PART I: INTRODUCTION
1. Introduction: Long-term Peacebuilding and trans-historical inequality
1.3 Overall research approach: ‘bricolage’
While it is generally accepted that a single perspective might ‘yield more brilliant insights for the study of some phenomena’ (Kellner, 1995:99), this research required a flexible approach to capture multiple perspectives, micro-macro, conceptual and empirical aspects of the research data. An approach is:
[W]ider than theory or methodology. It includes epistemology or questions about the theory of knowledge; the purposes of research, whether
understanding, explanation or normative evaluations; and the ‘meta- theories’ within which particular theories are located. It takes in basic assumptions about human behaviour; whether the unit of analysis is the individual or the social group; and the role of ideas and interests. (Porta &
Keating, 2008:1).
The primary priority in this research was to answer the research question which takes South Africa’s ground truth, exemplified by its history of violence and attempts at
peacebuilding, into account. The research approach taken in this study combined theories and methods from multiple disciplines to support the interrelated aspects of the study, which are best understood by reference to the term ‘bricolage’ as discussed by
Kincheloe, McLaren & Steinberg (2011) and Denzin & Lincoln (2011). It has been suggested that in its contemporary sense, bricolage involves the process of using
methodological processes as needed ‘in the unfolding context of the research situation’.
In addition the bricolage can be described as the ‘process of getting down to the nuts and bolts of multidisciplinary research [… to] move beyond the blinders of particular
disciplines’ (Kincheloe, McLaren & Steinberg (2011:168). As Denzin & Lincoln
33 (2011:4) stated, the qualitative researcher may be viewed as a ‘bricoleur, a maker of quilts, or in filmmaking, a person who assembles images into montages’.
The bricolage approach enabled me to add and remove different methods and theories as needed, which allowed me to take account of ‘a full range of perspectives to dissect, interpret and critique’ phenomena (Kellner, 1995:99). Kellner contends that a variety of critical methods improve the chances of producing reflexive and ‘many-sided,
illuminating and critical’ readings (1995:99) in a way that a single lens is not able to do.
In addition, the multi-perspectival approach allowed this research to examine the instrumental case from 360° angles. These many-sided critical readings of (i) the literature, (ii) empirical data on restorative justice processing, and (iii) unbroken
structural (inequality), and direct violence (crime/social harm), deepened understanding of long-term peacebuilding practice in the South African context. As Yin contends with regard to case study research:
[t]he in-depth focus on the case(s), as well as the desire to cover a broader range of contextual and other complex conditions, produce a wide range of topics to be covered by any given case study… the case study goes beyond the study of isolated variables […] relevant case study data are likely to come from multiple and not singular sources of evidence. (Yin, 2010:4).
Wikström & Sampson (2006:1) provide a caution from the perspective of criminologists.
They argue that the lack of a consensus approach on integrative models makes it hard ‘to identify concrete new discoveries or significant breakthroughs in criminology that have been made in the name of integration’ as ‘the task is enormously difficult’. By choosing Peace Studies as the core discipline and combining the bricolage approach with the case study research method, the difficulties associated with trans-disciplinary research were largely overcome. In line with standpoint theory, I was enabled to combine (for
normative and utopian reasons) my practical experience and accumulated knowledge from studying in various disciplines. As Boulding (2003:451-452:) states, ‘[p]eace researchers study the dynamics of how conflicts are handled, and especially the structures and dynamics of peaceful conflict resolution and problem-solving processes, using the tool of social sciences’. The dynamics referred to by Boulding are present in the practice of victim offender mediation, as the three phase, four stage model of mediation used in
34 this form of restorative justice processing, is indistinguishable from the dominant
mediation model used in peacebuilding processes and described in its literature.
The flexibility of the bricolage approach allowed the inclusion of critical social theory which provided a way of theorising about the social in a way that promotes positive peace. Critical social theory confronts an established system of domination, and struggles for a more democratic and egalitarian social order (Kellner, 1995:99-100). Specifically intersectionality, as a social theory allowed for the combination of peacebuilding, restorative justice and social justice in a conceptual framework. The framework served as a heuristic device to generate relevant themes for analysis ‘within a context of discovery’ (Hill Collins, 1998:120). Standpoint theory, which is located within
intersectional theory, was used to bring my own intersectional location (standpoint) into the frame of the study, and to bring an understanding of other intersections in the ‘matrix of domination’ embedded in society (Hill Collins, 2000:3). In addition, the
Standpoint/Intersectional approach was chosen because my own location resonates with that of black feminist scholars who regard themselves as ‘insider/outsiders’ to ‘dominant academic discourse’ (Hill Collins, 1998:121, 2000:7, Bowell, 2011, web reference 6). By making my constructed identities as a black (classified coloured under apartheid), female, educated-proletariat, and peacebuilding practitioner-scholar in South Africa’s unequal, transitional context explicit, I reveal the epistemic process by which I arrived at my standpoint. As Drake & Heath (2011:2) argue, ‘new knowledge’ required from
practitioners as doctoral researchers, comes ‘not from a single research domain but from combining understandings from professional practice, higher education practice and the researcher’s individual reflexive project’. They suggest that ‘new knowledge is
generated in the relations between these three domains’. This consciousness about my own standpoint and the understandings from different domains helped me to be aware that participants to the study arrived at their personal perspectives as ‘knowing subjects’
(Bowell, 2011). In an entry titled Feminist Standpoint theory in the Internet Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, Bowell, (2011) suggests that:
[T]he epistemic process by which a standpoint emerges enables the occupants of that standpoint to gain an element of power and control over knowledge about their lives. In becoming occupants of a standpoint, they also become knowing subjects in their own right, rather than merely objects that are known by others. (Bowell, 2011 web reference 6).
