INTRODUCTION
1.5 THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF THE STUDY
This section discusses the overall approach to the study which is postmodernism, with justification. Thereafter, two complementary paradigms of post-foundationalism and social constructionism are discussed as providing the specific backdrops to the study.
1.5.1 Firstly, the context of this research study is a post modern world, although some philosophers talk about a past- post modern world, which they have identified as an integral world (Wilber 2006). The post modern world has moved away from the power and authority of science, and from expert objective knowledge that is founded in absolute truth. It believes that different people understand and experience the world from different perspectives. The language people use, the statements they make, the terminology and categories they use, and the discourses they represent reveal how they know and construct their society (Becvar & Becvar, 2000).
Post modernism believes in “multiplicity, plurality and indeterminacy … and in meaning that is particularized, relative and mutable” (Moules 2000:230).
Postmodernism takes a stance against the belief in one single worldview, and is informed by different disciplines, such as philosophy, culture, social sciences and religion. Meaning attached to what people know about their world becomes particular, experienced within a certain group or community. It cannot be said to be true and provide meaning to all. Each community constructs their own ideas about life and therefore reality is described differently. A post modern approach to social science would therefore emphasize cultural sensitivity, acknowledge cultural differences and historical specificity and recognise that theories about the life world of people are embedded in discursive fields (Babbie & Mouton 2001). In this study, the multiple realities of several different sources are researched to arrive at meanings that are ascribed to different contexts and cultures.
Deconstructive postmodernism sets out to deconstruct discourses that claim universal truth and are presented with powerful and negative statements of belief, such as the assertion that HIV-positive people are black and sexually promiscuous. The aim of such a deconstruction is to explain, challenge, critique and transform the negative discourses of society. Thiselton, describing Gadamer‟s hermeneutics of radical metacritical reflection, mentions in this context three levels of understanding:
Firstly the researcher will experience what the text is saying and immerses in the story.
Secondly the researcher will look at the text and critique the discourse.
Thirdly the researcher will give a metacritical evaluation of the given critique (Thiselton 1992).
In the study, the researcher would immerse in the stories of people living with HIV/AIDS, then describe and interpret the discourses in their stories, based on different pre-understandings of people living with HIV/AIDS, (who are referred to as co-researchers), as well as being informed by literature, and then critique this critique by describing and interpreting the interests of families living with HIV/AIDS and the interests of service providers, e.g. churches. These discourses are all considered and given respectful recognition in finding a joint perspective of constructive action.
In the study, the researcher will focus on interpretive descriptions of reality, understood and constructed within social relationships (Babbie & Mouton 2001).
The researcher and co-researchers painstakingly emphasize the influence of family, culture and language on the creation of meaning and in arriving at best practice options (Moules 2000).
Research within the critical tradition would not only give an interpretive description of reality, but also describe the structural conflicts in the social order.
The study acknowledges such social deficits as a backdrop to the findings,
provides a voice to marginalized and underprivileged groupings in society, describes some of their discourses, determining which language and meanings dominate and how their reality is constructed (Gergen 1994 in Becvar & Becvar 2000). The study focuses on moral and social responsibility in deconstructing oppressive discourses that influence counselling practices.
The researcher will now proceed to discuss the specific underpinnings of social constructionism and post foundationalism that satisfy the precepts of post modernism. Both social constructionism and post foundationalism are explained at this early onset in order to provide a theoretical frame for underpinning or approaching the present study.
The researcher seeks to integrate the paradigm of social constructionism and the paradigm of post foundationalism and explains this hereunder.
1.5.2 Social Constructionism
Social constructionism is described as “synonym to post structuralism, deconstructionism and the new hermeneutics” (Freedman & Combs 1996:14).
Social constructionism aims to construct reality in a social context.
“The moment of praxis, the life world of people living with HIV is always local, embodied and situated” (Muller 2005:1). The individual is viewed as a participant in various relationships, and narrated realities. Therefore social constructionism is opposed to relativism, individualism and intra-psychic ideas of constructing reality. In this study, contextual and community issues are accorded high regard as counsellors are required to offer a meaningful therapeutic service that deeply considers these realities.
Language is of central importance, as the means by which people come to know and construct their world. Language doesn‟t reflect reality, but creates it (Moules
2000). Language is also perceived as a socially constructed system, which through dominant and privileged discourses, creates power imbalances.
