Blackwell Reference Online

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Reconstructive analysis refers to a specific method of analyzing qualitative data based primarily on principles from universal pragmatics and critical theory, but employing adapted insights from hermeneutics and structuralism as well. It is used to study meaning and symbolically structured forms of experience at many different substantive levels: from analysis of singular meaningful actions to the analysis of themes and discourses that distinguish an entire culture or subculture. It is a non-empiricist, interpretive method because its object of inquiry – meaning – is not objective in nature. Participants’ intuitive knowledge is first grasped tacitly by the researcher through some combination of maeutic interviewing, participant observation, and/or stimulated recall. Analysis then proceeds based on hermeneutically guided understandings of the tacit knowledge routinely employed by participants, in order to reconstruct (put into explicit discourse) what was formerly implicit. The standard by which to determine successful or unsuccessful reconstructions resides in the intuitive knowledge of one's subjects, who should recognize the researcher's formulations as being accurate. The historical roots of reconstructive analysis can be traced to Habermas's use of the expression “reconstructive sciences” during the 1970s for distinguishing a methodology that had already been in use within subfields ... log in or subscribe to read full text