Tomas Saar:

Collection of data - positivistic myth?

In this article, two methodological issues are discussed. The first concerns interview data, which often is assumed to reflect the subject's experiences and conceptions in some way. They are in this way given an objective existence inside the individual. To challenge this positivistic assumption, I give examples from my thesis (Saar, 1999), and discuss them from a discursive perspective. By this, answers and accounts can be understood as discourses constructed in the particular situation. It can be shown that the subject, during the interviews, takes part in an actualisation of different subject positions, for example as musician or student. Instead of seeing results as facts that reflects existing cognitive processes, they can be understood as one of several possible textual constructions.

The second assumption I discuss reflects a perspective of culture as something that exists independently of the individuals being and acting in it. According to this perspective, individuals are by certain mechanisms and processes socialised into existing structures, for example "the rock culture" or"the school culture". My data is collected as a form of case studies. I observe the musicians practising and playing at home, in school or in orchestras/choirs. Often I find myself explaining musical learning by certain mechanisms that exists in different musical environments. A methodological alternative to this mechanic perspective on culture, is to study how different ways of conceptualising and acting in a musical situation are products of social interactions.

My conclusion is not to deny the importance of empirical data, but to use data to generate alternative explanations and discourses, which in this way become tools for new description and understanding. The aim of the data collection is not to find and depict the truth, but to develop results that help us to describe contradictions, nuances and variations.