35 Feminist standpoint theory makes several contributions to scholarship; amongst these are epistemology, methodological debates, philosophy of science and political activism, according to Bowell (2011).
Standpoint intersectional theorists emphasise the ‘epistemic advantage’ (Hill Collins, 1998:121, Narayan, 2004:220, Bowell, 2011) of social location and bringing about more just societies. Kellner’s perspective takes account of socio-historical contexts; and Porta
& Keating take human behaviour at the individual and social levels into account. These theories however do not include more complex patterns of interaction between people as described by Morin, whose argument gives depth to the bricolage approach:
Complex unities such as human beings or societies are multidimensional: a human being is a biological, psychological, social, emotional, rational being. Society includes historical, economic, sociological, religious dimensions. Pertinent knowledge must recognise this multidimensionality and insert its data within it. Not only should a part not be isolated from the whole, the parts should not be isolated from each other. The economic dimension for example is in permanent inter-retroaction with all other human dimensions; moreover, human passions, needs and desires that go beyond solely economic interests are carried …within the economic.
(Morin, 2001:31).
Taken together, the combination of theories and methods contributed to a deeper and broader understanding of complex individual, societal and global phenomena involved in the construction of crime/social harm and its desired opposite - positive peace. Figure 1.1 provides a visual display of the research approach to depict the multidimensionality and complexity of the vertical, horizontal and cross-cutting linkages made in this research. It also shows that while the analysis is complex, it is contained by the overarching theme of peacebuilding at the macro level and an examination of the black box of victim offender mediation as a form of restorative justice processing, at the micro level.
Each of the horizontal lines in figure 1.1 depict historical time, transition, transformation, the goal of social justice and other trans-temporal issues and how these intersect with vertical and cross-cutting phenomena. Each vertical line depicts a level of analysis from the (intra- and inter-) personal, pairs, family, group, community, national and global levels and how these intersect with horizontal and cross-cutting phenomena. The cross- cutting lines depict how social structural and personal phenomena (e.g. economics,
36 history, politics, psychology, biology, spirituality and other social and individual
phenomena) intersect with horizontal and vertical phenomena. The darker cross-cutting lines ‘pie slices’ depict both multiple disciplinary lenses around individual and society;
and the 360°vantage points around victim offender mediation. Taken together, the display reveals the intricate and detailed nature of the ‘quilt’ woven by the bricolage approach to this research and it attempts to show how various micro and macro, personal and social phenomena intersect and interact to produce behaviours that result in either social harm or social harmony that require multi-dimensional peacebuilding.
Figure 1.1 Multiple intersections and dimensions of the research bricolage
The bricolage approach enabled me to examine the micro practices within the ‘black box’
of victim offender mediation, from different perspectives, to bring multidimensionality and ‘inter-retroaction’ of human and social dimensions into the research frame, as suggested by Morin (2001:31). The empirical data collected, analysed and interpreted in this study were ‘inserted’ into the theoretical and empirical knowledge gained from recognising the multi-dimensionality of human beings and society. Specifically, the findings about the four interlinked gaps and the denial it generated, as described in chapters seven and eight were rendered visible as a result of the overall research approach. Different aspects of the bricolage approach used in this study, is depicted in chapter four figure 4.2 which places the conceptual framework within the South African
Victim
offender mediation
Multi-dimensional Peace building
37 context. Warnat’s (2012) model in chapter four figure 4.3, illustrates standpointism, intersectionality and the multi-perspectival approach. Taken together these displays illustrate the complex, systematic nature of this study. The specific theories and methods that were added at different stages of the research as they were needed are discussed in relevant chapters.
In sum, the bricolage could be applied in a variety of ways at different stages of the research. Its flexibility enabled me to bring together in this study a conceptual framework to provide: parameters and guide the study; a conceptual argument to reveal the
convergences between peacebuilding, restorative justice and social justice; a multi- perspectival approach to data collection and analysis; a comprehensive model to depict and discuss findings; and a boundary within which to reach conclusions and make recommendations. The empirical study was conducted within the boundaries of the conceptual framework. Empirical data in turn provided the ground truth on which the conceptual argument (which inform the recommendations) are built, to fill out what is already known about victim offender mediation, as a form of restorative justice
processing. The approach thus theoretically grounded the empirical evidence produced by this research, and located it within South Africa’s history of cultural, structural and direct violence, and peacebuilding attempts.