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Chapter Two: Epistemological and Theoretical Considerations
“Modern society has
subjugated the populace to the point that it no longer even sees the bars
of its cage.” Anarchism-as-sensible-resistance-to-our-subjugation
proponent and WTO protester John Zerzan, as reported by Derrick Jensen, Alternative
Press Review, reprinted in Utne Reader, May-June 2001, p. 49.
Alvesson and Deetz (1996) suggest that critical theory and postmodern
thought oppose objectivists with their goals of prediction and control of
nature and people, as well as humanists who set forth a “naïve version of
human freedom” (p. 205) by privileging certain individual points of view.
“Both critical theory and postmodern thought share the view that domination
is aided, and both people and organizations lose much, if we overlook
social constructions by treating the existing world as natural, rational,
and neutral” (p. 211). Even with these shared aspects, critical theory
without postmodern themes “easily becomes unreflective in regard to
cultural elitism and modern conditions of power” and without critical
theory, postmodernism becomes “esoteric” (p. 211; see also Huspek, 1991).
Hegemony is a process of “pervading common sense and becoming part of
the ordinary way of seeing the world, understanding one’s self, and
experiencing needs” (Alvesson & Deetz, 1996, p. 201; see also Gramsci,
1971; Angus, 1992; Trachtman, 2002, Apr). Schutz and Luckmann (1973)
suggest, “In contrast to specific experiences, [these] fundamental
structures do not enter into the grip of consciousness in the natural
attitude” but they are “a condition of every experience of the lifeworld
(p. 103). These experiences enter “the horizon of experience … each
experience ‘obviously’ or ‘self-evidently’ has an unchangeable spatial,
temporal, and social arrangement” (p. 103; see also Sunwolf & Seibold,
1998, p. 287, and Giddens, 1979, re: structuration). An example is
“science” about which Baudrillard (1983) says “science never sacrifices
itself; it is always murderous” (p. 14).
How does this IRB (or any) regulatory enterprise maintain itself (each
of its parts) if the participants – the rule makers themselves – don’t
support (parts of) it? Perhaps this is a component of reform. What will
constitute “critical mass” for change? Who will be the Hundredth Monkey?
(Schell, 1982){52}*
Historically and currently, with respect to regulation of all kinds, the
(hegemonic) opinion that more direct oversight, more rules, more
enforcement, more penalties are needed is pervasive. In the case of human
subjects regulation, direct oversight is “needed” because of concerns about
rules being followed (DHHS OIG, 1998b, 1998c, 1998d, 2000b; GAO, 2001) not
necessarily, nor centrally, concerns about the protection of people. (This
situation is an example of detachment from the lifeworld of research, as
described in the “Simulations” section, below, p. 62.) These rules
themselves, much less more direct oversight, are especially unnecessary in
social science research studies in which no treatment and/or “minimal risk”
are involved, as defined by the federal government. What are we
“protecting” people who participate in “minimal risk” studies from ?
(The federal definition of “minimal risk” implies we would be protecting
people from life’s risks.) We have developed an unwarranted belief that
rules plus compliance equals protection. They do not, and the belief that
they do is SINSful (see National Bioethics Advisory Commission, [NBAC,
2001]; and Brainard, 2001, Jan 12).
The Entrenchment of Enlightenment Ideology
I have chosen to highlight the distinctions between qualitative and
quantitative research, including aspects of their historical development.
This distinction, while not perfect, is best suited for the purposes here.
Some notes about the distinction are appropriate, however. First, this
analysis does not require nor suggest that qualitative and quantitative
research methods are “opposites” or even totally exclusive of each other.
For many portions of this study, the main distinction is not the particular
method per se, but the treatments (or lack of them) associated most
generally with certain methods. An overwhelming majority of clinical
studies are quantitative in nature, and most studies involving no treatment
are qualitative. In other parts of this study, the important distinction
between qualitative and quantitative research is related to the nature of
what is assumed by researchers to be the end product of the method they
employ. For example, in completing application forms (most often designed
by and for clinicians, or derived from forms originally designed for
clinical researchers), qualitative researchers (who don’t often employ
hypotheses) often find the questions and requirements of the process and
forms absurd. For example, many qualitative researchers have very little
idea about the “outcome” of their research, or even what data might be
useful in a “final” analysis (see Van Maanen quote, p. 48; Agar quote, p.
