Realism and Social Science

“While playing an important role in initiating and guiding human intervention into the natural world, cultural construction and discourse by themselves cannot produce material change (Sayer 2000, 2010).”

“Likewise, some of these methods, such as moderator and mediator analyses [15, 16], are controversial within realist circles, while others are not [17–19].”

“All scientific research objects belong to the inaccessible group, and all scientific knowledge and theories or discourses, which can be modified or synthesized, belong to the accessible group (Sayer 2000).”

“Quantitative methods assume a high level of stability in the measurement and meaning of the phenomena (Sayer, 2000, 2010).”

“Building on critical realism (Fairclough et al., 2004; Sayer, 2000) and on a strategic-relational approach to issues of structure and agency (Jessop, 2006; 2008), CPE has evolved into a research programme featuring a variety of features (Sum & Jessop,”

“44 47 48 Mechanisms are usually unobservable, change in response to contextual conditions and are means by which outcomes are produced.”

“…to moving beyond positivist frameworks, nomothetic research strategies or rational choice theory, which are prone to produce chaotic concepts and reductive analysis, the research strategy adopted in this work was based on an intensive model (Edwards and Levi, 2008; Harre, 1979; Sayer, 2000: 375).”

“As Sayer (2000) argues, ‘so much depends on the modes of abstraction we use, the way of carving up and defining the objects we study’ (p. 19).”

“In the second stage of analysis, retroductive reasoning (Pawson and Tilley, 1997; Sayer, 2000; Danermark et al., 2002) was used to infer beyond the data and to test, refine and develop theory and configure the themes that emerged from the first stage of analysis into context, mechanism and outcome.”

“The method used here eschews the use extensive research methods that search for regularities and causal relationship that rarely occur in open systems where key actors and the environment are constantly changing in favour of intensive research (Creaven, 2007; Sayer, 2000).”

“Critical realism (Bhaskar 1975) provides a helpful framework for engaging with the ‘metatheoretical’ questions such as, What theoretical framework(s) shall we use? and How do we make sense of our data? Realism’s basic claim is that the world exists independently of our consciousness of it, implying that our scholarly…”

“…sales, but is instead located in their overall ability to respond to the conditions into which they are born and socialised (cf. Archer, 1995, 2000; Sayer, 2000) – namely, as those who possess and sell their labour-power as a commodity, which they must also reproduce for their own livelihood and…”

“Note Sayer also refers to contingency and necessity (neither of which implies regularity) in terms of an emergent form from the combination of two prior contingent relations (he is concerned here with ‘partial naturalism’ and notes ‘contingent necessity’ is a ‘confusing’ term) in Sayer 2000, 16-18.”

“This latter – broadly critical realist – approach is the one we favour, in that we take the view that social realities are socially stratified, and that the causal mechanisms and powers shaping events are not necessarily visible to the researcher, although the outcomes are (Sayer, 2000).”

“A critical realist epistemological stance was assumed throughout the analysis, through which the participants’ subjective experiences were conceived as being as meaningful as physical and behavioural phenomena (Sayer, 2000).”

“More positively, our analysis also reveals some grounds for cautious optimism in the form of isolated facilitators or ‘enablements’ (Sayer 2000), which, if proactively built upon and sustained, can begin to counter current injustices perpetuated through such systems.”

“The methodology is rooted in a realist philosophy of science, which acknowledges that interventions function differently depending on the context and the mechanisms they trigger (Pawson and Tilley 1997; Sayer 2000).”

“( Sayer 2000, 108) Introduction: China ’ s rise or peak?”

“The research design was consistent with a critical realist epistemology, which allowed for adequate knowledge and understanding of what is happening in the field of mobile applications for physical activity through the experiences of adolescents, teachers, coaches, managers and experts [26,27].”

“…and influence means that HIA research is well suited to emancipatory research approaches that take as a starting point that society can be improved [45, 46] and participatory action research approaches that bring together researchers and participants in the research process as “co-constructors of…”

“By constructing social reality, we are referring to critical philosophies which understand that reality cannot be objectively known, but rather, is subjectively represented (Bhaskar, 1986; Sayer, 1997, 2000).”

“Both the actual and the possible are part of reality, but this does not mean that anything can happen: the possible is conditioned by history, by inherited materiality (Sayer, 2000).”

“Second, we looked for demi-regularities in the data 37 in order to generate a set of propositions about the social mechanisms at play in these interventions.”

“Consistent with Archer’s theoretical framework, our study was conceptualised within the tradition of the critical realist paradigm, which combines realist ontology with interpre-tivist epistemology (e.g. Bhaskar, 1998; Sayer, 2000).”

“Consistent with this approach, we view language as a means of conveying and reflecting this subjective experience of reality, of which individuals’ emotions and meanings are considered components (Maxwell, 2012; Sayer, 2000).”

“This dependence of truth on semantic context does not commit one to a radical epistemological relativism (see Boyd 1990; Sayer 2000).”

“From a critical realist perspective (see Sayer 2000 and Collier 1994 for an introduction), it is possible to argue that welfare objects and subjects are entities with unique causal powers , while at the same time rejecting the strict separation of object and subject that leads to the problematic…”

“This is because reality, from a critical realist perspective, is viewed as both the constraint/facilitator and the consequence of the construction of social agency (Sayer 2000).”

“The analysis was inductive (creating theory from the data), deductive (testing theory with the data), and retroductive (inferring or identifying underlying causal mechanisms, which includes inductive, deductive, and abductive thinking; Sayer, 2000).”

“It is the aim of critical realist research to posit the underlying causal mechanisms and suggest what role they play in a social system (Sayer, 2000).”

