-exclusivity of the indexing/coding process ‘in order to avoid selection at this early stage…’ (Crinson 2001: 10). The third ‘phase’ (interpretation) of qualitative data represents the interpretative moment of the whole process – that is, the interpretative understanding of the meanings and perspectives of research participants. The problems of the various non-realist QDA strategies derive mainly from the facts that give prominence in this phase of analysis whose scopes and purposes are rendered to be the purposes of the research as a whole. Thus, as Crinson (2001: 11) rightly points out: The problem however, in leaving the analysis at this level, which while it could be said to represent a reality from a phenomenological perspective because it is rooted in the actual discourses / ‘practical logic’ of the respondents, is from a depth realist perspective, merely examining the ‘domain of the actual’. An actualist analysis cannot establish the hidden dynamics of the multirelational stratified nature of shared discourse. (Crinson 2001: 11)

Thus, RQDA, while it acknowledges that interpretative understanding is an indispensable part of qualitative research neither prioritises it nor views it as the ultimate purpose of it. It rather incorporates it within a much wider and predominately explanatory purpose. This incorporation entails some further

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necessary steps. In Crinson’s model – and according with basic realist premises – these steps are ‘theorisation’ and ‘retroduction’. ‘Theorisation’ entails the further categorisation of qualitative data through ‘theoretically deduced categories drawn from the literature (moving from the abstract to the concrete) which might offer a structural context for the particular discourses’ (Crinson 2001: 11), whereas ‘retroduction’ includes the processes of identification of generative, underlying causal mechanisms. Crinson (2001) describes this ‘phase’ of QDA as follows: This involves the process of inference that critical realists have described as retroduction, in which the conditions for the social phenomena under investigation are explained through the postulation of a set of generative mechanisms. In the process of abstracting from the concrete object then back to the postulation of a concrete conceptualisation it is essential to distinguish between those social relationships that are necessary rather than contingent for this social phenomena to occur i.e. those which are internally related. Clearly it is important to specify those contingencies that bring about or indeed, counteract the action of the identified generative mechanisms. Certainly in the case of the discourses of social agents, it is necessary to be sensitive to developments within the ideological environment which maybe determinant in the practices of those agents under investigation. (Crinson 2001: 11)

Realist qualitative researchers can utilise various theoretical insights offered by realist scholars in order to develop their own strategy for analysing qualitative data. Of course, any such strategy should conform to basic realist principles (Crinson’s model is an example of this), even if its characteristics may be varied according to the peculiarities of investigated phenomena and processes. Thus, for example, the rationale of analysing qualitative data in a realist manner may be based on Archer’s (2007c: 28) scheme of ‘three-stage process of mediation’ of structural and cultural causal powers by agential/subjective causal powers.7 This scheme is described by Archer as follows: (i) Structural and cultural properties objectively shape the situations that agents confront involuntarily, and possess generative powers of constraint and enablement in relation to them. (ii) Agent’s own configurations of concerns, as subjectively defined in relation to the three orders of natural reality – nature, practice and society. (iii) Courses of action are produced through the reflexive deliberations of agents who subjectively determine their practical projects in relation to their objective circumstances. (Archer 2007c: 28)

7  This scheme has already been mentioned in Section 4.4.3 on biographical research but it is mentioned again because it is considered necessary to discuss its implications for QDA.

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Realist researchers may categorise, code and analyse qualitative data under five broad axes: 1. data demonstrating agential (individual or collective) courses of actions within constraining or enabling structural and cultural circumstances (social practices, development of social relationships, networks and so on); 2. data about subjective or inter-subjective reflexivity of agents regarding their courses of action (meanings, rationales, understandings, interpretations, discourses). This axis of data analysis may entail the analytical separation of subjective or inter-subjective factors from societal, habitual or ideological influences on action (see Elder-Vass 2010, especially Chapter 5); 3. data about social relations influenced by structural conditions; 4. data about social relations influenced by cultural conditions and 5. data about relations between structural and cultural conditions. Of course, the employment of such a scheme for data categorisation and analysis presupposes the collection of rich, detailed and multi-sourced information, a strong theoretical orientation and a constant practice of abstraction and testing these abstractions against empirical data. The whole process entails the intermingling of ‘phases’ of data collection and analysis that is necessary for engaging with repeated retroductive exercises. Today, QDA is strongly supported by specialised software of a diverse kind regarding capabilities and functions, which is generically known as CAQDAS. To realist qualitative researchers, CAQDAS can be of great value for various reasons. First, CAQDAS can serve as an enhancer of the systematic character of qualitative research that realists usually advocate. Second, CAQDAS can assist, very effectively, the management, organisation and analysis of heterogeneous data at multiple levels – either of abstraction, source of data or ontological domains. Finally, specialised computer software can increase the degree of transparency of the exact processes of data analysis and of reaching certain explanations. For realists, who prioritise explanatory qualitative research producing valid findings regarding real-world processes and mechanisms, this is more than vital. As an example of specific rationale underpinning QDA in migration studies, I refer to a study by Weiss (2006) on processes of transnational class formation identified through the experiences and practices of highly skilled migrants. The study is based on 18 qualitative interviews with highly skilled migrants (information technology specialists), either German expatriates or migrants from a series of counties such as ‘India, Algeria, Bulgaria, Brazil, China, Congo, Czech Republic, Tunisia, and Ukraine’ (Weiss 2006: paragraph 19) who work and reside in Germany. What makes this study worth being included here is that its overall rationale and the manner of conducting the qualitative interviews and the analysis of data derived from them is more or less consistent with realist premises. Thus, the study breaks away from the more conventional, ‘culturalist’ analysis of migratory phenomena within the transnational arena and gives emphasis to the structural environment of

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migratory movements, to the role of social positions of migrants and to the material aspects of migrants’ actions and social practices. Furthermore, qualitative research in this study is characterised by a strong comparative dimension and the effort to link structural characteristics with agential action and factual/objective factors with migrants’ rationales and understandings. In the author’s words: All interviews covered the following topics: qualification and position in the labour market; educational and migration history; social networks; lifestyle preferences; legal and financial situation; experiences with differential treatment; and, hopes for the future. The interviews contain explicit and comparable information documenting interviewees’ social position, as well as individual narrations from which habitus and practices of distinction can be reconstructed […]. The interviews were supplemented by a short questionnaire containing questions around socioeconomic status and other factual information. (Weiss 2006: paragraph 22)

Finally, the study is informed with transnationalism theoretical frameworks and the Bourdieu’s theoretical elaborations on class and class formation. The main scope of the study in general and data analysis in particular was to test the hypothesis of the formation of an ‘emergent transnational middle class’ (Weiss 2006: paragraph 45) by investigating similarities in the structural influences and positions of a highly diverse group of skilled migrants. Weiss (2006) describes the approach of this study as a ‘qualitative experiment’: Looking for contradictions to a hypothesis the logical deductions from qualitative experiments can reach a level of generalisation which exceeds the results which probabilistic reasoning can gain from similarly small samples. In this research project, the likelihood that the structuring force of the state will appear as a prominent influence has been maximised by the fact that migrants: had crossed a threshold of inequality; had come from diverse nation-states and cultures; and, were migrating in both directions across this national gradient. Should the class position of the highly skilled migrants prove to be similar, or put more succinctly, should the research be able to explain ‘black swans\ by something other than influence of the nation-state, we would have a very strong argument for an emergent transnational class(es). (Weiss 2006: paragraph 20)

The main rationale of analysing the qualitative data was to interrelate three different types of data: data about factual information on migrants’ recourses and social positions; data about migrants’ assessments of their trajectories, experiences and actions, and data about migrants’ habitual attitudes and dispositions (Weiss 2006). Factual information, self-assessment and habitus cannot be treated as separate entities. Self-assessments in particular combine the other two types of data.