49; and Feller quote, p. 40).
The positivistic, naturalistic bias is very much with us (O’Connor,
1979; Klockars, 1979; Whyte, 1987; Knights, 1992; Flyvbjerg, 2001, just to
highlight a 32-year micro-slice of the debate). Too often, qualitative
researchers are required to spend considerable time justifying their
existence.{53}* Yet, prediction is highly problematic even
when/if we don’t acknowledge that is the case. Whyte (1987) suggests “ …
the history of recent failures in [quantitative] social research points to
the need for an anthropological orientation to research,” to researchers
with “the ability to conceptualize human behavior into systems of
interpersonal, intergroup, and interorganizational relations, to relate the
structure and functioning of the organization to the structure and
functioning of the community, and finally, to integrate economic and
technological with social data” (p. 161; see also Sunwolf & Seibold,
1998, p. 286, re: “boundary spanners;” Vidich & Lyman, 2000; and Jones,
1999, Feb 18, re: the usefulness and popularity of those holding
anthropology degrees with businesses). With respect to organizational
theory, Mumby (1987) states, “several authors have sought to question the
legitimacy of organizational models based on the notion that organizations
are intrinsically rational in their modus operandi” (p. 115).
I suggest it is time for (renewed) vigorous whying on the part of
researchers, organizational and otherwise. The IRB system appears to be
unreasonable in many respects, and critical reviews of the processes may be
useful in reforming the system. At (at least) one institution, though,
rules constituting the process have prohibited observation of the
process.{54}* Obviously if this interpretation of the rules is
employed (i.e., IRBs refusing to approve studies designed to study
IRBs), the system remains beyond the scope of open critique and discourse
that would perhaps enhance understanding of the system (and even the system
itself) for all involved parties: regulators, researchers, and participants
of research.
In some ways IRB regulations have always been inappropriate. It is time
to acknowledge the absurdity of some IRB requirements (and pursuant
interpretations), particularly in social science research, i.e.,
observational, non-treatment, minimal risk (i.e., no risk beyond
that found in life in general) studies. These characteristics of
qualitative research make preparing IRB application forms, as they exist
now, hardly possible (as unreasonable, irrelevant, contrived, required but
unnecessary texts-as-ritual rather than meaningful texts).
Qualitative research is endlessly
creative and interpretive; the interpretations are constructed from field
texts, i.e., notes and documents. The writer-as-interpreter moves
from this text to a research text: notes and interpretations based on the
field text. This text is then transformed to a working interpretive
document, containing the writer’s early attempts to make sense out of what
s/he has learned. Finally the writer produces the public text that comes to
the reader. This final tale of the field may assume several forms: confessional,
realist, impressionistic, critical, formal, literary, analytic, grounded
theory, and so on. (Van Maanen, 1988, p. 29-30.)
What is the researcher, particularly the qualitative researcher, to do?
A dilemma is inherent: A qualitative researcher cannot know the future and
therefore cannot gain advance approval for data that presents itself, often
on-the-spot (i.e., in the lifeworld) or at later times (i.e.,
recollections of the lifeworld), in the mind of the writer, i.e., a
connection is made from life’s experiences, and becomes, in a post hoc
fashion, relevant data, hardly something for which advance approval can be
sought. (And, this differs considerably from hypothesis-driven approaches.)
Agar (1980) suggests “You can’t specify the questions you’re going to ask
when you move into the community; you don’t know how to ask questions yet.
You can’t define a sample; you don’t know what the range of social types is
and which ones are relevant to the topics you’re interested in. None of
this goes over well with hypothesis testing fanatics” (p.70). Even the
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA, 1995) states, “There is now a much
greater demand for creativity and resourcefulness on the part of behavioral
and social science researchers to expand and integrate traditional research
methods and develop new approaches” (p. 1). Regulations and applications do
not contribute to or accommodate “creativity” (unless perhaps in developing
circumvention tactics){55}*
but to sameness. Detailed advance planning snuffs out the opportunity to do
much expanding or integrating or development-in-the-moment. The federal
rules are apparently in conflict with the federal goals in this instance.
