Foucault, Narrative and the Subjugated

Subject: Doing Research With a Grid of

Sensibility

Valerie Harwood
University of Queensland

Abstract
This paper introduces the grid of sensibility, a strategy that engages
Foucaultian analysis and narrative research to provide a theoretical basis for
research on subjugated knowledge. This strategy was devised in response to the
specific needs of a study that sought to consider the experiences of subjugated
and disqualified young people who had been told they were mentally
disordered. The grid of sensibility functioned as a communicative meta-tool
thatprovided a flexible, responsive and connected way to access the ideas and
considerations that informed the research process. The grid of sensibility is
discussed with reference to this study. The paper outlines the grid of sensibility,
how it was applied, and suggests its potential application in other studies
seeking to consider the perspectives of subjugated disqualified knowledges.

Introduction
I'd gone back to education and these mental health workers
have thrown in some new labels ... And n o w [with] my
psychiatrist something different has been said. They told me I
had Personality Disorder and it's just like my head's - my head's
just like 'what am I meant to think, you know?' With all these
different diagnoses that have been thrown at me through
education and it's just like 'ohhh hold on, what have I got?'
(Young person to researcher, H a r w o o d 2000, p. 217)
It would seem that a diagnosis of mental disorder could lead to a position of
knowing one's self, or, at least, a better understanding of one's self.

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Paradoxically, it seems that diagnosis can prompt confusion, particularly

when several and varying diagnoses are experienced. This confusion is
palpable in the above quote, where this experience of multiple diagnoses
prompts a young person to ask 'what have I got?' (Harwood 2000, p. 217). As
a researcher interested in the effects of the culture of disordering students in
education, remarks such as the above are valuable because they can provide
perspectives on how mentally disordered subjectivity is constructed.
Significantly, these statements can also cast different perspectives on the
practice of diagnosing students with mental disorders. What is problematic,
however, is how to do research that can consider the perspectives of young
people who have had such experiences.
This was a conundrum encountered in my research which considered how
Conduct Disorder is made truthful and how mentally disordered subjectivity
is constructed.' For the latter question I wanted to analyse the subjugated
disqualified knowledges of young people who had experienced
disenfranchisement from school and had been told they were 'mentally
disordered'. This analysis required a strategy that could collect the stories of
the young people and not reinforce experiences of subjugation and
disqualification. My response to this dilemma was to create the grid of
sensibility, a communicative meta-tool that could engage narrative
methodologies and Foucaultian perspectives to form a research strategy
appropriate to my study.
This paper discusses the grid of sensibility and how it was applied to my
study of the construction of young people's mentally disordered subjectivity.
I begin by discussing subjugated disqualified knowledges and how young
people who have been told they are mentally disordered can be described as
subjugated and disqualified. Here I indicate, why these knowledges have
potential value for educational research. This leads to a discussion of how
narrative research can be utilised for research with subjugated knowledge.
From this I detail the grid of sensibility and how it functioned as a
communicative meta-tool that drew on narrative research and Foucaultian
analysis. Following this I describe how the grid of sensibility was applied in
my study of the construction of mentally disordered subjectivity.

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Subjugation, disqualification and the conundrum of research

In 'Two lectures' Foucault (1980) describes subjugated knowledges as 'those
blocs of historical knowledge which were present but disguised within the
body of functionalist and systematising theory and which criticism - which
obviously draws upon scholarship- has been able to reveal' (p. 82). Foucault
(1980) describes two types of subjugated knowledge: erudite and disqualified.
Subjugated erudite knowledges are expert or qualified knowledges that have
been buried in the formulation of dominating systems of knowledge. By
contrast, subjugated disqualified knowledges are subjugated knowledges that
are bereft of expertise and qualification; they are 'a whole set of knowledges
that have been disqualified as inadequate to their task or insufficiently
elaborated: naive knowledges located low down on the hierarchy, beneath
the required level of cognition or scientificity' (Foucault 1980, p. 82). Thus
subjugated disqualified knowledges are disqualified precisely because they
are deemed not to meet the criteria for recognised knowledge because they
are inadequate to their task. This is exemplified in the statement below in
which a young person describes the effects of being labelled with a mental
disorder:
These labels made it more difficult for you to do your work
because you seem as though you are different to everybody
else. You have got something wrong with you literally ... and
sometimes you get into that the victim mentality when you
think 'well how should I be able to do this' or 'I've got that'.
And you get angry with it, and you get angry with school, you
get angry with parents and you get angry with everything else.
(Young person to researcher, Harwood 2000, p. 221)
This knowledge is inadequate to its task of knowing what it has got or,
indeed, if it has something precisely because it is not recognised knowledge.
This comment and the statement that began this paper indicate how being
diagnosed with a mental disorder disqualifies young people from authoritative
knowledge of themselves. I suggest that this disqualification from authorised
and recognised knowledge positions these individuals as subjugated and
disqualified.

