IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/elg/eechap/16937_5.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Complexity informed social research: from complexity concepts to creative applications

In: Handbook of Research Methods in Complexity Science

Author

Listed:
  • Dr Lesley Kuhn

Abstract

This chapter describes and demonstrates a complexity informed qualitative social research approach, associated methods and techniques. To theorize human experience and sense making from findings and ideas of complexity studies in nature, translation and interpretation is required. The chapter explains these translations and interpretations based on the assumption that qualitative research, like complexity, has to take a radically relational approach to interpreting interrelationships between sense makers, fragments of knowledge, cultures, histories, futures and aspirations. It sets out how complexity offers a paradigmatic orientation to assist qualitative researchers in discerning nonlinearly-based pattern and order. Vortical postmodern ethnography as an inquiry approach is described along with the narrative generating method of coherent conversations and the techniques of fractal narrative analysis and attractor narrative analysis. Vortical postmodern ethnography effectively re-conceptualizes a number of problematic issues in ethnographic inquiry. The chapter concludes with a demonstration of this inquiry approach and techniques in a research project.

Suggested Citation

  • Dr Lesley Kuhn, 2018. "Complexity informed social research: from complexity concepts to creative applications," Chapters, in: Eve Mitleton-Kelly & Alexandros Paraskevas & Christopher Day (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods in Complexity Science, chapter 5, pages 74-94, Edward Elgar Publishing.
  • Handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:16937_5
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.elgaronline.com/view/9781785364419.00014.xml
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Tiitinen, Laura & Harrikari, Timo & Koivula, Sanna & Romakkaniemi, Marjo & Fiorentino, Vera, 2023. "Home school at the edge of chaos during the lockdown: Social workers’ perspectives," Children and Youth Services Review, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:elg:eechap:16937_5. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Darrel McCalla (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.e-elgar.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.