The NIDA also admits, “Despite the increased receptivity toward qualitative
research methods, however, there is still some lack of clarity in what
qualitative methodologists do” (p. 6; see also Vidich & Lyman, 2000).
Qualitative research holds to no single methodology or set of methods,
doesn’t privilege one over others, has no theory or paradigm that is
distinctly its own, and is used in many disciplines including education,
communication, psychology, history, organizational studies, medical
science, anthropology, sociology, and others (Denzin & Lincoln,
2000){56}*. Qualitative researchers use semiotics, narrative,
content, discourse, archival, and phonemic analysis, even statistics.{57}*
They also utilize various aspects and applications of ethnomethodology,
phenomenology, hermeneutics, feminism, deconstructionism, ethnographies,
interviews,{58}* psychoanalysis, cultural studies, survey research,
participant observation, and others (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000, p. 6).
Diaries, and diaries in combination with interviews, are also useful (see
Zimmerman & Wieder, 1977).{59}*
Qualitative research is, therefore, according to Denzin and Lincoln (2000,
p. 8) “interdisciplinary, transdisciplinary,” and sometimes a
“counterdisciplinary” field, it is “multiparadigmatic” and researchers in
this field value “the multimethod approach” to answering questions.
Qualitative researchers are committed to the “naturalistic perspective” and
“interpretive understanding of human experience” (Denzin & Lincoln
(2000, p. 8).
Social Science Regulatory Observations and Considerations
In a search of the Chronicle of Higher Education for ten years’ time, 73
stories were found under the heading “Institutional Review Boards” overall,
but only five of those were social scientific in nature (see Figure 1,
p. 50). {60}*
Figure 1
In the qualitative research arena, the questions surrounding the
protection of human subjects of research shrink in volume and narrow in
focus: What is public and what is private? What distinctions (i.e.,
interpretations) are made between “confidential” and “anonymous” and when
do they (i.e., are they interpreted to) apply? When does the
distinction matter, in terms of regulation? When does it matter in “real”
life? And, what can the researcher promise the participant anyway? Does a
researcher who refuses to break a promise of confidentiality or anonymity
have immunity from formal/legal, professional, academic, or other forms of
prosecution?
What is “harmful” research? What is “minimal risk?” “Greater than
minimal risk?” “Somewhat greater than minimal risk?”{61}*
“Only slightly greater than minimal” risk?{62}*
Who labels it so?{63}*
Who has the right to distinguish? Who has the ability? When is covert
research activity justified? When is regulation justified? What is
the role of regulation in all of this? And, how does it work ?
How does it work? Not only in terms of efficiency, i.e.,
how well it works, but also more basically how it operates.
These are important local questions, even if no absolute or comprehensive
answers exist. And certainly, an understanding of how something operates is
a logical prerequisite to understanding how to evaluate, reform, or improve
it. (For examples of analysis, see Appendix A, p.
344.)
Epistemological Position
Evaluations of the “true” effectiveness of regulatory efforts may not be
comprehensive, conclusive, possible, useful, or advisable. High degrees of
intersubjective agreement are not likely to exist, especially in regulatory
situations. However, observations and subsequent descriptions of regulatory
activity, in an attempt to understand how the system works (i.e.,
operates) seems a reasonable pursuit.
From the position that the regulatory system is substantially detached
from the research system (in a sense, hyperreal, as described by Baudrillard,
1983, and also by Russell, 1972), “this passage into a space whose
curvature is no longer that of the real, nor of truth” (p. 3-4) is the
onset of “the age of simulation” which “begins with a liquidation of
all referentials,” (i.e., things corresponding with the lifeworld,
p. 4), and made “worse,” by “their artificial resurrection in the
form of signs” (p. 4). It involves the “substituting signs of the real for
the real itself, an operation to deter every real process by its
operational double” (Baudrillard, 1983, p. 4). Epistemologically, then it
is important to critically analyze the “curvature” of the regulatory world
without, to the extent possible, making “flat earth” assumptions. Deetz
(1995) says, “The management of work must be reintegrated with the doing of
work” (p. 170).