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Significantly for my study, Foucault (1980) proposes that these subjugated

disqualified knowledges are valuable, and that this value is related to the
degree to which these subjugated disqualified knowledges are opposed:
I also believe that it is through the re-emergence of these lowranking knowledges, these unqualified, even directly
disqualified knowledges ... and which owes its force only to the
harshness with which it is opposed by everything surrounding
it- that it is through the re-appearance of this knowledge, of
these local popular knowledges, these disqualified knowledges,
that criticism performs its work. (p. 82)
This statement is valuable because it can be used as a point for the
development of two important strategies for researchers who consider
subjugation and disqualification. Firstly, it underscores the value of subjugated
disqualified knowledges for research. Secondly, it emphasises that the more
these subjugated disqualified knowledges have been opposed by dominating
systems of knowledge the more forceful they are as 'tools for critique. This
implies that those young people who have been told they have a 'mental
disorder' can be drawn on to entertain claims against the unitary body of
knowledges that wield the expertise to apply mental disorder diagnosis in
education. From this perspective, such subjugated disqualified knowledges
have the potential to unsettle qualified knowledge, and, by extension, provide
valuable perspectives on the construction of mentally disordered subjectivity.

Subjugated disqualified knowledge and narrative research

Doing research that uses subjugated disqualified knowledge necessitates
devising ways to both value that knowledge and be attentive to the
individuals who ~ell the stories. Narrative research is a suitable methodological
perspective in this endeavour because it explicitly seeks to pay attention to
participant stories. By using stories in this manner, 'the critical educational
storyteller is out to prick the consciences of readers by inviting a reexamination of the values and interests undergirding certain discourses,
practices, and institutional arrangements found in today's schools' (Barone
1992a, p. 143). This point can be further illustrated by Barone's (1992b)
observation that 'Great stories enable readers to gaze in fresh astonishment
upon a part of their world they thought they had already seen. They also
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allow readers- to get better acquainted with people they thought they had
already known' (p. 20). It is my argument that stories are crucial to re-thinking
education's assumptions about young people who have experienced the
ascription of mental diagnosis. Drawing from this point it can be argued that
stories of subjugated disqualified knowledges can be used to 'prick the
consciences of readers' and 'gaze in fresh astonishment' at the discourses of
psychopathology in education. Toward this I argue that narrative research can
be employed to create a style of research that can construct great stories of
individuals who have been subjugated and disqualified by the diagnosis of
mental disorder.
Although the use of story offered a valuable perspective, the choice of the
style of narrative research required particular circumspection. This was
because narrative research and notions of narrative and sto W are wide
ranging. For example, the terms narrative, narrative research and stow all
have varying definitions, with some authors using the terms interchangeably
(Casey 1995-96, Cathro 1995), whilst others view them as separate (Barone
1995). This variation ranges from those researchers who use narrative to
support positivist ideas to those with anti-positivist agendas. To draw attention
to this I include this reference to Behar-Horenstein and Morgan (1995) who
use narrative to substantiate positivistic psychiatric truths. This application of
narrative used patients' case histories, which 'became codified sources for
illustrating classificatory systems of mental disorders. This information has
become a database for the creation of the diagnostic statistical manuals'
(Behar-Horenstein & Morgan 1995, p. 154). To do research in this manner is,
I argue, to share theoretical premises with the qualified and dominant
knowledges that prescribe mental disorder." Thus, although narrative research
pays attention to participant stories, it does not offer a recipe for doing
research.
This variation means that to use Foucault and narrative required the
construction of alternative ways of conceptualising and conducting research.
One specific problem was the issue of applying a definition of narrative. I
contend that a definition of narrative, stow, or narrative research is especially
problematic because it assumes that some type of rule can be made that
works for all individuals. This is problematic because engaging in a definition
can restrict the flexibility crucial to working with subjugated disqualified
knowledges. To emphasise the potential consequences of definitic, n I refer to

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Scheurich's (1995) 'A postmodernist critique of research interviewing'. In this

article Scheurich (1995)poignantly asks, 'Whose definition of a story gets to
be essentialized~ Who is permitted to define what a stow is or what
storytelling is' (p. 245). To illustrate this criticism of definition Scheurich
(1995) refers to Lubiano's (1991) 'Shuckin' off the African-American native
other: what's "po-mo" got to do with it?' Scheurich (1995) describes Lubiano
(1991) as 'an African-American addressing the value of postmodernism to the
African-American community' (p. 245). Lubiano (1991) was relevant to
Scheurich (1995) because of the way she challenged the notion of story:
[S]he... begins her article with the following quote from The S u n
newspaper of June 12, 1988, published in England "Remember
the time when stories had a beginning, a middle, and an end?
In that order ... Three things made Britain great. A strong navy.
The white race. And narrative closure. Don't let's throw them
away. (Lubiano 1991, p. 149, quoted in Scheurich 1995, p. 245)
By using this quote from The S u n Lubiano (1991) unsettles the notion that
chronology is definitive of story or narrative. This point is employed by
Scheurich (1995) to draw attention to the way colonial notions essentialise the
definition of story: 'Lubiano (1991) draws a telling connection between certain
story forms (definitions of storying) and a politics of dominance' (Scheurich
1995, p. 245). In a similar way definition and its connection to the politics of
dominance is argued by Gee (1991) in 'The narrativization of experience in
the oral style', an article based around an oral narrative by 'L a 7-year-old
black girl' (p. 79). L's oral narrative was told during 'sharing time' at her
primary school, but did not, according to Gee (1991), fit her teacher's
definition of stow:
L's stories were literally not heard and were interpreted as
'deficit' by her teachers, leading to psychological intervention.
L's story became a 'non-story' when it was judged according to
the 'eurocentric paradigm' of beginning, middle and end, where
meaning is to be explicitly conveyed, not left to the constructive
processes of the hearer. (p. 91)
Just as L's stories were not heard by her teachers, so too they would go
unnoticed if researchers chose to incorporate definitional criteria such as

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chronology or temporal order into their definition of story. This consequence

is explicated in Scheurich's (1995) summation of Lubiano (1991): 'Her point is
that the choice of whose story is essentialized has serious social
consequences' (p. 246). Here it is relevant to note how Lubiano (1991) elected
to manage the issue of defining a story. As Scheurich states, 'she questions
even the idea of characterizing or defining what a story is' (p. 246).
Inspired by Lubiano (1991), in my study with the subjugated disqualified
knowledges of young people I deliberately chose n o t to define narrative or
story or even narrative research. However, to do research without
subscription to definition is a constraint that makes for an interesting
conundrum. On the one hand there is the need to devise a way to style a
research approach without definition. On the other, it is vital to be able to
describe the research strategies.

Responding to the methodological conundrum: the grid of

sensibility
To compose a strategy for my study that avoided the use of definition and was
therefore alert to the multifaceted complexity of story and narrative, I devised
the grid of sensibility. The diagram below is an attempt to illustrate this
research landscape:

