Dialogical exemplars as communicative tools: Resituating knowledge from dialogical single case studies

Morgan’s (2014) strategies for resituating knowledge

In ‘Resituating Knowledge: Generic Strategies and Case Studies’, Morgan (2014) outlines three strategies that enable scientists (in all disciplines) to ‘resituate knowledge’, that is, to make locally generated knowledge relevant to other sites. These strategies are distinguished on the basis of the level of generality being discussed, whether to another local site, to several local sites, or through exemplifying a type. The first strategy, local to local transfer, is described as direct between two sites, although the process of resituating in these cases may be akin to ‘stepping stones’, insofar as it depends upon a series of careful comparisons between sites in terms of ‘contexts, events, elements, and causal processes’ (Morgan, 2014, p. 1015). In contrast, resituating knowledge from one local site to several others relies upon a process of desituating, and then resituating, that knowledge. In this second strategy, what is specific needs to become abstract before it is available to several different local sites. Although a degree of comparability is still important to this process, the second strategy is more like a ‘ladder’, and requires a certain form of conceptual characterisation. Specifically, it requires that researchers ascend from one local site in a sort of ‘middle-level abstraction’ (Morgan, 2014, p. 1018) from the local, to less than general, level.

The third strategy, establishing the local as general in different ways, is more complex. Described as a process that leads to ‘representatives’, either ‘constructed representatives’ (from a number of local sites to a definition of typical characteristics) or ‘exemplar representatives’ (from one local site that itself defines the type), this strategy also requires a degree of comparability between cases. This is particularly so for ‘statistically constructed representative[s]’ (Morgan, 2014, p. 1020), but also relevant to ‘exemplar representatives’, the latter of which are concerned with that which can be considered ‘typical’ in non-taxonomic terms.

Morgan’s (2014) strategies are a valuable attempt to think cross-disciplinarily about the status of knowledge that is gained from single case studies, and specifically about the processes by which researchers might move beyond the particularities of their cases. In what follows, however, we attempt to explain how these strategies, in dialogical research, take a rather different shape: as stepping (and skipping) stones; as snakes and ladders; and as employing dialogical exemplars that convey the ‘wholeness’ of cases to various audiences. Our analyses lead us to suggest that (i) resituating knowledge involves several, non-linear, stages, and (ii) dialogical exemplars are one way for researchers to engage in this open-ended process.

Stepping (and skipping) stones

The case studies with which this article is concerned were built over 30 years apart, with Gerard Duveen and Barbara Lloyd studying gender identities in classrooms in England during the years 1986–1989, and Martina Cabra studying children’s gender differentiation across different settings in Switzerland during the years 2017–2019. Both studies adopted a sociocultural approach; Lloyd and Duveen (1992) grounded their project in the theory of social representations, and were clearly also influenced by Piaget and Vygotsky (Duveen, 1997) and Bartlett (Moscovici, 1990). Inspired by the first case, Cabra’s is an explicitly dialogical single case study that combines insights from sociocultural psychology to understand gender as a semiotic system (Lloyd & Duveen, 1990) with cultural theories of gender as performative (Butler, 1990, 1993).

In terms of their contexts, Lloyd and Duveen’s (1992) research was conducted at a time when psychologists generally distinguished between sex (as biological) and gender (as social) (Archer & Lloyd, 1986); when teachers in primary schools (in the UK, for children aged 5–11 years) had received explicit directives from local government authorities to avoid sexism in the classroom; and when the possibility that children might identify outside of the gender binary was not yet part of public discussion. Cabra’s study, conversely, was conducted during the so-called ‘Gender Revolution’ (National Geographic, 2017); in scholarly circles, it is now increasingly common for theorists to conceptualise gender as something that is ‘done’, rather than something that one ‘has’ (West & Zimmerman, 1987); and in social life, the gender binary of ‘two and only two’ (Lucal, 1999) has been subject to increasing, and increasingly vociferous, challenge.