Simulationally, then, much of the science of human communication
relies upon the optimistic assumption that behavior can be both understood
and improved through systematic study. Further, it assumes that improvement
must be based upon understanding, which converges on the primary goal of
science. Some communication scientists “positivistically” assume that they
can find important patterns in social behavior through observations of many
similar actions. Positivists believe they can devise and support general
laws about behavior (Skinner, 1938; and more recently in the communication
field, C. Berger, 1991; Berger & Calabrese, 1975; Burgoon &
LePoire, 1992; nearly anything coming from the McCroskey Machine or the
grinding of Gudykunst’s Gears). Some communication theorists want to
understand and interpret, and to know the affects and meanings
communication holds for the participants themselves in every conceivable
context (interpersonal, group, organizational, societal, etc.). And still
other theorists want to take up the issues of change, emancipation, and
critique (Alvesson & Willmott, 1992; Alvesson & Deetz, 2000; and
predecessors Marx, Horkheimer, Adorno, and later Foucault, Habermas,
Derrida, and others).
For example, Redding and Tompkins (1988; see also Tompkins & Cheney,
1985), from a postmodern viewpoint (though not explicitly stated as such)
suggest that communication distortion does not mean the same thing to a
critical scholar that it might mean to a traditionalist. Following their
argument, when communication traditionalists{64}*
talk about distortion, they focus on (in)accuracies or errors in
(in)formation that lead to (in)efficiency and (in)effectiveness
(mal-formation) in communication or some such conjecture. Traditionalists
might observe and measure managers’ communicative behaviors in order to
classify them in degree of “openness” or some other notion, or purport to
measure the levels of job satisfaction among employees or managers, or
perform statistical analyses related, they would contend, to whether
employee job satisfaction is greater under “high-openness” or low, etc.{65}*
These terms (operationalizations, or what might be described as “real”
world detachments, or Baudriesque simulations), i.e., “measure,”
“openness,” “high-openness,” “job satisfaction,” etc. point out language
that dominates thinking about jobs, happiness, the desirability of whatever
“openness” is defined as, what an adequate sample size is, what efficiency
is, and even what science is. This thinking is SINSful (see next section,
p. 58-64), specifically assumptions that these processes, definitions,
observations, measurements, observations, and conclusions are relevant, or
fit, or are fit to describe more than a tiny sliver of “reality.” These
same processes, definitions, observations, measurements, and conclusions
are too many steps removed from the “real” world to be used alone or
authoritatively about what life is like, yet we accept them as
institutions, as natural, normal, as preferable, as “science.” In my way of
thinking Baudrillard’s “simulation” (the second “S” in SINS) is very close
in meaning to “operationalization” (see footnote # 108, p. 92, re: Schutz
comments about lost relationships to meaning in the natural
sciences). Jackson (1989) says that the “impersonal idioms” we use in
talking about our “unsystematic, unstructured nature of our experiences”
helps us “create illusory word-worlds which we can more or less easily
manager because they are cut off from the stream of life” (p. 4). Jackson
concludes, “In this sense, objectivity becomes a synonym for estrangement
and neutrality a euphemism for indifference” (p. 4).
“In a postmodern approach … language which is produced by the empirical
process does not equate with an increasingly accurate correspondence with
reality. Instead it represents a process of professional
self-justification” according to Hassard (1993, p. 12). Further, the
inherently impossible value-free position of positivists contributes to
this “distance from reality” (i.e., detachment) problem. In turn,
these departures from reality create a layer (or several layers) of what
might be called “buried superficiality,” i.e., we know something we
do does not work, and is not based on “reality,” but we keep doing it,
burying our concerns in some kind of un- or de-being process. (See Schutz
& Luckmann, 1973, and/or footnote # 247, p. 241 re: use of rules as
simplifying.)