Social constructionism is therefore “concerned with explicating the processes by which people come to describe, explain or otherwise account for the world in which they live” (Gergen1985: 266 in Becvar & Becvar 2000). These are value- driven processes, by which people construct their preferred realities. The researcher describes how these values are interpreted in the life world (social construct) of families living with HIV/AIDS.
The hermeneutic approach of interpretation of these discourses, the interpretation of their meaning, demands a mutual and homogenous understanding of reality (Kvale 1996). In considering all realities, final positions are thus multi-partial, even though they are expressed as a homogenous understanding, and in this study as a final training product, that derives from these realities.
1.5.3 Post-foundationalism
Post-foundationalism starts along similar lines as social constructionism.
People‟s life stories are seen as a description of their reality, informed by societal beliefs. Identity and therefore rationality - who people are and what people believe - is socially constructed (Muller 2003). “These beliefs occur as a groundless web of interrelated beliefs, which mutually reinforce each other, and there is no single foundational truth on which this system of beliefs is based”
(Van Huyssteen 1997:3-4). This does not imply that just anything can be believed. Only those beliefs are justified which are held by a rational person. A rational person is capable of making responsible judgments, using their cognitive, evaluative, and pragmatic contexts as resources of rationality. This requires that the person can speak with authority (experience and expertise) as well as that the person must resign his beliefs to the community of those who share the relevant experience and knowledge (Van Huyssteen 1998). Herein, the power of
individual experience is accorded respect, a consideration taken seriously by the researcher in securing individual life stories and experiences before arriving at a homogenous product (the training programme). The reciprocal relationships across individual and society are thus deeply respected.
These shared resources of human rationality enable dialogue between different contexts, cultures and disciplines (Van Huyssteen 1997). In the study, multiple positions are invited, both representing individuals and the community, culminating in a training programme that connects with or has meaning for several contexts and targets simultaneously.
Post-foundationalism deals with the balance and dialogue between tradition (beliefs, culture) and context (reality, experience). The philosopher Wittgenstein (1963) refers to this dialogue where he says that meaning is determined by use.
The meaning of a word is determined by the action with which it is associated, which means that action determines meaning. Language acquires meaning by means of social practice (Wittgenstein in Beckvar & Beckvar 2000). Such rich descriptions based on action and experiences of community members are sought in the conduct of this study.
Post-foundationalism positions itself as a viable third option between objectivism and relativism, foundationalism and postmodernism (Van Huyssteen 1997).
Therefore, post-foundationalism considers rationality to be socially constructed, as people are living together in concrete situations and contexts, but it also recognizes the construction of rationality and identity based on a person‟s „own experience‟, which is interpreted experience. Alternative interpretations would come through the study of sciences and be perceived as complementary understanding of reality, emphasizing tradition, culture and cultural discourses (Van Huyssteen 1998).
Social constructionism seeks to find meaning and truth in the stories of the oppressed and marginalized. Emphasizing historical background and culture-
bound interpretations, it attempts to find structural causes for inequality in power relationships. Within post-foundationalism, the emphasis is more on „webs of beliefs‟. Such webs of beliefs aim for a systemic interpretation of action and look for a holistic picture, recognizing differing spiritual, ethical and moral perspectives. However, post-foundationalism does not stop there, but maintains that the varying webs of beliefs that result, these different constructs of reality, then should interact and negotiate to come to a common understanding. These concepts are applied to the study by accessing both individual stories of persons but also when these stories are embedded in community-rich actions, descriptions and experiences that are also analysed before reaching the final product of the training programme.
1.5.4 Post-foundationalist Practical Theology
Deconstructive postmodernists have argued that the meaning of God and beliefs only exists within constructed distinctions in language and therefore religion and spirituality do not exist (Moules 2000). The postmodern philosopher Lyotard criticises the meta-narratives or grand belief systems as they contain a universal acceptance of reality (Eskens 2003). Bediako, however, describes the meta- narrative of Scripture as constructed through the activity of God in building up a community of His people throughout history, which includes their particular language (mother tongue), traditions, history and culture. A shared family likeness was thus created through communal shared knowledge from ancient and modern times, whereby other Christian stories are illuminating our personal stories (Bediako 2001).
Muller merged concepts of post-foundationalist theology and narrative theology into a research process for practical theology. The researcher will use his seven movements in this study, as they were considered relevant for both the personal life experience and meaning-giving of individuals, their contextual interaction and the role and experience of God‟s working and meaning-giving in our world.