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Looking for the relations (contradictory or not) among these three types of data Weiss (2006) was able to achieve reconstructions of the processes of transnational class formation by exploring meanings and practices of highly skilled migrants. Moreover, the author was able to account for the role that factors and mechanisms, such as habitus and resource distribution – often underlying and not easily identified ‘from “front stage” information’ (Weiss 2006: paragraph 41) – play in this formation. Finally, research design and data analysis strategies in this study allow for theory to be developed and for insights to be generalised and transferred beyond the specific research context and selected cases. In the author’s words: ‘the study’s methodological approach diverges from typical qualitative approaches to migration; whilst it may overlook cultural specificities, it is able to engage in theory building and enhance our structural understanding of the social, economic and political dimensions underpinning highly skilled migration and transnational class formation’ (Weiss 2006: paragraph 46). Regarding the main findings of the study, Weiss summarises them as follows: The results show that despite the differences in national origin of the highly skilled migrants, they operate within global labour markets and inhabit similar economic and social spaces within the city. However, the paper also argues that different types of highly skilled migrants in different types of political-economic contexts, whilst inhabiting similar economic positions and similar social space, move along different and unequal paths. This divergence, we suggest, can be traced to broader structural processes of global inequality. (Weiss 2006: Abstract)

4.5 Research Ethics and Research Relationships The relevance of ethical stances and choices is extremely significant for every methodological strategy, either qualitative or quantitative, but this subsection concerns some central aspects regarding the role of ethics in realist, qualitative migration research. Research ethics may be conceptualised as ‘the conduct of researchers and their responsibilities and obligations to those involved in the research, including sponsors, the general public and, most importantly, the subjects of research’ (O’Connell, Davidson and Layder 1994: 55 quoted by Dowling 2000: 25). Others (ESRC: 20 quoted in Düvell et al. 2008: 4) define research ethics as ‘moral principles guiding research, from its inception through to completion and publication of results and beyond – for example, the curation of data and physical samples after the research has been published’. In qualitative research that usually entails researchers’ intensive and/or prolonged involvement with people’s lives

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and often an in-depth investigation of ‘sensitive’ issues and processes, the role of research ethics is central as ethical stances and choices may affect significantly the whole research process, from research design to field research, data analysis and uses of research findings. Thus, ‘[E]thics in qualitative research, currently often associated only with the relationship of researchers to those they study, is an integral aspect of all decision making in research, from problem formulation to presentation of results’ (Preissle 2008: 276). Traditionally, the commonest ethical principles adopted when qualitative social research is conducted are related to ‘informed consent’, ‘anonymity and confidentiality’, ‘harm or damage avoidance’ (Hopf 2004: 337), ‘reflexivity’ and the role that ‘power relations’ between the researcher(s) and research participants play in the whole research process (Dowling 2000, Miles and Huberman 1994). Informed consent entails researchers’ honesty and good faith; it is related to the full disclosure of research purposes to the prospective research participants and often the guarantee of the proper use of research findings and/or participants’ access to them. Anonymity and confidentiality are related to guarantees that the identities of research participants will remain concealed – unless there is a prior agreement to the contrary – and to researchers’ efforts to achieve a rapport with participants. The latter presupposes an ethical stance characterised by genuine concern about participants’ social situations, perspectives and actions; however, this does not mean that researchers necessarily accept participants’ beliefs, interpretations and perspectives. It rather means that they are incorporated in the final explanatory scheme and the synthesis of ‘insider accounts’ with explanatory endeavours that may transcend them or place them within theoretical accounts about wider societal processes. Harm or damage avoidance is a general principle that applies both during the actual process of conducting research and after its completion. The principle dictates that researchers have to make intense efforts to reduce the possibility of harm or damage of any kind (material, psychological, social) for themselves and for participants. Finally, power inequalities and asymmetries (Dowling 2000) among researchers and participants always have to be acknowledged and taken into account when researchers employ qualitative methods, because they may affect profoundly research relationships, data collection and data analysis. Power relations in qualitative migration research usually favour the researcher(s) – for example, in the cases of participants being undocumented immigrants, or regularised labour migrants – but in some instances power relations may favour the participants – for example when research requires close contact with state officials or inter-governmental agency executives. An ethical stance presupposes the close examination of the implications of power differentials by researcher(s) along with systematic efforts for their ‘neutralisation’ or mitigation. Power relations are always a probable source of multiple distortions of research process and even if their total elimination is impossible, their acknowledgement and a constant effort to understand their influence and impact increases the possibility of getting more truthful and valid research findings. The best way to achieve this is by employing what is called ‘critical reflexivity’ (Dowling 2000: 28). Critical reflexivity is

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‘a process of constant, self-conscious, scrutiny of the self as researcher and of the research process. In other words, being reflexive means analysing your own situation as if it were something you were studying. What is happening? What social relations are being enacted? Are they influencing the data?’ (Dowling 2000: 28). Of course, the preceding list of ethical research issues is only indicative, extremely brief and inevitably incomplete. Detailed discussion about the multiple and complex ethical problems that qualitative social researchers face in the course of their studies exceeds the scope both of this subsection and of the present book as a whole. It should be noted, however, that there are always exceptions or deviations from the general ethical principles previously mentioned because of the nature of research scopes, research questions or types of participants required. In the rest of this subsection, I turn my attention to some important ethical considerations arising when qualitative migration research is conducted and to the question of a special sort of ethical stance that critical realism advocates. Qualitative researchers face complex ethical dilemmas when conducting research on migration-related phenomena that concern either the ‘phase’ of formulating the research problem and specific research questions or the ‘phases’ of participant recruitment, data collection, data analysis and the various uses of research findings. Asking specific research questions or formulating a research problem is never a straightforward enterprise since societal values, views and public discourses result in the portrayal of certain migration-related processes as ‘normal’, ‘natural’ or ‘problematic’. As Birman rightly points out: research on immigrants and refugees is not morally neutral. Immigration policies are hotly debated in our society. Supporters of immigration argue that immigrants benefit the country but may need special programs to assist them in their adjustment, whereas opponents suggest that immigrants drain resources that could be spent on other national priorities. (Birman 2006: 155)

It is always possible that qualitative migration researchers may reproduce dominant discourses when formulating research problems and questions, something that seriously undermines the ethical and critical component of social science and reinforces a kind of social science that serves utilitarianism and managerialism. Critical realism integrates moral concerns with epistemic ones, thereby avoiding the pitfalls of both ‘ethical neutrality’ and moral relativism. To realists, the in-depth investigation of societal structures and mechanisms that produce and reproduce social injustice, inequality and domination is justified on both ethical and epistemic grounds. Thus, in our hierarchical, multiply divided and domination-driven societies, the goal of, first, identifying the workings and consequences of real (objective) causal mechanisms and, second, of taking an ethical stance against social injustice are perfectly compatible. In fact, rather than being in opposition to each other, the two goals are mutually reinforced. This happens because knowledge acquired by realist research is (or ought to be) driven by considerations of achieving greater objectivity and dealing with the phenomena

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of trans-phenomenality and counter-phenomenality (Collier 1994) in the social world. Trans-phenomenality is ‘going beyond appearances’ (Collier 1994: 6) while counter-phenomenality entails the explanation, causes, consequences and functions of contradictions between appearances and real, underlying structures (Collier 1994: 7). Hence, posing realist research questions about migration-related phenomena – that is, questions about the features of the causal order that produces these phenomena and the discourses about them – is simultaneously the adequate ethical and epistemic way to avoid a search for an impossible ethical neutrality and compromising the scientific, truth-seeking component of research. Moreover, ethical dilemmas arise because of the nature of much contemporary qualitative migration research and the specific features of prospective research participants. For example, Düvell et al. (2008) refer to ethical dilemmas related to ‘sensitivity’ and ‘vulnerability’ that often arise in qualitative research studies with irregular immigrants. These are mainly related to the potentiality to do harm to irregular immigrants by making available critical information contained in research reports and publications and the probable utilisation of this information by state agencies for purposes that may cause serious damage to research participants. They are also related to the emotional and psychological stress that intense encounters between researchers and participants may cause to the latter and to the possible negative consequences of power differentials between researcher(s) and participants (Düvell et al. 2008). Regarding the disclosure of detailed and critical information about the practices and strategies of irregular immigrants that state agencies might utilise against them, Jordan and Düvell (2002: 94) reflect on their experiences derived from their study on undocumented immigrants from Brazil, Poland and Turkey in the UK. The authors referred to the fact that all participants’ strategies and practices were already known to state enforcement agencies but the lessons from these researchers’ practice have wider implications. These concern ethical choices entailing careful checking of the nature of information that is disclosed in research reports and publications and the efforts made to compromise the specificity of such information in order to protect the participants. The same authors also point to the potential risks of the political uses of migration research findings (Jordan and Düvell 2002). ‘Researchers have a responsibility to try to take every possible step to obviate the partisan exploitation of distorted versions of their findings, especially when these are used to incite xenophobia and racism’ (Jordan and Düvell 2002: 95). In my view, the best strategy for mitigating this possibility is the active public intervention of researchers, where their research findings are used in distorted ways for political or other reasons; this intervention, of course, presupposes that researchers engage in constant and close monitoring of the societal uses of their research findings. My own research experience with three groups of immigrants from Albania, Egypt and the Philippines are indicative of the complexity and multiplicity of ethical dilemmas that qualitative migration researchers may face. The fieldwork for this study was conducted at a time (1995–96) when many immigrants – for example, the majority of immigrants from Albania – were undocumented and