One of the questions we first asked ourselves, then, was whether this lack of equivalence between contexts meant that the knowledge gained from Lloyd and Duveen’s (1992) research resisted direct resituation to Cabra’s case. We raise this question here to reflect upon what the direct resituation of knowledge, in Morgan’s definition, means. Morgan stresses the need to find relations of equivalence to identify similarities between cases, and thus resituate case study ‘findings’. Yet, if we establish comparability based on difference rather than equivalence, as we could with Lloyd and Duveen (1992) and Cabra’s work, we need to ‘skip’ stones, as well as ‘step’ them. In so doing, we skip some of the stages traditionally thought of as necessary to make inferences from one case to another. This point is obvious, and it is not new: as researchers, we dialogue with, and take inspiration from, case studies conducted by other researchers, irrespective of whether we establish relations of equivalence between theirs and our own. With respect to the cases with which we are concerned, the strategy of stone stepping was based neither upon finding equivalences across contexts, nor on the assumption that similar findings would be generated from each case. Rather, relying on apparent empirical differences and conceptual commonalities (the latter being a mutual acknowledgement of sociogenetic, ontogenetic and microgenetic processes as central for developing a sociocultural understanding of the dynamic nature of social life; see also Marková et al., 2020; Zittoun, 2020), Cabra framed her research questions in a similar way to Lloyd and Duveen (1992), asking, in particular, how the process of gender differentiation takes place. The stepping (and skipping) stones strategy may therefore generate knowledge about the questions to pose in a dialogical single case study, and the lens through which to view the case (here on children’s relationship to gender).

(Snakes and) ladders

Whether or not we put it in writing, as researchers, we also often move between studies, reflecting upon the research we are doing in relation to previous contributions (stone stepping), and indeed reflecting upon previous contributions in relation to our own. In other words, we produce dialogues between texts, and dialogue with our academic colleagues using texts. For the cases presented in this article, we found this dialoguing between – what we here call the ‘snakes and ladders’ strategy – highly rewarding. As we shall show, the ascent from Cabra’s research to middle-range concepts and subsequent return to Lloyd and Duveen’s (1992) work allowed us to re-read the latter as a dialogical single case study, which, like Cabra’s, provides an insight into gender as a semiotic system that is evident in children’s (inter)actions. From dialoguing between the cases, we developed two insights, relating to semiosis and to multivoicedness, respectively. We now turn to what this strategy of (climbing up) ladders and (going down) snakes looked like in practice.

Dialogical exemplars

The use of empirical material in qualitative research to substantiate researchers’ claims is commonplace (Fahy, 2008). But what is the status of these ‘bits of data’ that are deployed to support researchers’ propositions? In the literature, an exemplar is ‘a given manifest content (…) represented in terms of a set of diachronic and synchronic combinations of an infinite set of occurrences’ (Salvatore & Valsiner, 2010, p. 823). Yet, these sets of occurrences – presented in some sort of relation and in reference to specific content – will always be considered exemplars of something. Are they ‘examples’? Representative exemplars? Constructed representatives? These questions are posed, in Morgan’s (2014) work, in terms of the relationship between the empirical material chosen and a general population, class or sample. In contrast, we view these exemplars through a dialogical lens, and suggest that the rich empirical material chosen to support researchers’ analyses constitutes something of a ‘world-within-a-world’ (Stenner, 2017). Exemplars have the characteristic of conveying the ‘wholeness’ of cases, as sites of convergence of the different dynamics at stake, as well as serving as testament to the ethical concerns of researchers. They are also communicative tools: that is, a way to return abstract analyses and conclusions to their origin, and thus a means through which to convey the wholeness and richness of cases to different audiences.