Muller qualified the African approach to practical theology and science in general
as “holistic, circular and narrative” (Muller 2003:294). Three distinct forms of narratives are to be found in narrative theology, namely the canonical stories, which focus on Biblical materials, life stories, which focus on human experience and community stories, which focus on the classical Christian tradition (Fackre 1996). Narrative theology emphasizes the centrality of communal experience to the life of the church. God tells His story through the Church. Individual life achieves meaning through participation in this narrative. Jacobs comments here that the narrative integrity and wholeness of a given single life still needs to be acknowledged (Jacobs 2003). MacIntyre agrees that the notion of personal identity is related to the notions of narrative, intelligibility and accountability. He argues that the unity of an individual is the unity of a narrative embodied in a single life (MacIntyre 2002). In this notion, the researcher sees how post- foundationalism and social-constructivism are operational in that individual action and experience is acknowledged, interpreted and informed within the context of the local community.
Narrative post-foundational theology, being both contextual and engaged in interdisciplinary conversation, acknowledges the individual‟s narratives, and their preferred truths. Here again the researcher employs an interdisciplinary stance by linking pastoral counselling to family therapy for community counsellors, using co-researchers‟ preferred truths and narratives in the creation of the training model.
1.5.5 The social constructionist/post foundational paradigm
In social constructionism, the emphasis is on subjectivity, the effect of culture, and circulation of meanings through language. “the subject originates nothing”
Post-foundationalism also acknowledges contextuality and interpreted experience, but recognises „human uniqueness‟ and vulnerability embedded in bodily existence. The focus is on interdisciplinary dialogue and to critically relate to the historical-cultural network of ideas in which traditions and worldviews are embedded.
Both narrative- and contextual pastoral family therapy are well placed within the social constructionist/post-foundational paradigm, which informs the therapeutic stance and choices and provides a useful theoretical frame against which data for the training model are collected, collated and homogenously presented in this study.
The researcher believes that the post-foundationalist approach to interdisciplinary conversations is helpful to move beyond the contextual and cultural boundaries of the church leaders and lay counsellors and critically explore the beliefs and meanings they construct of their worlds. Narrative therapy supports the evolving of new interpretive positions as a result of dialogue and communicative action resulting in changing realities (Parry & Doan 1994).
The following section will focus on the research design and the methodology which will be explained in greater detail in Chapter Two.
1.6 RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY
The researcher will use the Intervention Research Model as developed by Rothman and Thomas (1994) as the overall research design. The structure in this model is utilized to offer a state of the art review of all contributing possibilities that will enrich the development of the training programme in contextual and narrative family therapeutic counselling for church leaders and lay counsellors (De Vos 2001). Details of how the model was used are found in chapter five. A summary of the specific steps involved in this model are discussed later in this study report.
Within the overarching Intervention Research Model, the researcher will make use of the five-step ABDCE model, as developed by Alice Adams (in Muller 2003). This model is a social construct and narrative based model for story writing and analysis and is discussed in further detail later in the
chapter. The model is utilized for the description and interpretation of the life world of families living with HIV/AIDS.
In addition to the Intervention Research Model, the researcher will make use of the seven-step model, as developed by Muller (2004). This includes a post-foundational and narrative based research approach and is considered essential in developing the course content and learning materials of the training programme in contextual and narrative family therapeutic counselling with church leaders and lay counsellors.
1.6.1 The Intervention Research Model
The Intervention Research Model as developed by Rothman and Thomas (1994), is a combined qualitative-quantitative method, and seems the most appropriate research design for the development of the training programme in contextual and narrative family therapeutic counselling for church leaders and lay counsellors Intervention Research is an integration of Thomas‟s Developmental Research and Utilisation model DR&U (1981), his later developed Design and Development model (1984) and Rothman‟s Social Research and Development Social D&D (1980), (De Vos 2001:384). The design and development perspective seem relevant where the researcher wants to apply existing and newly discovered knowledge and develop and design “a product”, a training tool for community pastoral counsellors. Further, the model allows for a mixed methodologies approach that in this study means gleaning context and community rich perspectives of several target groups.
Intervention research focuses on questions of intervention, which are aimed at understanding of and intervening in the reality of the HIV/AIDS pandemic experienced in community life. This reality is complex and has to consider
several layers of meaning and context that may be accommodated with the adoption of this research paradigm.
The six major phases of Intervention Research are: