Realism and Social Science

“Thus, we employed a methodology where the aim is not to provide statistical representativeness or to develop empirical generalizations (George & Bennett, 2005), but to nuance theoretical assumptions through abductive reasoning (Edwards, O’Mahoney, & Vincent, 2014; Sayer, 2000).”

“Thus, while the positivist stance in geography has been critiqued as making dubious epistemological claims to explaining everything, equally problematic are the ambiguities of a relational stance that would seem to render any sort of explanation impossible (Sayer, 2000).”

“One of the hallmarks of critical realism is its approach to causation; rather than advocating a regularity view of causation, realists support an open-system view of causation (Sayer, 2000).”

“It understands reality to be stratified into hierarchically organized levels of causal powers working through generative mechanisms, with the properties of emergent phenomena irreducible to those of their constituents (Danermark et al. 2002; Sayer 2000).”

“In working with these tools from critical realism, we were also alert to Sayer’s (2000)”

“Like Sayer (2000), Stoler (2016) too has maintained that colonial-postcolonial linkages are rarely self-evident.”

“…positivism with regularities, correlation and a search for laws, and the reliance of poststructuralism, postmodernism and postcolonialism on hermeneutics, interpretation and description rather than causal explanation, was critical realism (Archer et al., 2016; L opez and Potter, 2001; Sayer, 2000).”

“…produces non-explicative predictions, that is to say generalizations of causality or ideal types without explanatory penetration, intensive research produces nonpredictive explanations, that is to say causal explanations or interpretations of the production of specific outcomes (Sayer, 2000: 21).”

“The method of inference by postulating mechanisms, which are capable of generating the events, we observed, is referred to as ‘retroduction’ (Bhaskar, 1978; Sayer, 2000).”

“…theorists rightly draw attention to the complex, messy and overlapping nature of social processes, then there is all the more need for careful abstraction and conceptualisation in order to identify the various components and influences and to consider how they combine and interact (Sayer 2000: 19).”

“The method of constant comparison [68] was used to query and refine the initial programme theory and other emergent hypotheses throughout the trial.”

“Taylor (2013) has revised this transition by viewing it through relations between cities and states; the early modern European city network is found to be the 8th largest in history before 1800.”

“This might surprise critical realists for whom the realist approach is an inherently normative endeavour aimed at making the world more just (Sayer, 2000).”

“Like social constructionism, critical realism accepts that our efforts to apprehend reality will always be shaped and limited by myriad factors that make our experience of reality fundamentally relative (Sayer, 2000).”

“Higher properties should be seen as causal outcomes of interactions or coupling mechanisms (Sayer, 2000; Van den Berghe, 2018) between lower level properties, and from the moment they exist, influence these lower level properties and their interactions (Lawson, 1997; Massey, 1992).”

“It assumes that these events are caused by real processes which operate even when they are not being observed (Bhaskar, 1975; Sayer, 2000).”

“Consistent with the notion of ‘fit for purpose’ [29], our methodological approach involves both quantitative and interdisciplinary qualitative methods to generate insight on the interrelationships between context, mechanisms, and outcomes across four phases.”

“Following critical realism, we can argue that explanations and arguments developed through decades of intellectual discussion cannot simply be “felt” or “experienced” by the student (Billing & Stigendal, 1994; Danemark et al., 2002; Ollman, 2003; Peet, 1998; Sayer, 1992, 2000).”

“In general, indicator-based approaches are concerned with what Sayer (2000) framed as a positivist understanding of the world, limiting our knowledge to observable and measureable data.”

“This proposal may seem utopian (Barnett, 2012; Sayer, 2000).”

“The theoretical framework takes a critical realist perspective of perinatal social context, stress, depression, and the developmental origins of health and disease (Bhaskar, 1975; B Danermark, Ekstrom, Jakobsen, & Karlsson, 2002; Layder, 1993; Pawson, 2006; Sayer, 2000), and builds on the emerging literature on stress…”

“…have generally adopted the term social realism to describe their approach; the ‘realism’ denotes the ontological status of knowledge as having real affects in the world (Popper, 1978; Sayer, 2000) and the ‘social’ denotes the collective production of knowledge within epistemic communities.”

“Those ideas stem from notions and theories of language as a closed self-referential system of signs which is wholly produced and determined by the, arbitrarily formed, networks or systems of difference between signifiers (words, images) and signifieds (concepts) (Sayer 2000).”

“Third, the real level: this contains the mechanisms that cause the events in the actual level (Sayer, 2000).”

“An onto-epistemological (relativism–realism) stance was adopted because it acknowledged the subjective experiences of older people that develop in relation to the social reality of relational interactions with middle adolescents (Roos & Baart, in press; Sayer, 2000).”

“Throughout the analysis, the authors held a critical realist epistemological stance, recognising people’s experiences as equally real and meaningful as physical and behavioural phenomena [39].”

“Subsequently, we turned to the (growing) literature that focuses on process and mechanisms, and introduced the work of Sayer (2000), explaining the difference between structure and effect (cf. the beginning and ending points of the process) and the causal mechanisms connecting these two.”

“This type of evidence can be termed ‘experience-distant’ because the researcher imposes outside categories onto observables of a social process (Geertz, 1974: pp. 28–29; Schaffer, 2016).”

“The study will be conducted in three interlinked stages over 3 years as follows: ► Stage 1—development and refinement of a realist programme theory for SP interventions relevant to people at high risk of T2D using a critical systematic literature review (realist synthesis).”

“This situation is, therefore, multiply structured, being both multi-faceted and multi-layered (Archer, 2003; Sayer, 2000).”

“This perspective assumes the constructs in this research are part of an objective reality which are being described through the use of causal language (Sayer, 2000).”

“…to values –which embraces appropriate values, rather than trying to achieve a value-free assessment – can make an assessment more objective, where the definition of objective for our purpose here is being ‘truthful’ (for an outline of the different meanings of objectivity, see Sayer 2000, 58).”

“Structures have emergent properties [39] and are delineated by the resource distribution and the organisational positions that agents occupy as they pursue their interests.”

“Realist evaluation goes beyond merely focusing on the success or failure of interventions; it acknowledges that events are rarely the result of a single causal mechanism and that outcomes are not independent of context (outcomes are context + mechanism) (Pawson and Tilly, 1997; Sayer, 2000).”

“Critical moments are not chosen because they are repeated events: even if a phenomenon is observed only once, it can still be interrogated in relation to the conditions of its production and the effects of its existence (Sayer, 2000).”

“Here critical feminist accounts of social science seem to provide not only important contributions, but important ways forward in thinking through questions of epistemology, standpoint, situatedness, objectivity, interest, and question of reality (see, for example, Harding 1987, 1991; Sayer 2000).”

“Thus, critical realism argues that the world is characterized by ‘ emergence ’ – the conjunction of two or more features or aspects giving rise to new phenomena, which have properties that are irreducible to those of their constituents (Sayer 2000).”

“The article also situates the individual/social in an open ontology in which persons, societies and ecologies are evolving and the future is unknown (Massey, 2005; Sayer, 2000).”

“An intensive typology on the other hand, aim at deep understanding of social and psychological phenomena to explain causal relationships for e.g., forest owner decision-making (Sayer, 1999; Takala et al., 2017).”

“This study employs a critical realist epistemological position (Bhaskar, 1978; Sayer, 2000).”

“…critical realists have already argued at length, realism and a moderate version of constructionism are not merely compatible but complementary (Sayer, 2000: 81 – 102; Smith, 2010: 119 – 206; Elder-Vass, 2012): Critical Realism differs from radical constructivism, which argues that it is…”

“The real domain consists of unseen causal mechanisms causing the events at the empirical level to occur (Bhaskar, 1978; Sayer, 2000).”

“Within critical realism, methodological choices “ depend on the nature of the object of study and what one wants to learn about it ” (Sayer, 2000, p. 19).”

“Methodology This study assumes an ontological, epistemological and axiological stance of critical realism that reality exists externally and independently of observation (Sayer, 1992, 2000; Archer, 1995; Danermark et. al., 2002).”

“For critical realists, an object’s structure is made up by internal social relations that possess specific capabilities and tendencies to act in certain ways under particular conditions (Sayer, 2000).”

“As social constructs, these categories have effects in the world, and people largely encounter them as really existing ‘things’ which they then construe (i.e. make sense of) but which they also (to varying degrees) have the power to shape (Sayer, 2000, p. 91).”

“However, acknowledging that CDA has a distinctly realist ontology, we accept that modes of governance cannot be reduced to discourse or vice-versa (Danermark et al. 2002; Sayer, 2000).”

“The concept ‘social space’ originates from geography but has been conceived from a number of different perspectives (e.g. Harvey 2009; Lefebvre 1991; Sayer 2000).”

“For instance, in his clear introduction to critical realism for students of social science, the sociologist Sayer (2000) makes extensive allusions to sociology, political theory, cultural theory and philosophy.”

“This fits well with several recent works that have advocated moderate versions of social constructionism and shown that they are compatible with critical realism (Elder-Vass, 2012; Sayer, 2000; Smith, 2010).”

“At the individual level, a person’s successes or failures may have little to do with their own reasons and intentions but may have everything to do with the structure-agent interaction over which they have limited control or awareness (Sayer 2000, Harwood & Clark 2012).”

“One of the jagged frontier’s corollaries is that AI holds utility for high-reliability tasks only if combined with human monitoring [50].”

“It is argued that meaningful explanation and understanding depends on “ identifying causal mechanisms and how they work, and discovering if they have been activated and under what conditions ” (Sayer, 2000, p. 14).”

“A Critical Realist (CR) position was adopted, acknowledging the materiality of physical and psychological experiences, and that reality is socially constructed through human activity (Sayer, 2000).”

“However, limited amounts of time available, group dynamics and limits to my facilitation prowess produced empirical and actual dialogues which regularly fell short of this ideal: ‘things could go in many different ways’ (Sayer 2000, 15).”

“Hence, cause and effect can still be inferred from intangible events (Sayer, 2000).”

“Sayer (2000) wrote, ‘To ask for the cause of something is to ask what “makes it happen,” what “produces,” “generates,” “creates” or “deter-mines” it, or more weakly, what “enables” or “leads to” it?’”

“To this end we draw on a simplified account of critical realism (Danermark et al., 2002 ; Fletcher, 2017 ; Max-well, 2012 ; Sayer, 2000 ) We write particularly with postgraduate students in mind, having observed the frustration some students experience when they are unable to find a research…”

“…never occur tabula rasa but within the inherited space constituted by the con fi guration and distribution of physical elements, ‘ space makes a difference ’ (Sayer, 2000: 144) and measurement and geometry are valuable means to understand its capacity to accept change (Martin and March, 1972).”

“Sayer (2000, 2) argues that the possibility of refuting our knowledge, the realization of our mistakes, and the reversal of our expectations about how we think things are, all these relate to the acknowledgement that an objective reality exists independently of what we think about it; he also…”

“Instead, critical realism relies on an understanding of the underlying structure and the conditions or context under which a causal mechanism may activate, regardless of its frequency [52].”

“The ‘empirical’ is what actors experience of the real or the actual (Sayer, 2000), which in this study is captured through the interviews and what participants had to say about their experiences of the Internet and their everyday life.”

“In this way, this study aims to examine the contingent conditions of the relationship between electronic communication and early adolescents’ well-being to, thus, add a more nuanced perspective to the discussion (Sayer, 2000).”

“Drawing on a critical realist understanding of how causal mechanisms interact in ways that are always context-specific (Sayer 2000) we set out to understand how different conditions, conceptualizations”

“Perhaps the most widely known in geography is that by critical realism in which the emphasis is on necessity and tendency (Bhaskar 1975; Sayer 2000).”

“…[24 p. 3], being a causal relationship between objects [25], contingent causality [26], or causation [27 referred in 20] meaning that the same mechanism may produce different outcome in different situations and contexts depending on structures and conditions (other mechanisms) [27 referred in 20].”

“They depend on human actions and resources and the motivations of particular people acting in particular contexts.(18) From a realist perspective, development and implementation of global CME partnerships are underpinned by change mechanisms, which are triggered by the context in which the global CME partnerships are…”

“They are both opposed to positivism and the desire to isolate variables in order to understand our world (Sayer 2000; Tolman 1999).”

“Even basic distinctions between external (contingent) relations (political economy) and internal (necessary) relations (the mainstream) are absent, resulting in the anarchism illustrated above (Sayer 1984, 2000).”

“The empirical level relates to what is observable or experienced; the actual pertains to events or actions, whether or not they are seen or observed; and the real consists of the underlying structures that enable and constrain the manifestation of phenomena (Sayer 2000).”

“In his exposition of critical realism, Andrew Sayer (2000) argues that there is a category of social relations that are immanent rather than open to direct observation.”