Analytical Framework
Each person is born into
ongoing discourses that have a material and continuing presence … Available
discourse positions the person in the world in a particular way prior to
the individual having any sense of choice. [This discourse] structures the
person’s subjectivity, providing a particular social identity and way of
being in the world. The person, contra humanism, is always social
first and only mistakenly claims the personal self as the origin of
experience. (Alvesson & Deetz, 1996, p. 205)
Schutz and Luckmann (1973) use the term "historizations" (in
describing a phenomenon similar to “discourse structures”) saying they
“originate from socially conditioned motives” (p. 283-84; see also Sunwolf
& Seibold, 1998, p. 286-87).
Language is inherently limiting; it hides important alternatives. (See
Poole, et al., 1985, for discussion about boundary establishment and
identity maintenance within structured environments.) Once we subscribe to
the patterned system, we begin talking “at” or past” each other, role-to-role
(i.e., detached) rather than “with,” (real-to-real) in a sort of
pseudo-engagement. This notion of pseudo-engagement is particularly
relevant to the issue of regulation, i.e., we rarely have
face-to-face encounters with regulators. Our conversations with them, if
they occur at all, are focused on the fulfillment of rules rather
than the reasons for them (Baudrillard, 1983, 1988; Foucault, 1972, 1980;
Habermas, 1975, 1984, and others).{66}*
For example, most regulators would likely be “offended” by and probably
unable to answer “why” questions; they are accustomed to answering “how”
questions (even if/when unable).
Individuals arrange for—and often direct the flow of—activities (talk)
within settings (Goffman, 1974; Austin, 1962; Searle, 1969; Chomsky, 1965;
Garfinkel, 1967; Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974; Foucault, 1972,
and others). Asking questions that others must answer, and making requests
and issuing directives to which others must—at least are expected
to—respond (and to respond in specific ways) are examples. People create
rules, specialized vocabularies, and certain forms of argument. They form
hierarchies, rituals, and routines via this discourse. Individuals produce
(or more accurately, co-produce) control and power, then, through
discursive dominance, i.e., making some resources (including ways of
knowing, i.e., what is considered fact, what is considered logical,
what is considered risky [or less than risky, or somewhat less than risky],
what is public and private, and perpetuating the myth of a singular truth,
justice, beneficence, etc.) available to themselves and others, and acting
to make other resources less available. And people do this through talk. In
the case of regulatory bodies, most of the talk results in written
documents, i.e., rules and reports.
SINS (Structures, Institutionalizations, Naturalizations, Simulations)
In the present study, the works of the classical theorists-Weber (1947),
Fayol, (1916/1949), and Taylor (1919/1947)-are useful for understanding the
roots of the IRB system and may provide glimpses of the (SINS) STRUCTURES,
INSTITUTIONALIZATIONS, NATURALIZATIONS, SIMULATIONS operating in the
system. SINS may be described as “unacknowledged” knowledge. SINS are neutral
but powerful. (See Foucault, 1980; 1977/1995, p. 297, re: “carceral
continuum,” “carceral net,” and “carceral circles” underlying morality,
power relations, and order; and Durkheim, 1933, p. 79, re: “common
consciousness” creation.)
The power of any position has
been traditionally gathered from its grounding. This grounding could be to
either a metaphysical foundation – such as an external world in empiricism,
mental structures in rationalism, or human nature in humanism – or a
narrative, a story of history, such as Marxism’s class struggle, social
Darwinism’s survival of the fittest, or market economy’s invisible hand.
With such groundings, positions are made to seem secure and inevitable and
not opportunistic or driven by advantage. (Alvesson & Deetz, 1996, p.
208)
Structures. Marx offered the earliest ideological critiques of
the workplace in 1844 and 1867 (Alvesson & Deetz, 1996). Marx focused
on economic exploitation practices, direct coercion, and structural social
differences, but he also described ways exploitation is disguised and comes
to be legitimized (see also Lefebvre, 1969, p. 7 and 10). The focus of
study shifted to scrutiny of active consent, and the (SINS) STRUCTURES,
INSTITUTIONALIZATIONS, NATURALIZATIONS, SIMULATIONS (and concessions) that
make the need for coercion rare. In this view, a worker’s self-understanding
of experiences became, and remains, important to understand.