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aimed at investigating immigrant incorporation in the labour and housing markets of Athens, Greece (see Iosifides 1997b). This research was carried out using a combination of different methods such as short informational interviews with immigrants from Albania, Egypt and the Philippines, in-depth interviews with immigrants and some employers, and participant observation in areas of intense immigrant presence (Iosifides 2003). In the course of conducting the fieldwork, a series of ethical issues had arisen and their treatment proved extremely crucial not only for moral reasons (which were viewed as ends in themselves) but also for epistemic ones (enhancing the validity of interpretations and explanations). First, accessing prospective research participants entailed a strong ethical component. Due to the undocumented status and socially vulnerable position of the majority of immigrants at that time (at least of some groups such as immigrants from Albania), efforts to include them in research was initially confronted with much suspicion and even fear. Thus, detailed explanations of the purposes of the research and prior informal conversations about the researcher’s identity and aims was the appropriate stance to gain access to prospective participants and to establish trustful relationships with them. Furthermore, direct or indirect pressure on prospective participants to take part in the research and any type of material motivation to participate were totally avoided. Second, anonymity was guaranteed and the specificity of required sensitive information was systematically reduced. The latter was achieved by becoming aware of the sensitivities of the research field and of potentially threatening and harmful practices during the pilot phase of the research process. Third, the power relations within immigrant groups were taken into serious account (see Iosifides 2006). Those relations became evident when, during initial interviews with immigrants from Albania and Egypt, key persons – such as community leaders or intermediaries for state agencies – were used as interpreters. The power differentials between immigrant interviewees and interpreters resulted in a process of ‘filtering’ and ‘adjustment’ of interviewees’ responses in order to meet certain criteria of ‘appropriateness’. This experience showed, in a quite straightforward way, how power relations may lead to distortions of views and perspectives of research participants and to the reproduction of those distortions in researchers’ elaborations and accounts. Serious validity threats together with moral reasons had as a result that I abandoned the practice of cooperating with key persons in immigrant communities who acted as interpreters and I continued interviewing by cooperating with other immigrants that had adequate knowledge of the Greek language. Despite the great value of the inclusion of key persons and community leaders in the overall research process, their co-presence in the course of interview interactions proved to be problematic. Finally, the implications of power relations and difference in perspectives between the researcher and the participants were reflected upon during the whole process of research, from fieldwork to data analysis and reporting. In realist terms, research ethical guidelines, advice and codes of conduct would become more comprehensive and meaningful, if they were reconnected with reality and real features of human beings and human societies. This reconnection

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is much needed so that social science would be simultaneously ethical, truthseeking, explanatory, emancipatory and critical. The application of concrete ethical principles to the conduct of social research – qualitative, quantitative or mixed – requires placing it within a broader ethical framework that allows strong links to be established between morality and moral judgements with the objects of such judgements and their features (Sayer 2005). It requires what Andrew Sayer calls ‘a normative turn in social theory’ (Sayer 2000: 172). As Sayer (2005: 214) points out, ‘values and judgements are also about something; they pertain to objects – either something independent of the subject or, as in internal conversations, the subject’s own thoughts and feelings, which can be treated as objects of reflection’. This means that the inherent characteristics of social objects – from human bodies to social relations – raise moral questions about conditions and situations that either facilitate human flourishing or cause human suffering (Sayer 2005). It also means that ethics and ethical judgements have both subjective and objective dimensions and that only an acknowledgement of this fact allows for engagement in genuinely critical scientific inquiry. For, ‘[I]f values – regarding rights, and more generally the nature of the good – are seen as purely subjective, emotive, a-rational responses, and hence beyond justification through judgement, then the critiques which they inform might be dismissed on the same grounds’ (Sayer 2000: 172). Disconnecting ethical issues from subjectivism, conventionalism, relativism and discursive reductionism (Sayer 2005) and moving towards the adoption of a ‘qualified ethical naturalism’ (Sayer 2005: 218) and ethical pluralism (Baghramian 2004, Sayer 2005) has great advantages. It restores the critical capacity and character of social scientific inquiry and research practice and facilitates the formulation and grounding of ‘explanatory critiques’ (Lacey 2007). Realist ethics can be of great value for qualitative research practice about any topic, including migration, because of its implications for researchers’ duties and responsibilities for research participants and society. These responsibilities lie in adequately explaining social phenomena and processes, uncovering the sources of false beliefs, interpretations and meanings, engaging in critiques of immoral structural or cultural arrangements – that is, arrangements that limit human flourishing or cause human suffering (Sayer 2000, 2005) – and linking research outcomes to action for social change. Acknowledging the fallibility of any knowledge and moral claim, realists are more open to critical dialogue and the endeavour of gaining more valid knowledge of reality and making more sound ethical judgements tested through rational argumentation and in social practice. 4.6 Quality and Rigour of Qualitative Migration Research Probably one of the most contested areas of qualitative research methodology is related to issues of quality and rigour and to assessment criteria to evaluate the soundness, truthfulness and validity of its findings. An essential feature of realist social research, either quantitative, qualitative or mixed, is its ambition

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to demonstrate the successful identification of, often hidden, unobservable and underlying, causal mechanisms that are responsible for producing observable events, processes, phenomena, perceptions, meanings and representations. The fallibility of any identification of such causal mechanisms does not mean that different identifications and explanations of social reality are equally fallible (Sayer 1992); it rather means that we can be relatively or quite certain for some knowledge claims subject to their explanatory power in comparison with alternatives. As Hammersley (2009: 7–8) points out: ‘[W]hat is distinctive about fallibilism is that although it recognizes that we can never be absolutely certain about the validity of any knowledge claim, unlike scepticism and relativism, it does not deny that we can be justifiably certain about many things, even at the risk of subsequently discovering we were wrong’. Moreover, the fallibility of explanatory frameworks does not preclude the acquirement of any epistemic gains from their formulation or their total abandonment and their replacement with novel ones: refutation of at least one of their elements [of theories and explanatory frameworks] will often not bring the whole structure tumbling down but may merely require minor adjustments of a limited number of concepts. Within theories and sometimes between them it is usually possible to find commensurable (i.e. mutually intelligible) and non-contradictory sets of concepts which are also sufficiently independent to allow non-tautological cross-checking. (Sayer 1992: 205–6)

Thus, realist qualitative research needs criteria to assess the epistemic validity and truthfulness of its findings or, in other words, specific ways to evaluate the adequacy of explanations of the workings, effects and consequences of intransitive aspects of social reality. It also needs rigorous strategies to mitigate various validity threats that characterise particularly the qualitative research practice. The realist stance on research quality criteria departs significantly from relativist (interpretivist, constructionist or post-structuralist) approaches in that it recognises the existence of a mind/language/discourse/interpretation independent social reality characterised by causal powers of its own. This acknowledgement, along with the adoption of a depth and stratified ontological approach, allows realist qualitative researchers to demonstrate that their explanations are practically adequate because they are true (i.e. because they capture certain aspects of real social processes and causal mechanisms) and not vice versa, as pragmatic relativists advocate. Realist qualitative research remains within the scientific camp, contributes significantly to causal explanations of social reality and advocates rigorous and systematic application of research procedures. On the contrary, relativist qualitative research, of any version and denomination, progressively and explicitly views itself as non-scientific but rather as part of the humanities and as a kind of activity that is artful or resembles art and literature (see Hammersley 2008). Of course, this stance precludes the adoption of any kind of epistemic criteria for evaluating the quality of qualitative research and relating theoretical and conceptual frameworks

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with empirical evidence (see Hammersley 2008: 140). Instead of using epistemic criteria to assess the quality of qualitative research findings, relativist qualitative researchers advocate the utilisation of non-epistemic ones. Thus, Many interpretivist researchers take the position that there is no ‘fact of the matter’ […] and suggest by extension that it is not really possible to specify criteria for good qualitative work – and that the effort to do so is somehow expert-centered and exclusionary to the contingent, contextual, personally interpretive nature of any qualitative study. (Miles and Huberman 1994: 277)

Many postmodernist and social constructionist qualitative researchers also reject epistemic criteria to assess the quality of qualitative research (see Steinke 2004: 185). Relativists replace epistemic criteria with non-epistemic ones – moral, political, aesthetic, rhetorical and so on (Hammersley 2009). This entails that knowledge claims cannot, and/or should not, be judged on epistemic grounds but must be assessed according to non-epistemic criteria: in other words, in practical, ethical, and political terms. In Denzin and Lincoln’s (2005) version, they must be judged by ‘the criteria that flow from a feminist, communitarian moral ethic of empowerment, community and moral solidarity’ (p. 911). (Hammersley 2009: 4)

Within the premises of relativist thinking, various scholars formulated sets of nonepistemic criteria to evaluate qualitative research. Murphy et al. refer to some of such formulations: [Guba and Lincoln] proposed five alternative criteria for assessing the goodness of evaluation research, which they believed to be compatible with relativism. They defined these as criteria of authenticity, which they discussed particularly in the context of evaluations. They are summarised below.

• Fairness: researchers must be able to demonstrate that they have represented the range of different realities in a balanced way.

• Ontological authenticity: researchers must be able to demonstrate that, in

the course of the evaluation, members have developed a more sophisticated understanding of some phenomenon, than they possessed at the outset. • Educative authenticity: researchers must be able to demonstrate that in the course of the evaluation, members have developed a greater understanding of and appreciation form the understandings of other members or groups. • Catalytic authenticity: researchers must be able to demonstrate that the evaluation process has stimulated action. • Tactical authenticity: researchers must be able to demonstrate that members have been empowered to act.

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• Similarly, Eisner (1983) offered three criteria for evaluating qualitative research, which are in line with a relativist position.

• Structural corroboration: by this Eisner means that research accounts, drawing upon different parts of the data, should demonstrate coherence.

• Referential adequacy: readers should be presented with data which enable them to ‘see what the researcher is talking about’.

