Hi Everyone

I hope you don’t mind me jumping in on your conversation all the way from Australia, but it’s very interesting. Mel Birks and I have done a lot of thinking and writing about some of the tensions within grounded theory as a whole. We believe that you need to clearly identify your own philosophical position before you begin to engage in an indepth way with the work of both first and second generation grounded theorists (otherwise you can float around without an anchor). Jeffrey’s blog post really exemplifies some excellent ‘thinking’ work as a PhD candidate about to begin his own grounded theory study. I agree that Glaser’s language is imbued with post-positivism, and Jane’s blog entry highlights this beautifully – but there are many contradictions in his writing that can lead to you being able to interpret some of his ideas as being closer to a Charmaz/constructivist position. At the end of the day, we believe grounded theory consists of a set of methods that you can use in a variety of ways depending on how you methodologically situate yourself as the researcher/author.

If any of you are at QI2011 this year, Mel and I will be there too and would enjoy catching up. We are planning on visiting New York for a couple days after and then San Francisco on the way home.

Cheers Jane