Similar to Adorno (1989a), Hall (1986) offers the example that marketing
research operates with the ideology that capitalism is good, similar to the
contention that science and regulation continue to operate with a bias
toward positivism (see also Whyte, 1987; Agar, 1980; Goffman, 1971).
I believe this is consistent with Marx’ economics-as-deep-structure
premise, and this perspective may be useful in gaining more understanding
of (SINS) STRUCTURES, INSTITUTIONALIZATIONS, NATURALIZATIONS, SIMULATIONS
affecting the IRB system. For example, the notions that rules are perceived
by many individuals as desirable or as constituting protection. There
appears to be a bias toward compliance, perhaps in part because of this
notion of protection, and because it is easier, safer, and substantially
more “appropriate” to conform than to rebel.{67}*
(Re: rules perceived as desirable, following rules as good, and rules as
protective, see Schutz & Luckmann, 1973; re: maintenance of status quo,
see Adorno, 1989a and Horkheimer & Adorno, 1944/1972; also see
Brainard, 2001, Jan 12; NBAC, 2001; Sunwolf & Seibold, 1998). The
(mythical) ideas that rules are good, and even that following rules is
good,{68}* are obvious, particularly on the part of federal and
institutional regulators, as I will show.
(SINS) STRUCTURES, INSTITUTIONALIZATIONS, NATURALIZATIONS, SIMULATIONS
are operating in the IRB system, even when the rules (often symptoms of
even deeper structures) are being (at least occasionally) criticized. It
may be that the IRB (or other) system remains in place (and is expanding in
some local interpretations to include film makers, journalists, historians,
cultural geographers, and others previously not affected) even though it is
considered abusive and unnecessary by many (see, in particular, AAUP, 2001
and others cited herein), because the oppressed allow it (see Adorno,
1989b, footnote # 67, below), and then contribute to entrenching the system
of rules by the SINSful assumptions that the system is unavoidable, cannot
be deconstructed, has a “higher purpose” of which an individual researcher
is unaware, etc.
Institutionalizations. More or less following Marx, Giddens
(1979) defines ideology as a set of assumptions and beliefs comprising a
system of thought. Ideology provides the structure of an organization’s
“mode of rationality,” and is essential to an organization’s deep
structure. Ideology, in Giddens’ (1979) view, serves to privilege certain
groups. Members of dominated groups participate in their own oppression
(they concede) by identifying with and consenting to the system preferred
by the dominators. In organizational settings, according to Williams
(1977), such dominance occurs when a group in power (managers, for example,
or regulators) convinces an oppressed group to adopt the interests of the
dominant group (the we’re-all-on-the-same-team pitch, loyalty, patriotism,
and corporate cultism are examples), or makes some reality claims
more available than others (Foucault, 1977/1995). Hall (1986), in the
context of mass communication, suggests that the media do not reflect the
status quo ideology, but the media actually reinforce it. (See also Grabe,
1999, particularly the last sentence, “This study’s results support the
notion that television mass disseminates messages to nurture the survival
of the existing social order,” p. 168.)
Naturalizations. According to Alvesson & Deetz (1996)
naturalization involves social formations that are abstracted from the
“historical conflictual site” of their origins and treated as fixed
entities. These reifications “become the reality rather than life
processes” and these “institutional arrangements are no longer seen as
choices but as natural and self-evident” (p. 199). Adorno (1989a) states
that “conformity has replaced consciousness” (via models in the media of
how to dress, think, behave, etc.) and “the concepts of order which [the
culture industry] hammers into human beings are always those of the status
quo. They remain unquestioned, unanalyzed, and undialectically presupposed,
even if they no longer have any substance for those who accept them” (p.
133; see also Mumby, 1987, p. 51). And Derrida (1981) says that
normative{69}* social structures are products of systems privileging
unity and identity over separation and difference. This work has relevance
to the “invisible functioning” of the IRB regulatory system, the (SINS)
STRUCTURES, INSTITUTIONALIZATIONS, NATURALIZATIONS, SIMULATIONS, at work.