“Critical realism, then, calls for a process-oriented approach: attending to context, detailing the values and beliefs that inform participants’ thinking, and aiming to understand the underlying causal structures that produce certain outcomes (House, 1991; Maxwell, 2004; Sayer, 2000).”

“What makes realist evaluation different from other theory-driven approaches is the philosophical influence of scientific and critical realism (Bhaskar, 2008 [1975]; Pawson, 2013; Sayer, 2000).”

“Similarly, a critical realist would argue that fallibilism only makes sense if there is a world ‘out there’ that we can be wrong about (Sayer 2000).”

“From postmodernism to Critical Realism, critiques of empiricist and positivist epistemology have argued against the correspondence theory of truth and knowledge, whereby knowledge is deemed to be true if it corresponds to the world as we observe it (Rorty 1979, Davidson 1986, Sayer 1999).”

“Their effects on a given body may be benign or malign (Sayer, 2000).”

“Guided by the critical realist perspective, ‘abductive’ and ‘retroductive’ (Sayer 2000) approaches were used in developing the themes, involving moving backward and forward among empirical data and emergent theory (Danermark et al.”

“(Bingham and Biesta 2010, 26) However, this is not what critical realists say because emancipation is not purely a matter of experts (Sayer 2000, 164).”

“Clear connections between what causes certain experiences (effects) to come about in society cannot be made easily as people interpret experiences differently, and also implement things differently depending on their variable contexts (Archer 1996, Sayer 2000).”

“En el segundo se explica la propuesta metodológica, basada epistemológicamente en el realismo crítico (SAYER, 2000), y se presentan las técnicas de investigación y la muestra de estudio.”

“The basis for theorizing, therefore, is an abductive process, that is an inference to the best explanation, normally referred to as retroduction in which events are explained by postulating and identifying the mechanisms which are capable of producing them (Sayer 2000).”

“As Andrew Sayer (2000) has consistently advocated, however, we should press forward nevertheless because, as has already been established by the early Critical Theorists, claiming scientific objectivity in social science requires reification of certain norms of the capitalist status quo – the…”

“Hence, they devote quite a lot of time to postulating causal mechanisms (Sayer 2000) and evaluating ideas which could provide a contestable explanation for observable issues.”

“These perspectives fail to provide causal explanation for changes that emerge over time in IM instantiations [23].”

“34 It acknowledges that there are a wide variety of dynamic contexts and mechanisms which can affect outcomes, including geographical and environmental factors, social and cultural issues and historical factors, and provides a generative approach allowing for the proposal of theories to guide the implementation of pol…”

“I find the critical realism of the likes of Andrew Sayer (2000), recently modified to cater to anthropology by David Zeitlyn and Roger Just (2014) and David Graeber (2015), both infinitely more constructive and appealing.”

“Morrow (1994), Fay (1977) and Sayer (2000) allude to the critical realist idea that education (or new knowledge) needs to be used to change negative norms (real level), actions (actual level) and social conditions (empirical level).”

“As for the operationalisation of such a methodological programme, explanation and understanding stem from “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 ontological stance was taken (Sayer, 2000).”

“Therefore, a critical realist approach would “ seek to identify both necessity and possibility or potential in the world – what things must go together, and what could happen, given the nature of the objects ” (Sayer, 2000, p. 11).”

“Realist-informed TA diverges somewhat from other forms of TA, such as Braun and Clarke’s reflexive TA (2006), by drawing upon principles of critical realism (see Pawson, 2000; Pawson et al., 2005; Sayer, 2000) as an ontological starting point from which to conceptualize and identify themes.”

“…‘original’ texts from Bhaskar and those that could be considered more interpretive (e.g. Buch-Hansen and Nielsen 2020; Collier 1994; Danermark, Ekström, and Karlsson 2019; Sayer 2000) provides a spectrum of viewpoints, perspectives and clarifications to stimulate the potential for understanding.”

“…assemblage theory (Deleuze & Guattari, 1972/1983, 1980/1987) and critical realism (Archer, 1995; Bhaskar, 2008 [1975]; Collier, 1999; Sayer, 1992, 2000); in an attempt to address the perceived weaknesses of each tradition, particularly in international education policy analysis (Martyn & Galvin,…”

“Sayer (2000) stated that in critical realism, “an explanation of social practice will involve a … regress from actions through reasons to rules and thence to structure” (pp. 75 –76).”

“For a defence of realism, and in particular, critical realism as a subset of the academic discipline of philosophy of science that is ‘mainly concerned with ontology, with being’, I refer the reader to Sayer (2000, 23).”

“…practices relevant to statistics), retroductive reasoning seeks to generate knowledge about the world as it is2 by tracing complex causal phenomena Sayer (2000): Merely knowing that ‘c’ has generally been followed by ‘e’ is not enough: we want to understand the continuous process by which ‘c’…”

“also shaped by relations between different social groups and material constraints (Sayer, 2000; Wolkowitz, 2012).”

“…child protection practices, taking account of the fact that these practices and related perceptions are both socially constructed and influenced by external factors and forces that can be real and independent of any one person or social group (Sayer, 2000; Sims-Schouten, Skinner, and Rivett, 2019).”

“Events can happen and yet not be transferred into the domain of the empirical until human agency has identified correctly those events and transformed them into experience (Bhaskar, 1977; Sayer, 2000).”

“One of the characteristics of the critical realist is that they put reality as the most important philosophical consideration alongside a structural and layered ontology that is seen as crucial (Sayer 2000).”

“akin to Schon’s (1987) ‘experience of surprise’ but also positive versions of this such as elation.”