What is the meaning of the claim that dialogical exemplars convey the ‘wholeness’ of cases? We start from the proposition that a dialogical single case study is concerned with processes of change (or dynamics; see Marková et al., 2020), and contend that these processes are of different speeds, and take different forms (in the life of a person, in the course of an interaction, or in a historical period, a nation, or an institution). In the themes of play, object use, and voices in dialogue, these three streams materialise in different ways: as the chosen characters, toys and other materials, or the people who are quoted in children’s speech. Returning to the first example, of Nadine, whose play took the form of animal families, it is possible to identify such dynamics: there are a series of microgenetic instances in which certain play themes are chosen and negotiated; there is also a description of what is there, and with which objects to play what, as crystallisation of a sociogenetic stream. Having followed Nadine over time, Cabra was also able to identify the ontogenetic aspects of what matters to her, and how she usually interacts – by finding a combination that allows her to resist the direct imposition of the social fabric through her interests, in a kind of ‘quiet resistance’ to gender norms that are anchored in objects and imposed by her peers.

Similarly, in several other exemplars considered in this article – Script Y (Lloyd & Duveen, 1992) and Natalie and the doll/motorbike (Cabra, 2019) – we documented how different forms of ventriloquism appear in children’s experience of gender. Here again, we find the convergence of different levels, where objects and forms of spatial organisation are inhabited and taken up in children’s interactions, while taking concrete form within each child’s life. As such, these are not simply examples of individual children’s play in dialogical perspective. As exemplars, they speak to the broader themes of dialogical single case studies, and can be used to convey cases in their ‘wholeness’, despite ostensibly being a relatively small part of these wholes.

The example of Natalie is of further interest as it demonstrates the sense in which dialogical exemplars are testament to the ethical concerns of researchers. In Cabra’s work, this commitment is clear in two senses: the first, relating to the researcher’s literal engagement in play. In Natalie’s doll/motorbike example, we see how the ‘dialogical problems’ that can result from the positioning of ‘researcher’ and ‘researched’ (Hviid & Beckstead, 2011; see also Zadeh, 2017) are resolved through the researcher’s engagement with the child’s interests. Such examples can therefore reveal the commitment of the researcher to her participants as it unfolds in the field, and so her commitment to a research ethics that is consistent with dialogical epistemology.

Yet it is also through the documentation of these play scenes, in both Cabra’s and in Lloyd and Duveen’s (1992) case studies, that researchers’ commitments to their participants are communicated. Beyond being cases of ‘thick description’ (Geertz, 1973) that enable audiences to have ‘confidence’ in authors’ conclusions (see e.g. Gaskell & Bauer, 2000), we suggest that these exemplars, being richly detailed parts of lives as they are lived, are ethical. We make this proposition in spite of the fact that Lloyd and Duveen (1992) themselves described their extensive use of material from observations as a ‘manifest limitation’ (Lloyd & Duveen, 1992, p. 171), having drawn a distinction between the sophistication of children’s ‘explanations’ and children’s ‘practices’. Instead, it seems that it is through these different dialogical exemplars that the authors’ commitment to the lives of their participants, and their engagement with their experiences, is clearest. ³ Indeed, it is noteworthy, but perhaps not surprising, that readers have often drawn upon the example of Seth in their commentaries about Lloyd and Duveen’s (1992) work specifically, and in reflecting upon sociocultural phenomena in general (see e.g. Gillespie & Cornish, 2010; Howarth, 2010).

In this sense, dialogical exemplars can also serve as communicative tools that open up dialogue between different audiences. It is here that we arrive at the conclusion that dialogical exemplars can serve as a strategy for ‘resituating knowledge’. Communicated to different audiences (to oneself as researcher; to other researchers; to participants; and to communities), they are a form of communication about the interplay between the social semiotic fabric and engagements within the lives of the people being researched. They are the means by which the researcher invites further dialogue with an anticipated audience, and so are a means to preserve the ‘open-ended’ nature of cases (Bakhtin, 1984). As researchers, we have all attended conferences in which the ‘rich empirical detail’ (Cornish, 2020) provided by our colleagues ‘moves’ us (Hviid, 2008) in ways that theory alone cannot. We contend that this is because exemplars are not simply a matter of colour, or a decorative addendum to a theoretical argument, but rather instances for dialogue, with the self–other at their core, through which the ‘wholeness’ of cases can be communicated. Dialogical exemplars, then, are not a means of verification, but a communicative tool with which to resituate knowledge in different contexts.