“Nothing offers a more striking symbol for the fact that people’s lives,
what they hold for the closest to them and the greatest reality, personal,
maintained in being by them, actually receive their concrete content in
large measure from above” (Adorno, 1989b, p. 273).
Simulations. To further explain Baudrillard’s (1983) ideas about
simulations, I’ll first present a descriptive example he offers, and then a
brief discussion of the “phases of the image” as he outlines. Baudrillard
(1983) presents feigning versus simulating an illness in illustrating his
idea. When feigning an illness, a person “can simply go to bed and make
believe [he] is ill” (p. 5); when someone simulates an illness, though, the
person produces in him/herself some of the symptoms of the illness.
Therefore, “feigning or dissimulation leaves the reality principle intact:
the difference is always clear, it is only masked; whereas simulation
threatens the difference between ‘true’ and ‘false,’ between ‘real’ and
imaginary’” (p. 5).
Baudrillard’s (1983) phases of the image include first a “good
appearance,” i.e., a reflection of a basic reality. Next,
characterized as a “bad appearance,” is an image that masks and perverts a
basic reality. Third, what Baudrillard terms sorcery, masks the absence
of a basic reality. And finally, simulation, in which an image “bears no
relation to any reality whatever; it is its own pure simulacrum” (p. 11).
In the case of the IRB system, many examples of these phases can be seen.
Application forms, completed by researchers for presentation to IRB
members, “good appearances” (phase one). They are “good” in that they are
produced by the person who will actually conduct or at least conduct a
potion of the study, i.e., will be in the liquid, local research
environment. That these applications are accepted as accurate representations
of what actually happens in any local situation is a masking/perversion
(phase two) of that local reality (and especially perverted, perhaps, is an
irrelevant/ill fitting regulatory structure). Researchers contribute to the
sorcery (phase three) in “masking” the absence of reality in the system
(regulators’ acceptance of written documents as ensuring protection and/or
compliance to rules, or the assumptions that rules, if followed, provide
protection and/or that researchers know and comply with rules). An argument
could be made, with respect to phase four, that the entire IRB system (and
indeed many regulatory systems) is a “simulation.” Examples of evidence of
this image phase might be the (rather prevalent) idea that regulatory
systems are needed and/or are accomplishing their goals, or that regulators
and the regulated often perceive regulations to be “mandatory” (when,
without direct oversight, the system can only be in a “real” sense
voluntary).{70}*
Bringing SINS into View: Foucault’s Archeology
Critical theorists, with a focus on communicative and symbolic
approaches to power, argue that assumptions within a group that things are
or should be a particular way is most powerful. “Domination involves getting
people to organize their behavior around a particular rules system” (Mumby,
1987, p. 115). Foucault, it seems, agrees when he advances the idea that
power is a set of relationships that people hold with the texts{71}*
that constitute organizations to which they belong.{72}*
Further, Foucault’s idea that the more invisible the power is, the more
effective it is resonates with Mumby’s statement about assumptions, as well
as the views expressed by Hall, Gramsci, and others.{i}*
Deetz (1982) suggests the goals of critical scholarship are to gain a
richer understanding of naturally occurring events, to criticize
systematically distorted communication and false consensus (the result of
insufficient whying; see Adorno, 1989a, p. 133), and to work to expand the
intellectual, cognitive horizon from which organizational members think and
work. In order to do this, I suggest the “horizon” must be made more
apparent than it often is, and expanded to better accommodate (maybe
someday even welcome) those with atypical or unorthodox (i.e.,
strange, weird, etc.) approaches.
In a departure from those critical theorists who focus almost entirely
on issues of domination and oppression, Foucault (1980) examined the codes
and theories of order by which societies operate (see Manning, 1989, p. 213
and 232), and suggested that power is not domination, rather Foucault made
a distinction between the two.{73}*
In the Foucauldian scheme, power is viewed not simply as a pervasive force,
but also a productive, creative one. Foucault asks, “If power were never
anything but repressive, if it never did anything but to say no, do you
really think one would be brought to obey it?” (1980, p. 119).{74}*
In attempting to describe the (SINS) STRUCTURES, INSTITUTIONALIZATIONS,
NATURALIZATIONS, SIMULATIONS in place in the IRB regulatory system, I will
utilize questions set forth by Foucault in 1972 (see Table 1, Appendix A, p.
345) to assist in the exploration of IRB discourse related to regulations,
guidance documents, sanctions, evaluations, and other discursive formations
within the system.
Loss of Foundations (Habermas’ Legitimation Crisis).{75}*
In the first of two views about the loss of foundations and grand
narratives described by Alvesson and Deetz (1996), they suggest some
analysts hold that foundations and narratives have always been a hoax. They
have been used (often unknowingly and in ways that are unacknowledged and unarticulated,
i.e., mindlessly) to support a dominant worldview. The second
position focuses on “growing social incredulity” (p. 211) toward
foundations and grand narratives; Lyotard (1984), for example, demonstrated
the decline of grand narratives of spirit, emancipation, patriotism, etc.
Growing public skepticism (or astuteness) added to the proliferation of
the profit motive in research and the record of atrocities in (almost
exclusively medical or military/medical) research, can be associated with
what Habermas (1975) termed “legitimation crises.” Deetz (1985)
suggests legitimation appears “in the rationalization of decisions and
practices through the invocation of higher-order explanatory devices ” (p.
127; see also NIH, 2001, p. 1, regarding “Decision Trees”) and argues
Habermas (1975) has “convincingly” demonstrated motivation and high
productivity have been sustained in the Western world more by the
Protestant work ethic (i.e., the belief that work is preferable or
more valuable or virtuous than play, that leisure and family time are
expendable in the face of work, or adages about idle hands and devil’s
work){76}* than by intrinsic work experiences (see also Weber,
1930, who shows how one group’s set of social norms can become infused into
the wider socio-cultural context). Lyotard’s (1984) view suggests only
local narratives exist, leading to explorations of how stories in
organizations connect to legitimizing narratives and how some are more
local, situational in nature (see Martin 1990; Deetz, 1997, 1998). Others
have used this position to illustrate the false certainty in management
narratives (Jehenson, 1984; Ingersoll & Adams, 1986; Carter &
Jackson 1987). The rise of “performativity”{77}*
occurs when measures of means toward social ends become ends in themselves
and when new forms of control arise, directed not by a desire for social
good but simply by more production and consumption, according to Alvesson
and Deetz (1996, p. 209). I believe the IRB system has clearly arrived at
this point, i.e., means overshadow ends, process has supplanted
purpose.
Proliferation of private free enterprise (as an activity and as a value)
encroaches on other realms of “real” life, including politics (PACs, for
example), education (we now teach “marketable skills” in the
continuation of the “vo-teching” of the university), and on even deeper
levels, including the human consumption of animals and their habitat, and
our own habitat including air, water, earth, and space. According to
Mumford, (1970), “Western society has accepted as unquestionable a
technological imperative that is quite as arbitrary as the most primitive
taboo: not merely the duty to foster invention and constantly to
create technological novelties, but equally the duty to surrender to these
novelties unconditionally, just because they are offered, without respect
to their human consequences” (p.185-186). The
right-to-make-a-profit-at-any-cost mentality is prevalent.
With respect to the IRB regulatory system, it seems, when these are in
conflict, that we favor process over purpose, maintaining the status quo
over development and implementation of new ideas, and compliance over
critique. We are conforming to (at best) a pointless system of protection
(and in some cases a potentially debilitating system) rather than rebelling
against it. Why don’t we ignore it? Engage in passive rebellion? Encourage
our colleagues and students to ignore (certain ill-fitting and meaningless
parts of) the system? Insist that our professional organizations endorse
the ignoring of these (selected) rules? Why don’t we act as if this is
possible?{78}*
Because the IRB system is highly political (as will also be shown), I
suspect federal regulators, (once the momentum of the rebellion is
apparent){79}*, would perhaps move quickly to dismantle the system
(as it pertains to “minimal risk” studies, as described and defined by the
federal government) and claim credit for what might be spun as a system
“innovation."
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