• Multiplicative replication: the members of the community should believe the findings. (Murphy et al. 1998: 172–3)

Relativist criteria to assess the quality of qualitative research suffer from the same contradictions regarding consistency, intelligibility, meaningfulness and self-refuting premises as strict relativist thinking in general. Let me give just one example: the criterion of fairness. According to this, ‘researchers must be able to demonstrate that they have represented the range of different realities in a balanced way’ (Murphy et al. 1998: 172). Of course, this demonstration presupposes that relativists should, implicitly, exempt some facts from the reach of their own premises, notably the fact that there are different realities that have to be represented in a balanced way. However, from a relativist point of view, the existence of different realities is itself relative to linguistic or discursive constructions of the researcher(s) and thus they cannot serve as a basis for their balanced representation. This is because researchers’ representations constitute or construct the existence of different realities, which are rendered, by relativists, as inseparable from these representations. Hence, fairness becomes itself another discursive or linguistic construct and the result is to have multiple and infinite conceptions of fairness but certainly not a criterion that may be applied to the assessment of the quality of qualitative research. These insurmountable problems are extended to the whole range of relativist criteria. For example, Hammersley (2008: 118) wonders ‘on what grounds can it be assumed that ethical and aesthetic criteria are any less “constructed” than epistemic ones?’ In addition, Porter (2007: 79), referring to suggestions of replacing epistemic with aesthetic and rhetorical criteria for assessing qualitative research findings, asserts that: None of these suggestions provide a viable alternative to validity, defined as the extent to which research reflects accurately that to which it refers. Because the form of research does not determine its content, replacement of epistemology by aesthetics is unsustainable. Because research reports mediate between writer and reader, a one-sided approach to this relationship constitutes a false dichotomy. If we accept the criterion of practitioner confidence as a means of judging methodological approaches, this involves rejection of judgement according to a methodology’s own merits. (Porter 2007: 79)

The confidence criterion to which Porter (2007) refers in the preceding quotation – that is, the degree of practical adequacy of qualitative research findings – results in revealing problems and inconsistencies of relativist, interpretivist and

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generally non-epistemic criteria for judging the value of qualitative findings. Only with the realist notion of differentiation between the transitive and intransitive dimensions of social reality is it possible to formulate criteria for judging the quality of qualitative research and simultaneously to avoid contradictions and inconsistencies. Thus, according to Porter (2007: 84), ‘to maintain coherence, we are forced back to acceptance of a realist position that some perspectives capture actions and events better than others and that robust criteria are required to judge between them’. In line with realist rationale, the same author offers a summary of general criteria to assess the overall quality of qualitative research (taken from Pawson et al. 2003) as follows: While there is no ‘golden key’ to judging validity or rigour, robust procedures have been developed to help knowledge based practitioners ascertain whether or not a knowledge claim can provide them with sufficient confidence to base their practice upon it. For example, Pawson et al. (2003) have developed a set of criteria under the acronym of TAPUPAS that has the merit of not restricting itself to validity, but including other pertinent issues relating to rigour such as ethics and accessibility:

• • • • • • •

Transparency: is the process of knowledge generation open to outside scrutiny? Accuracy: are the claims made based on relevant and appropriate information? Purposivity: are the methods used fit for purpose? Utility: are the knowledge claims appropriate to the needs of the practitioner? Propriety: has the research been conducted ethically and legally? Accessibility: is the research presented in a style that is accessible to the practitioner? Specificity: does the knowledge generated reach source specific standards? (Porter 2007: 85)

The preceding general criteria for assessing the quality of qualitative research may become more ‘specialised’ and more concrete. Thus, Miles and Huberman (1994: 277–80) offer a set of highly detailed quality criteria that may be used to assess the ‘objectivity / confirmability’, ‘reliability / dependability / auditability’, ‘internal validity / credibility / authenticity’, ‘external validity / transferability / fittingness’, and ‘utilization / application / action orientation’ of qualitative research findings. These criteria are formulated with a terminology (objectivity, internal and external validity, reliability) that is common to quantitative research as well. However, when quantitative methods themselves are disconnected from positivism and qualitative ones from relativism and anti-realism, and when they are both placed within a critical realist framework, this is not a problem. Thus, as Murphy et al. (1998: 174) assert: ‘[M]any of the reservations about conventional approaches to judging research and the alternative criteria proposed for qualitative research […] arise from a commitment to an anti-realist position’. Moving further, Maxwell (1996: 87) understands the concept of ‘validity’ of qualitative research findings as the ‘commonsense way to refer to the correctness or credibility of a description, conclusion, explanation, interpretation or other sort of account’ and

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identifies two major validity threats, notably researcher bias and reactivity (see Maxwell 1996: 90–91). While fully acknowledging these threats, realist qualitative researchers exaggerate neither these threats nor their consequences to the extent that relativists do.8 They rather try to elucidate the ways that these threats affect the quality of research findings (Maxwell 1996: 91) and to mitigate them through a series of strategies. Maxwell (1996: 92–6) refers to some of these strategies, notably to the employment of the ‘modus operandi approach’, to ‘searching for discrepant evidence and negative cases’, ‘triangulation’, ‘feedback’, ‘member checks’, ‘rich data’, ‘quasi-statistics’ and ‘comparison’ (see also Miles and Huberman 1994: 262–77). Healy and Perry (2000) propose six ‘comprehensive criteria to judge validity and reliability of qualitative research within the realism paradigm’ (Healy and Perry 2000: 118). These criteria are ‘ontological appropriateness’, ‘contingent validity’, ‘multiple perceptions of participants and of peer researchers’, ‘methodological trustworthiness’, ‘analytic generalisation’ and ‘construct validity’ (Healy and Perry 2000: 122, Table 2). These criteria are considered specific for qualitative research conducted explicitly under the realist meta-theoretical premises of ontological depth, social complexity and generative causality in open systems. The criteria help realist researchers to assess the quality of their research findings according to explicit realist principles – that is, whether findings capture the ontological depth of phenomena and processes, identify proper causal generative mechanisms that produce certain outcomes, contribute to broader theoretical understanding and contain abstractions of certain internal and necessary relations between social objects and transfactual conditions that operate beyond the specific research setting. From a similar, explicitly realist perspective, Yeung (1997: 60) summarises a series of criteria for assessing explanations and theoretical formulations and abstractions derived from realist social research, as follows: 1. A satisfaction of certain a priori conditions of self-consistency: internal validity of the axioms and logical structure of theory.

2. An adequacy in its account of the reproduction and transformation of that system: ‘internal access’ to structures and mechanisms.

3. An a posteriori evaluation of its maximum and revealed explanatory power such that the postulated mechanism is capable of explaining the phenomenon.

4. Its acceptance by most competent members if there are good reasons to believe in the existence of the postulated ‘real’ mechanism.

8  Thus, to realists, the social situatedness of knowledge need not lead to the abandonment of assessing their validity and adequacy. As Sayer (2000: 55) puts it, ‘knowledge is indeed situated but whether the social influences present in a particular kind of science lead to more or less practically adequate results and have good or bad effects is an a posteriori question, and the answers are not determined by the social position of those who answer it’.

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5. Most competent members can be persuaded to adopt it since no other equally good alternative explanations can be thought of.

6. Its dialogical engagement with one’s subject and intersubjectivity between subjects and objects: feedback from human agency.

7. Its ability to make one’s analysis as precise as ‘the nature of the subject permits’ (Aristotle, quoted in Bhaskar, 1986: 168).

8. A successful prediction has a role to play, but it should never be the main/sole criterion.

9. The formulation of successful policy to emancipate human agency from exploitative ‘real’ structures: e.g., changing the structures for housing allocation in Bedford (Sarre, 1987). (Yeung 1997: 60)

The basic ‘guideline’ for assessing the results of realist qualitative research is the full utilisation of central realist principles themselves. Thus, adjudicating between alternative causal explanations of social phenomena and processes is always possible (though not easy) (Sayer 1992) because each explanation presupposes different conditions for its operation that can be tested. Manicas (2009: 13) asserts that ‘among competing explanatory mechanisms, there are different consequences and these are testable’. Tests can be conducted with the aid of ‘independent evidence’ (Sayer 1992: 218–19) pointing to the existence and operation of retroduced conditions of each prospective mechanism. Of course, this presupposes the engagement in multi-sourced, detailed and often multi-method social research and the explicit recognition that social reality is organised in multiple levels with distinct causal powers of their own. The latter entails the acceptance of the realist thesis according to which theoretical concepts, abstractions and explanations refer to or are about realities or aspects of realities that exist relatively or totally independent of them. Similarly, the assessment of the adequacy of different agential interpretations and meanings becomes possible when realist principles are adopted. Thus: The evaluation of interpretations involves the cross-checking of one concept’s sense and reference by another’s, in a kind of ‘triangulation’ process in search of inconsistencies, mis-specifications and omissions. The meaning of each part is continually re-examined in relation to the whole and vice versa. Decisions about interpretations are made in the light of knowledge of the material circumstances, social relations, identities and beliefs and feelings to which the contested ideas relate. In so far as reasons and beliefs can be causes of social events, the evaluation of interpretative understanding is not so different from that of causal explanations as is often supposed. (Sayer 1992: 223)

So far, the discussion in this subsection has been quite general and without explicit reference to qualitative research on migration. As an example of validation processes in qualitative research on migration I refer to a study by Han and Ballis (2007) on alternative medical practices within the community of South

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Korean immigrants in Sydney, Australia. The main reason I refer to this study is that it is explicitly inspired by critical realism and is based on predominately qualitative research methods of data generation, theoretical development and social explanation. The study is based on 120 qualitative interviews ‘with a range of participants, including 8 biomedical doctors, 1 pharmacist, 2 physiotherapists, 8 traditional health professionals (herbalists and acupuncturists), health food shop owners, Korean community leaders and Korean migrant men representing a range of socio-economic backgrounds and migration patterns – 17 amnesty; 14 skilled and 9 business migrants’ (Han and Ballis 2007: 4). The main validation processes that the authors employ in this study – that is, the processes of ensuring that the causal mechanisms rendered responsible for producing certain empirical events are indeed operating in reality – may be summarised as follows. First, the authors engage with a comprehensive critique of alternative approaches to accounting for ethnomedical practices, notably with interpretivist, postmodernist and post-structuralist explanations. The main limitations of these approaches, identified by the authors, lie in the neglect of contextual factors and their inability to effectively connect structure and agency due to the emphasis they put on the individual and micro-level (Han and Ballis 2007). Moreover, the deficiencies of structural explanations are pointed out as well. Thus, ‘[D] eficiency has also been prevalent with studies which adopted “macro” or crude “structuralist” perspectives including some brands of Marxism. While the political economy perspective has clarified the relevance of political economic processes, their implications for the individual experience of illness and health are yet to be fully explored […]’ (Han and Ballis 2007: 12). In this way, the exposure of the limitations in the explanatory power of alternative approaches becomes the vehicle for the formulation of a realist explanation that is able to account more effectively for events, processes and phenomena at the empirical level. Second, the authors formulated a sample that is characterised by high diversity and allows for meaningful comparative analysis of data. This comparative analysis together with the constant cross-checking of information derived from different sources has enhanced the validity of findings. In the authors’ words: The comparison of the perspectives provided by the users […] and providers of health care […] has been an important source of cross-checking the data so that the validity has been increased […]. The cross-checking has also served as a stimulus for examining, for example, discrepancies between the views from the users […] and providers are observed rather than merely being regarded as ‘distorted’ or inaccurate […]. (Han and Ballis 2007: 5)

Finally, by relating qualitative data with data derived from various other sources and utilising them with the help of diverse theoretical elaborations, the authors were able to answer the following explicit realist questions regarding the causal mechanisms behind empirical events, processes and phenomena: ‘what constitutes the characteristics of the relations between complementary health practitioners

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and their patients in the Korean community?; what properties must exist for the use and provision of complementary therapy among Korean immigrants, both at the levels of the Korean community and broader Australian community?’ (Han and Ballis 2007: 5). Using all the above strategies, Han and Ballis (2007) produced findings that, although fallible in principle, are characterised by greater explanatory power than those of alternative ‘culturalist’ or interpretative approaches. Thus, our confidence that the postulated – often unobservable and underlying – causal mechanisms behind empirical patterns of ethnomedical practices are indeed responsible for shaping these patterns is enhanced. Han and Ballis summarise these mechanisms as follows: New social conditions influence the choice of health care methods, including herbal/alternative medicine, health foods and what are often called New Age therapies. The transformations in the labour market and the global effects of the restructuring of work have led to increases in job insecurity, work-related stress and pressure on household budgets. These have also contributed to broader cultural changes, transformations in subjectivity and a pervasive attitude of needing to ‘look after oneself’ […]. Further, transnational mobility of the general population and health professionals, the global supply of herbal or health food remedies, and readily available information through the internet have clearly accelerated the process in which alternative medicine has been commodified and become a significant player of global casino capitalism. (Han and Ballis 2007: 11–12)

4.7 Combining Different Methods in Migration Research Mixed or multi-method approaches to social research have gained prominence during the last 20 years (see Creswell 2008) mainly due to the unconstructiveness of the confrontation between traditional quantitative and qualitative methods – which reproduces the ‘false dichotomy’ of qualitative and quantitative ‘paradigms’ (Newman and Benz 1998) – and due to the increasing complexity of research endeavours and the objects of these endeavours. Brannen (2005: 4) points out that ‘[M]ixed methods research means adopting a research strategy employing more than one type of research method. The methods may be a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods, a mix of quantitative methods or a mix of qualitative methods’. This subsection includes a brief discussion of some central philosophical (ontological and epistemological) dimensions of combining qualitative with quantitative methods on the premises of critical realism and offers a specific mixed-method migration research example that is reasonably consistent with critical realism. In principle, critical realism does not privilege any particular methodological paradigm; it advocates ‘critical methodological pluralism’ (Danermark et al. 2002: 150) and may be viewed as a meta-theory that explicitly guides multi-

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methodological approaches to social research. The combination of qualitative with quantitative (intensive with extensive) methods within the realist framework presupposes de-linking quantitative methods from positivist principles and qualitative methods from interpretivist and relativist ones and applying them in ways that enhance consistency between ontological, epistemological and methodological premises. This position departs from eclecticist and pragmatist approaches, according to which ‘researchers should use whatever methods are needed to obtain the optimum results, even if this involves “switching between” alternative paradigms’ (McEvoy and Richards 2006: 68). This pragmatic stance towards mixing different methods in the same research endeavour inevitably results in serious problems regarding explanatory power of research findings. In reality, this stance – by neglecting ontological and epistemological aspects of social research methodology and by focusing on the ‘practical’ dimensions of conducting social research – leads, in most cases implicitly, to the blending of ontological and epistemological assumptions that are contradictory (McEvoy and Richards 2006). Furthermore, the pragmatic approach to multi-method research presupposes that there is no relation between explicit or implicit philosophical (ontological and epistemological) orientations and methodological strategies or that such relation has no ‘practical’ implications (Scott 2007). Nevertheless, certain implicit ontological and epistemological assumptions are inevitable in any research endeavour and mixing different methods without reworking and modifying their philosophical underpinnings is highly problematic. This happens because of ‘the directive role that ontic and epistemic assumptions play in sensitizing researchers to study topics/problems and the influence exerted by ontology and epistemology on the form that investigation and analysis takes’ (Lipscomb 2008: 36). As McEvoy and Richards (2006: 68) rightly point out: ‘[R]esearchers who attempt to integrate positivist and interpretivist approaches may encounter difficulties as they try to make sense of ‘dissonant data’ obtained using methods based on conflicting epistemological assumptions […]’. Critical realism offers a viable solution to the various problems arising due to the combination of different methods by bringing ontological concerns to the centre of social inquiry and by employing extensive and intensive methods within the same ontological and epistemological principles: Critical realists recognize the existence of logical connections between the ontological, epistemological, and methodological premises that underpin their work. They are therefore more likely to produce coherent studies than uncritical pragmatists who ignore such linkages and, paradoxically, critical realists can be epistemological pluralists because in re-conceptualizing the ontological basis of inquiry, problems associated with the mixing of alternative metaphysics are circumvented. (Lipscomb 2008: 32)

More specifically, for critical realism, intensive (qualitative) and extensive (quantitative) methods serve the same purpose: the identification of causal generative

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mechanisms that produce events (Danermark et al. 2002). The fruitful combination of quantitative and qualitative methods in realist social research presupposes their application in contrast with the traditional ways underpinned by positivist or relativist principles. Thus, the purpose of their combination in realist research is the facilitation of retroductive inference of underlying causal mechanisms. Extensive methods, characterised by powerful descriptive and comparative elements, may be used to identifying ‘demi-regularities’, and intensive methods may be utilised in explaining these ‘demi-regularities’ – that is, in conceptualising generative causal mechanisms that produce them. Although both extensive and intensive methods are considered necessary in realist research, retroductive reasoning is facilitated mainly through the latter (Danermark et al. 2002). In migration studies, the need for the development and application of multimethod approaches was recognised quite early (see White 1980, Findlay and Li 1999), mainly because of the complexity and multidimensionality of migrationrelated phenomena and processes. Today, there is a clear tendency towards mixedmethod migration research, although contradictions and conflicts among different – mostly implicit – ontological and epistemological assumptions are not completely unavoidable. There is always the danger of combining different methods in an ‘additive’ rather than integrative manner and without dealing with contradictions caused by implicit or explicit ontological and epistemological assumptions of different methodological paradigms. For example, Taloyan (2008) conducted a multi-method study on the effects of migration process and experiences to the self-reported health and quality of life of Kurdish immigrants in Sweden. The author conducted five separate studies (three with quantitative methods and two with qualitative methods), while explicitly accepting the traditional connection of quantitative methods with positivism and qualitative with ‘constructivism’ (Taloyan 2008: 12). In this way, she actually blends not only different methods but different, highly contradictory and conflicting epistemological assumptions. An example of mixed-method migration research, highly compatible with realist principles, is a study conducted by Bloemraad (2007) on immigrant political participation and naturalisation processes in the cases of Portuguese and Vietnamese immigrants to the USA and Canada. The author engaged in a mixedmethod comparative study with the aim of identifying the causal mechanisms that result in differentiation of immigrant political participation in the two countries (higher in Canada, lower in the USA). What makes this study worth mentioning here is the employment of a significantly constructive reasoning for mixing different methods that is, more or less, in accordance with the realist point of view. Thus, although the author employed quantitative methods in order to ‘set the stage’ and ‘sophisticated statistical modeling to eliminate alternative hypotheses, such as the notion that U.S.–Canada citizenship differences stem from immigrants’ attributes rather than features of the receiving societies’ (Bloemraad 2007: 43), she explicitly links causal explanation with qualitative, depth methods. In her own words:

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In order to identify the causal ‘mechanisms structuring political incorporation’ (Bloemraad 2007: 43), Bloemraad conducted 151 in-depth interviews ‘with ordinary immigrants and refugees, community leaders, government officials, and others involved in newcomer settlement’ (Bloemraad 2007: 43). The researcher employed ‘process tracing’ in order to gain rich and contextualised qualitative data about the social processes of political incorporation of immigrants and refugees in the USA and Canada. Qualitative data offered insights for the role of individual action and structural-institutional factors in immigrants’ political participation. Bloemraad (2007: 45) points out that: ‘[B]y tracing immigrants’ stories of their political incorporation upward, to the assistance provided by community organizations, and government funding downward, to the financial backing given to these organizations, I could link micro-level dynamics with the larger structural argument about institutional differences’. The most important lessons that this study teaches us, for the purposes of this book, is that: (1) variable-oriented, quantitative methods are more appropriate for descriptive tasks and for identifying demi-regularities; (2) associations between variables are not causal explanations but need to be causally explained; (3) qualitative-intensive, in-depth methods are indispensable for the identification of how exactly things work in reality; and (4) the combination of qualitative and quantitative methods in an integrative and philosophically consistent manner is the best way for achieving more comprehensive and valid results. Regarding this last point, Bloemraad asserts that: statistics described the generalized nature of the problem and helped cast doubt on alternative hypotheses. Qualitative interviews and documentary data uncovered the mechanisms linking the structuring forces of governmental policy to the individual actions and decisions of immigrants and refugees. Without one or the other, the story would have been incomplete. (Bloemraad 2007: 47)

Chapter 5

Conclusions: Critical Realism, Qualitative Migration Research and Politics Making Throughout this book I have advanced the thesis for the development of a different kind of qualitative methodological practice that is in accordance with critical realist principles. Hopefully I have also demonstrated – through real and hypothetical examples derived mainly from migration studies – that this kind of practice is already with us and on the rise, despite the fact that much of qualitative research is still inspired by relativist and idealist commitments. Qualitative methods within the critical realist framework aim at investigating the qualitative (i.e. non-measurable and non-quantified) aspects of social objects –that is to say, their relational make-up and the kind, nature, character and causal consequences of their relations with other social objects. Qualitative methods entail talking to people, observing phenomena and processes, learning from multiple sources of data and participating in social situations. Through all these activities realist qualitative researchers investigate social processes and the causal mechanisms that produce them. Their core task is to identify the qualities – that is, the character and nature – of social entities and objects by virtue of which they can act in certain ways or can exert certain causal influences on their constituents and on other entities and objects. An equally important task of realist qualitative researchers is to account for the results of the interplay among various entities and their causal powers and thus explain social phenomena. According to Porter (2007: 80) ‘there are two main ways of defining “qualitative”. One relates simply to method – qualitative research uses verbal and textual data, while quantitative research relates to numerical data. The other appeals to qualitative research’s grounding in particular ontological, epistemological and methodological assumptions…’. As it is evident from the whole discussion and analysis contained in this book, I fully endorse the former definition and strongly oppose the latter. Different methods – qualitative, quantitative or mixed – are appropriate according to the character of the social aspect under investigation or according to the problem at hand; yet, they are not inherently connected with specific meta-theoretical commitments. Hence, qualitative methods are more appropriate for answering questions about what kind a given social object is, what its basic constituents are and what their interrelation is, what the causal consequences of these relations are and so on. These are essentially qualitative questions that can be addressed better when qualitative methods are employed. The inherent advantages of such methods to answering questions such as the above are enhanced significantly when the ontological and epistemological

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premises of critical realism are adopted. Within such premises qualitative methods become powerful means for the depth investigation of the ways that the distinct – and irreducible to each other – causal powers of people, social structures and cultural forms interact and produce certain phenomena and outcomes. Moreover, within such premises, qualitative methods break with the sole preoccupation with meaning; they also turn their attention to practices, courses of action and social relations of all kind and at various levels. As Archer (2000: 310) puts it ‘[R]ealism is thus “concerned with actions which are practical, not just symbolic: with making (poesis), not just doing (praxis), or rather with doing which is not, or not only saying”’. Realist qualitative research is the adequate way for the identification of mind or consciousness-independent – that is, objective – causal mechanisms since ‘qualitative analysis of objects is required to disclose mechanisms’ (Sayer 1992: 179). Hence, because critical realist social research places causality-as-mechanism – that is, as the interaction and the relational outcome of different causal powers of social objects – and not causality-as-regularity at the centre of social inquiry, qualitative methods are indispensable for their identification and investigation. Thus, as Shapiro and Wendt point out: Realists also favor identifying empirical regularities as one kind of evidence for the existence of causal mechanisms. But they would remind social scientists working in open systems not to conflate regularities with mechanisms and, in particular, not to take the absence of regularities as decisive evidence against a proposed causal theory. Because they regard the primary task of science to be the description of how causal mechanisms work, realists tend to favor qualitative research methods [emphasis added], such as information-intensive case studies, that permit such description… (Shapiro and Wendt 2005: 47)

Moreover, because social reality is relational, stratified, complex and emergent and consists of distinct causal powers of social structures, cultural forms and people and their interplay, ‘qualitative research is essential for any substantive sociological inquiry into how structure and agency are interrelated’ (Cruickshank 2003c: 5). But this kind of qualitative research is theoretically informed and underpinned by certain ontological concerns and commitments. As Cruickshank asserts: instead of starting with qualitative data and then trying to develop a theory to interpret the ‘facts’, we need to start with a theory, of SEPs, CEPs and, of course, PEPs. We need to start with such a theory because we have no theory-neutral access to the world and so we need to make explicit the metalevel assumptions that inform our approach. We need to understand where ‘we are coming from’ to make sense of how the conclusions we draw from empirical research are framed within particular ontological assumptions about how social reality is constituted. (Cruickshank 2003c: 5)

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The preceding rationales and arguments are developed throughout the present book which is characterised by a strong meta-theoretical flavour. This is because I support the thesis according to which the linkages between ontological and epistemological premises with methodological choices and practices are absolutely central for social research and inquiry. These linkages along with their importance and consequences are explored more concretely, taking issue from qualitative research practice in migration studies. The deficiencies of interpretivist and relativist qualitative migration research are exposed and the advantages of the realist approach are highlighted. This highlighting of the strengths of realist qualitative migration research is carried out through accounting for the factual complexity of migration-related processes (see Section 2.1), the theoretical efforts to explain them (see Sections 2.2 and 2.4), the ontological and epistemological presuppositions of migration research in general and qualitative migration research in particular (see Section 2.3 and Chapter 3), the different qualitative methodological and data analysis strategies employed in migration research (see Sections 4.1 to 4.4) and issues related to qualitative research ethics, rigour and multi-method approaches (see Sections 4.5 to 4.7). Throughout the book, a plethora of real and hypothetical examples from migration studies are discussed with the aim of showing the value that the critical realist approach brings in qualitative migration research along with the limitations of alternative perspectives, namely interpretivism, social constructionism and post-structuralism. It is not my purpose here to repeat the advantages of a realist perspective in qualitative migration research but rather to elaborate briefly on some of their most crucial aspects. First, migration, as all social phenomena, is characterised by ontological depth and it is only when this depth is acknowledged and investigated in a comprehensive way that knowledge of phenomena becomes valuable and useful. Processes and phenomena of geographic mobility that are labeled, classified and treated as ‘migratory’ are the result of the interplay between real causal powers and real complex social relations. Realist qualitative methods focus exactly on the investigation of these complex social relations that are responsible for the observable migration-related patterns and phenomena. Second, realist qualitative migration research is oriented towards the identification of generative causal mechanisms of migration-related phenomena and away from reducing them to the discursive level or to the level of observable events, for it acknowledges that social – material and ideational – relations are bearers of causal powers irrespective of human identification and irrespective of the actuality of their manifestation. Third, realist qualitative migration research connects epistemic with moral responsibilities and conceptualises this connection as necessary and non-contradictory. Explaining the ways that structural and cultural relations of domination and asymmetry are produced and reproduced – thus, placing migrants within unfavourable relational arrangements – is closely related to the fact that certain social relations are inherently immoral and have to be transformed. This stance dispenses with cultural relativist doctrines which

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render humans as completely malleable by cultural forms or confuse the inherent causal powers of social relations with the discursive constructions of the character of these relations. Fourth, realist qualitative migration research integrates the causal powers of structures and cultural forms with those of social agents and focus on how their interplay results in certain migration-related phenomena. Thus, realist qualitative methods on migration are always about structural and cultural constraints and enablements of social action and about how agential action tends to transform or reproduce structural and cultural arrangements. Thus, while living in a structureless social reality is impossible (see Danermark et al. 2002: 195), knowledge of the real character, powers and consequences of social and cultural structures is of enormous value for efforts to transform them. Structural arrangements regarding migration-related phenomena – and all social phenomena to be sure – will always be with us, but the issue here is to transform them in a way that their enabling powers are strengthened and their constraining ones are mitigated; and this despite the fact that negative and unintended consequences of action, including structural transformation action, is always a possibility. Now, the preceding four remarks raise questions about the relevance of realist qualitative research on migration and its relations with practical policy making. A thorough analysis of the complexity of relations between migration research in general and realist qualitative migration research in particular exceeds the scope of the book and of this brief concluding chapter. Nevertheless, I should make a series of remarks which are connected, in direct or indirect ways, with the overall rationale developed in the book. I do not think that realist qualitative migration research can be utilised in a constructive way within contemporary ‘utilitarian’ and ‘managerial’ policy practice. This kind of policy practice is prevalent today and contributes to the proliferation and reproduction of ‘exclusionary politics’ regarding migration and population mobility (see Squire 2009: 21–8). Moreover, this kind of policy practice is already heavily supported by ‘scientistic’ and ‘neo-positivist’ social research that takes certain assumptions for granted and ‘contributes to racial and cultural stereotypes’ (Samers 2010: 128). For example, such research is strongly characterised by ‘methodological nationalism’ and uses categories and thought frames derived by state or other administrative units in a high uncritical manner (see Glick Schiller 2007). In this way, and in realist terms, there are ‘concomitant complementarities’ (see Archer 1995: 234) between ideas developed by utilitarian and managerial migration policy practice and neo-positivist migration social research, resulting in their mutual re-enforcement. In contrast, realist qualitative migration research contributes to the critical dismantling of prevalent categories that obscure the possibilities of knowing the workings of real causal powers; for our case of unequal power relations and of structural and cultural forces that create unfavourable, discriminatory, domineering and exploitative environments within which much of human mobility takes place (see Glick Schiller 2007). Hence, this kind of research (realist and critical, that is) is of little use for mainstream policymaking which anyway, and to a great extent, utilises selectively various research findings in order to legitimise its practices.

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Nevertheless, I do not think that realist qualitative migration research is of no practical and wider social relevance. Far from this; I think that this kind of research can contribute significantly to the modification of socio-political conditions of practical policy making. In other words, realist qualitative migration research can contribute in a highly effective way to what I call ‘politics making’. Politics making, in the way I use the term, is nothing more than affecting the prevalent socio-political terms which tend to reproduce social relations of domination and exploitation and simultaneously obscure the possibility of knowing them through the employment of distorted representations of social reality. In the case of migration, politics making refers not only to mainstream politics but more to the level of ‘politics form below’ and to politics produced by social movements. For example, realist qualitative migration research can inform social movements of immigrants and/or non-immigrants who challenge persistent domineering, exploitative and discriminatory structural and cultural arrangements (see Squire 2009, especially Chapters 7 and 8). Social research that uncovers underlying causal mechanisms and engages in comprehensive explanatory critiques of persistent unequal power relations that underpin, to a great extent, contemporary migration-related processes and phenomena, can be of great value in coordinated, collective efforts to modify the conditions of practical policy making. Hence, affecting politics is a necessary precondition for a migration policy-making practice oriented towards social justice, equality and human emancipation. In this book, I have tried to show that a causal explanatory kind of qualitative research on migration-related phenomena, rather than being an obstacle, actually contributes to the enhancement of emancipatory action, social critique and realitygrounded ethical commitments. I have also tried to show that critical realism offers the best solution to this conundrum. In contrast to positivism and relativism alike, critical realism allows us to be both scientific and critical regarding social reality in general and migration-related social realities in particular. As already mentioned before, this book contains numerous hypothetical and real examples of qualitative migration research which indicate the advantages of the realist approach. I think that the best way to end the book is to offer another example which demonstrates clearly the critical and explanatory power of realist qualitative research. This example refers to a study of ‘sex work stigma’ by Scambler (2007: 1079) which focuses on the experiences of ‘opportunist migrants in London’ (Scambler 2007: 1079). The author adopts an explicitly realist rationale of conducting qualitative research on the issue and of utilising the qualitative data derived by it. Research is based on 12 qualitative interviews with migrant women from Eastern Union and the former USSR working ‘as escorts in central London, typically on a short-term opportunistic basis’ (Scambler 2007: 1079). The aim of the study is predominately explanatory as it aims to identify the causal powers of various interrelated social structures and to account for the role of linkages between structural, cultural and agential factors regarding sex work stigma, in the era of ‘disorganised capitalism’, ‘that is, the period from the early 1970s to the present’ (Scambler 2007: 1079–80). The author places his analysis of qualitative

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data derived through the interviews within the predominant, broad socio-cultural features and processes which characterise contemporary British society, namely ‘glocalisation’, the ‘reinvigoration of class relations at the expense of command relations’, ‘post welfare statism’, the ‘politics of personal responsibility’, the ‘destandardization of work’, the ‘culture-ideology of consumerism’, the ‘postmodern culture’, the ‘problematic of family (dis)enchantment’ and the ‘new dynamic for identity formation’ (Scambler 2007: 1085, Figure 3). Within this broad socio-cultural environment, Scambler (2007) examines the causal powers of specific structural relations (i.e. generative mechanisms) that condition the agential action of migrant sex workers from Eastern Europe and the former USSR in London. These structural relations are ‘class’, ‘command’, ‘gender’, ‘ethnic’ and ‘stigma’ and are linked to certain logics, namely the ‘regime of capital accumulation’, ‘mode of regulation’, ‘patriarchy’ ‘tribalism’ and ‘shame’, respectively (Scambler 2007: 1086, Figure 4). Moreover, the author accounts for the multiple interrelations among these structural relations and how they causally affect stigmatisation of migrant sex workers. Through the qualitative interviews, Scambler (2007) gained knowledge of the experiences, practices and life conditions of research participants and placed them within a specific, explanatory theoretical scheme. This scheme is termed by Scambler (2007: 1086) ‘logics, relations and figurations’ and according to it: ‘[T] he concept of logic captures the coherence, thrust and causal potential of social structures as generative mechanisms (Scambler, 2002). Each logic is associated with a set of relations that can be studied indirectly through its effects on events across any number of figurations’. Of course, it is impossible to reproduce the whole analysis here as this is beyond the purpose of referring to this example. Instead, three brief comments about the findings of the study are worth quoting: …relations of stigma can be grasped sociologically only as part of a nexus of social structures or relations, each with causal potential, differentially informing events in a given figuration. Moreover, such is the heterogeneity not only of the sex work population itself but also of sex work figurations – increasingly involving migration – that no single transfigurational explanatory model will do. (Scambler 2007: 1092) …there is an enduring tension between structure and agency. Archer (1995) has shown how an individual’s initially ‘involuntary placement’ in society brings in its wake ‘vested interests’ which the mediating mechanism of ‘opportunity costs’ helps translate into consciousness or conduct. Reasons for actions, structurally filtered, often become rationalizations appropriate to an individual’s vested interests. (Scambler 2007: 1092)

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…it is evident that the law and policing of sex work can be neither understood nor humane and effective unless attention is paid to the industry’s structural underpinnings… (Scambler 2007: 1093)

Now, Scrambler’s study is, in my view, another paradigmatic case of the kind of qualitative migration research practice that this book proposes and advances; a kind of realist qualitative migration research which is simultaneously explanatory, critical, emancipatory and socio-politically relevant.

