17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason1 There is no such thing as a bare fact; facts always come clothed in the wardrobe of social assumptions D. L. and P. M. Ferguson 1989 Social Constructionism –Theoretical perspectives from symbolic interactionism to postmodernism

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason2 An example from my study. Social Constructionism. Theoretical perspectives – “from” symbolic interactionism “to” postmodernism. The interpretive promise – the voices and the reconstruction of disabled adulthood. Introduction

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason3 Björg and her family Björg’s mother: As soon as they handed her to me I saw that something was the matter. I said it aloud. They all heard me and the delivery room grew instantly quiet.... It hit like thunder...it was just awful. The child was not normal... it was a crisis.

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason4 1. Social constructivism 2. Social constructionism Social Constructionism

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason5 Key suppositions of Social Constructionism 1. The terms by which we account for the world and ourselves are not dictated by the stipulated objects of such accounts. 2. The terms and forms by which we achieve understanding of the world and of ourselves are social artifacts products of historically and culturally situated interchange amongst people. 3. The degree to which a given account of the world or self is sustained across time is not dependent on the objective validity of the account, but on the vicissitudes (shifting and unforeseen) of social processes. 4. Language derives its significance in human affairs from the way in which it functions within patterns of relationships. From Gergen –Realities and relationships: Soundings in Social Construction 1994)

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason6 Some perspectives – self and society Individual /Self Society Symbolic interactionism Relationships, Perspective taking Hermenutics Interpretivism Phenomenology Generations Individuals and groups History/ culture and society Social constructionism Intersubjectivity/ communication A web of relationships-past and pressent Postmodern interactionism/Social constructionism Decentrated complex web of relationships as social text Discourse analysis Satiated self Choice lifestyles Choice self End of Individual or Individual moral choices Cultural dissemination High modernity /risk culture Risk society Gettho of diversity, fragmentation and decentration Culture making future different from the pressent Poststructuralists Postmodernism: sociology of the postmodern

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason7 Pantextualism – everything is a text – all texts are interrelated. Subjects, authors or speakers are irrelevant to the interpretation of texts. Meaning is unstable, never fixed, never determined, never representational. Deconstructionism is a post structuralistic strategy for reading texts that unmasks the supposed truth, or meaning of text by undoing, reversing or replacing taken for granted binary oppositions that structure texts. (Giddens 1991) Poststructuralism claims:

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason8 Some perspectives – self and society Individual /Self Society Symbolic interactionism Relationships, Perspective taking Hermenutics Interpretivism Phenomenology Generations Individuals and groups History/ culture and society Social constructionism Intersubjectivity/ communication A web of relationships-past and pressent Postmodern interactionism/Social constructionism Decentrated complex web of relationships as social text Discourse analysis Satiated self Choice lifestyles Choice self End of Individual or Individual moral choices Cultural dissemination High modernity /risk culture Risk society Gettho of diversity, fragmentation and decentration Culture making future different from the pressent Poststructuralists Postmodernism: sociology of the postmodern

17th of June Dóra S. Bjarnason9 Conclusion The importance of voices