Action and representation – A comment on Batel and Castro 'Re‐opening the dialogue between the theory of social representations and discursive psychology'. (22nd August 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Potter, Jonathan
• Other Names: Cichocka Aleksandra guestEditor.
• Is Part Of: British journal of social psychology. Volume 58:Part 2(2019)
• Page Start: 410
• Page End: 414
• Publication Date: 2018-08-22
• Subjects: discursive psychology -- theory of social representations -- action -- conversation analysis -- interviews -- thematic analysis -- communication -- naturalistic data -- discourse analysis -- qualitative research; Social psychology -- Periodicals; 302.05
• DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12275
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0144-6665

Abstract

Abstract : Batel and Castro propose a reconciliation of social representation theory and discursive psychology. This comment highlights the continuing relevance of long‐standing critiques of social representation theory from discursive psychologists as well as their central focus on both how representations are built to appear factual and the role of representations in practices. It suggests that the analytic approaches proposed by Batel and Castro (e.g., focus groups and thematic analysis) are not sufficient to the analytic task. The proposed 'Pragmatic Discourse Analysis' falls short on its central task of identifying pragmatics. The virtues of working with naturalistic data using methods that attend to the action orientation of talk and text are pressed.