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Index

Alexander, M. 204–207 Archer, M.S. 24, 32–36, 48, 50–51, 70, 77–87, 105, 107, 112, 117–118, 135–146, 142, 162, 167, 179, 182, 193–194, 201, 211, 232, 234 Baghramian, M. 115, 120,219 Berg, B.L. 104–105, 178 Best, J. 111, 115, 118 Bhaskar, R. 45, 49, 51,53, 55–56, 64, 78, 225 Brokensha, M. 122–125 Bunge, M. 47, 106, 146, 150, 155 Burawoy, M. 187–188 Burr, V. 81, 110–111 Byrne, D. 155–156, 202 Carter, B. 11, 24, 30, 42, 116, 138, 162–165 CAS 71–73 Castles, S. 5–28, 38, 174–175 Collier, A. 36, 46–49, 56, 62, 65, 67, 91–95, 217 Collinson, S. 24–25, 28–30 conflationism 80–81, 88, 108, 157, 174 methodological individualism 2, 20, 27, 33–34, 48, 76–81, 100, 103, 131 methodological holism 22, 77, 79 methodological situationism 34, 79 central 80 Creaven, S. 36, 47, 58, 78, 81, 98, 105–106, 109, 116–117, 152 critical realism 45–126 agency 24–25, 29, 33–38, 42, 48, 59, 64, 67, 78–79, 82, 84–85, 87, 101, 105, 108, 110, 113, 116–117, 121–122, 124–125, 145, 164, 226 causality 54–55, 61–90 CEPs 48, 83–84, 86–89, 117, 135, 232 complexity 68–76

culture 73, 77–90, 107, 110, 122–123, 169, 185, 236 domains of reality 53–54, 147 emergence 68–76 explanatory critique 142, 146, 158–159, 219, 235 external and contingent relations 63, 131, 134, 145, 151, 166 internal and necessary relations 63, 82–84, 89, 131–132, 134–136, 145, 151, 158, 166–167, 204, 209, 224 intransitivity 2, 49,51,57,59,101, 171, 203, 209 nature of social reality 18, 42, 49, 108, 164, 179 ontology 18, 32–33, 35, 47, 55, 68, 77, 79, 81, 88, 92, 95, 97, 132, 144, 154, 167, 173, 203, 228 PEPs 48, 84, 86, 88–89, 135, 232 relationality 29, 33, 131 SEPs 48, 84, 86, 88–89, 135, 232 social research methods 1, 3, 127–230 social structure 21, 64, 77–80, 83, 107, 124, 135, 164, 187–188 stratification 2, 27, 36, 55–56, 58, 63, 68, 93, 113, 135, 168, 180, 189, 199, 209 theorising and explanation 42, 45, 55, 77–90 theory, role of 128, 136–137 transitivity 2, 49, 51, 57, 171 Cruickshank, J. 45–48, 51, 54–56, 58, 77, 80–81, 87, 92, 115, 145, 168, 232 Danermark, B. 37, 46–48, 53–55, 60–63, 67, 93–94, 103, 127–129, 131, 134–137, 142, 134, 151, 156, 166, 171–173, 176, 209, 209, 227, 229, 234 demi-regularities 94, 131, 133, 156, 229–230

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discourse 41, 46, 50–52, 58–60, 95, 104, 109, 111, 113, 115–116, 118–119, 121–125, 138, 140, 149, 152, 159 double hermeneutics 57

Huberman, A.M. 35, 133, 144–146, 154–156, 175–177, 208–209, 215, 221, 223–224 hylo-realism 47

Elder-Vass, D. 68, 70, 212 elisionism 34, 77, 79, 81, 108 emergentist Marxism 47 empirical realism 46, 51, 59, 97 epistemic fallacy 33, 48, 55, 92, 95, 99, 102, 104, 113, 116, 121, 124 epistemology 18, 32–33, 35, 47, 55, 96, 111, 116, 222, 228 evidence-based research 35, 141 experience 92–93, 102–103, 106, 108–109, 117, 125, 147, 152, 157, 170–171, 181, 183, 209, 217–218, 226

idealism 43, 45–47, 88, 91, 103, 115, 121, 124, 128, 198 identity 1–2, 38, 42, 73, 87, 105–109, 117–118, 122–123, 125, 138–139, 143, 148, 152–153, 157, 162–163, 165, 167, 182–184, 191, 218, Iosifides, T. 11, 15, 19–21, 26–27, 37, 52, 56, 62, 67, 100, 110, 133, 139, 149–150, 153–54, 156, 167, 173, 175, 177, 180, 185, 192, 218

Fairclough, N. 44, 111, 119, 121, 124, 133, 145, 197–202 Faist, T. 11. 14, 18, 22 Favell, A. 38 Fleetwood, S. 47, 54–55, 111, 114–115, 145–146, 148

language 51, 58–60, 73, 86–87, 99, 104, 107, 110–116, 120, 142, 146, 149, 152, 164, 186, 197, 199–200, 218, 220 Lawrence, C.M. 190–191 linguistic fallacy 99, 104 lived experience 37, 102–103, 109, 147, 209

genetic fallacy 55–56 Glick Schiller, N. 234 Haas, de H. 20–22, 28 Hames-García, M.R 42, 115–116, 145, 152, 186 Hammersley, M. 120–121, 144, 147, 155, 157, 169, 181, 186–187, 197–198, 220–221 Hartwig, M. 32, 34, 45–48, 51, 53–56, 63, 67, 86, 95, 97–101, 137, 144–146, 154 Hatziprokopiou, P.A. 40, 183–184 Hedberg, C. 134, 139, 165–167 Hibberd, F.J. 54, 91–92, 109–111, 113, 115–116, 197, 190 history of migratory movements 5–18 after World War II 9–12 before World War II 8–9 contemporary trends 12–18 industrialisation 6–8 pre-modern 5–6

King, R. 5–6, 8–11, 14–15, 17, 67, 150

Manicas, P. 46, 65, 98–100, 132, 145, 147, 157, 225 MASs 75 Maxwell, J.A. 31, 42, 132, 144–146, 149, 154–156, 168–169, 171, 223–224 meaning 50–51, 55, 58, 74, 79, 92, 96–99, 102–105, 111–113, 115–116, 125, 128, 131, 146–147, 154, 157, 179, 187, 189, 193, 195, 209, 225, 232 migration 32–43 central themes 39–43 epistemological issues 33–39 methodological approaches 33–39 Miles, M.B. 35, 133, 144–146, 154–156, 175–177, 208–209, 215, 221, 223–224 Mouzelis, N. 34, 79, 81–182, 90, 104–105, 137, 146, 158 Moya, P.M.L. 42, 74, 108, 115–116, 145, 152–153, 186

Index necessity 46, 47, 63, 95, 157, 210 Nellhaus, T. 99, 113 New, C. 137–138, 158 Norris, C. 103 Papastergiadis, N. 16, 21 Patomäki, H. 54–55, 95, 116 Pawson, R. 61, 63, 96–97, 135–136, 141, 145, 179–180, 223 performativity of language 122, 181, 197 Porpora, D. 33, 40, 78–80, 82, 100, 151, 164 Portes, A. 25, 28, 30 positivism 91–95 postmodernism 81, 91, 108–111, 115–116, 118, 120, 126, 149, 152 post-structuralism 45, 81, 91, 102, 108–111, 115–117, 120–121, 126, 149, 152, 154, 233 practice 36, 58–60, 67, 72, 86–87, 115, 117, 133, 147, 149–151, 157, 166, 200–201, 204, 211, 219, 223 qualitative methods/qualitative methods on migration 178–214 action and participatory research 105, 140, 161, 178 biographical research 191–197 case study 202–207 CDA 197–202 ECM 187–188 ethnography-participant observation 184–191 evaluation 178 focus groups 178 internet-based methods 201–202 interviewing 178–184 QDA 208–214 visual methods 178 qualitative research/qualitative migration research 127–227 ethics 214–219 ethnomethodology 97, 101, 104, 121, 192 examples of realist qualitative migration research 144–162 interpretivism 95–109 migration research design 167–178

265

phenomenology 97, 101–104, 109, 192 quality and rigour 219–227 realist 162–167 social constructionism 109–126 quantitative methods 27–28, 31–39, 47, 75–76, 90, 94, 129, 131, 133, 227–230 Ragin, C.C. 37, 133, 155–156, 175, 202–203 realist social research 127–143 examples of 138–143, 144–162 guidelines for conducting realist qualitative research 145–146 mixed 227–230 quantitative 129, 131, 133 qualitative 127–162 reductionism 33, 42, 45, 72–74, 77–79, 81, 87–88, 91, 100, 104, 111, 115, 122, 124, 131, 149, 157, 159, 170, 174, 186, 192, 198, 219 referentiality of language 112 regularities 27, 33, 54–55, 62–63, 79, 93–94, 129–131, 232 relativism 46–47, 54–56, 88, 111, 113–114, 117, 120–121, 124, 128–129, 144, 147, 152, 159, 164, 168–169, 181, 186, 188, 192, 194, 197–198, 200, 216, 221, 223, 235 Robson, C. 144, 185 Samers, M. 234 Sassen, S. 15–16 Sawyer, K.R. 27–28, 47, 51, 68–71, 146, 154 Sayer, A. 30, 32–33, 46–50, 52, 54, 56–59, 61–66, 69, 81, 94, 98–101, 112–113, 115, 117–118, 128–130, 133, 136, 145–147, 151, 155, 164, 166, 187, 193, 219–220, 224–225, 232 Scambler, G. 235–237 Sealey, A. 142 self-refentiality 51, 112–113, 153 symbolic interactionism 97, 101, 104–105, 192 system 10, 28–29, 65, 70–73, 76, 78, 82, 164 theories of migration 18–32 micro-level 18–20

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realist 31–32 structuralist 20–22 synthetic attempts 27–30 transnationalism/social capital 22–27 Tilley, N. 61, 63, 96–97, 135–136, 141, 145, 179–180 truth 47, 55–56, 91, 96–97, 111–112, 114. 116–117, 120, 124, 126, 152, 200, 217

correspondence theory of 116 practical adequacy, as 47, 172, 222 Walby, S. 116, 144, 147 Wengraf, T. 145, 148, 168–169, 179 Wight, C. 116, 144, 147 Yeung, H.W. 137, 140, 151, 155–156, 171–172, 181, 224–225