A psycho-discursive approach to analysing qualitative interview data, with reference to a father—son relationship

Abstract

I want to make a case, following some recent social psychological thinking (Georgaca; Frosh et al.; Hollway and Jefferson), for using psychoanalytic concepts to inform qualitative interviewing and (particularly) the analysis of interview data. More specifically, I wish to advocate the use of both discursive and psychoanalytic perspectives in facilitating qualitative data analysis: the deployment of psychoanalytic concepts directs us to interviewee biographies and subjectivity, complementing the discursive emphasis on the language use and function during interviews. To illustrate the benefits of this ‘psychodiscursive’ approach, I draw upon interview data on a father-son relationship, derived from a wider ESRC-sponsored Node project on family resemblances, to trace defensive as well as discursive patterns in the interview data. I will be arguing that both discursive and psychoanalytic frameworks can offer valuable, and not necessarily incompatible, levels of interpretation, while either perspective presented in isolation will lead to an impoverished analysis.