Figure I: Grid of sensibility

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My use of the term grid is derived from Foucault (1984b, 1983). For example,
in The History of Sexuality Volume 3, with reference to 'sex' and 'power',
Foucault describes ~orming a 'different grid of historical decipherment'
(1984b, p. 90).
The grid of sensibility was a means t o articulate my approach and provided a
flexible, responsive and connected way to access the tactics, ideas and
considerations that informed my research. In this way the grid of sensibility
functioned as a communicative meta-tool that provided access to the various
tools and tactics used in my research. From this perspective the grid of
sensibility functibns as a methodological landscape with which the researcher
can interact throughout the research endeavour. My sense of this
methodological landscape is something like the notion of rhizomes or that of
fractals and their interconnected non-linear patterns.'" The tools and tactics
used in my study are not represented in the above diagram because they
cannot be fixed to points on the grid of sensibility. To tie these tools to
specific locations presupposes that these ideas occupy fixed positions and
relations on the grid of sensibility. Against such a rigid conceptualisation I
imagine the grid of sensibility as dynamic and fluid, an interconnection of
moving and mutating ideas.
The tools and tactics used in the grid of sensibility include: the non-definitive
stow; vigilance and the obligation to truth; being undetective; tackling
validity; ontological rather than epistemological dominance; distortion and
obliquity; power relations; narrative therapeutic practices; the self and
subjectivity; and ethical considerations. In addition to these tools, a tactic that
permeated the grid of sensibility was my vigilance to the way that the human
science tradition can pervade the research endeavour. This tendency to make
the study of humfins 'scientific' is noted and problematised by Foucault (1994)
in The Order of Things:
. . . since it had proved possible, by the means of experimentation and theory, to analyse the laws of movement or those
governing the reflection of light beams, was it not normal to
seek, by means of experiments, observations, or calculations,
the laws that might govern the more complex but adjacent
realm of living beings? (p. 125)

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This critical gesture by Foucault (1994) was utilised in my strategy to maintain

an ongoing vigilance for practices that scienticize the participants in my study.
To put this grid of sensibility into practice raised the question of how to
describe sometlqing that isn't method in a conceptual space where there is the
expectation of method. In formulating a response to this dilemma I utilised
an understanding shared by the character William in Eco's (1984) The Name
of the Rose: 'The order that our mind imagines is like a net, or like a ladder,
built to attain something. But afterward you must throw the ladder away,
because you discover that, even if it was useful, it was meaningless' (p. 492).
William's statement lends valuable insight to the way the researcher can
choose to manage method. Here I contend that by interpreting the value of
my research strategy in terms of utility it was possible, to disturb the habit of
making method definitive.
Drawing from this perspective, the grid of sensibility was not treated as an
entity that stood apart from the purpose of the study. Conversely, I used the
grid of sensibility as a tool by which importance was tied to utility. Situating
the grid of sensibility as part of the matrices of ongoing contemplation
provided for a way to avoid the positivist trap of essentialising the research
method. This type of conceptualisation is styled after Gough (1994b):
. . whereas structuralist ladders and nets lead us towards
closure and a semblance of 'order in the universe',
poststructuralist ladders and nets tend to be temporary markers
of ongoing processes of reconfiguration, leading not to closure
but to n e w openings. (p. 8)
Borrowing from Gough (1994b), the grid of sensibility can be construed as a
means to openings; a strategy that prompts the problematisation of both
subjugated disqualified knowledges and research that employs narrative
approaches to access and tell stories of those knowledges.
As stated above, the grid of sensibility used in my study had tools and tactics
located upon its matrices. These tools and tactics relate specifically to my
study of the subjugated disqualified knowledges of young people w h o have
been told that they have a mental disorder. The selection of each of these
tactics was influenced by my interpretation of Foucault and my selections

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from narrative research literature. Each of these tactics is described below.

Following this description I discuss how the tactics were applied in my study.

The non-definit@e story Not applying a definition of story was an important

part of the grid of sensibility. As I have argued, prescribing a definition for the
term sto W was problematic for my study. To define stow or narrative could
disqualify the subjugated disqualified knowledges. Therefore I elected not to
apply a definition of narrative or stow and chose to draw on styles and
approaches rather than adopt a method. To construct a way to manage this
dilemma I drew on a point made by Knoespel (1991)
By local narrative, I mean the shorter narrative operations
present in disciplines as well as in our daily activity. These
narratives include everything from instructions or directions
(medicine bottles, telephone books, computer manuals) to
cartoons, on postmodernism in The Village Voice. (p. 109)

I considered narrative or story not as singularly definable, but rather as

something that is a complicated, multilayered and multifaceted endeavour.
Based on this view, it became possible to take the position of describing story
or narrative as whatever the creator of the narrative considers narrative to be,
or whatever the perceiver of the narrative considers to be narrative.
Significantly, placing this conceptualisation on the grid of sensibility enabled
me to be open to what the young people chose to call story. By combining
this with other tactics I was able to draw on the grid of sensibility to disrupt
my own assumptions of sto W and thereby be more attentive to what the
young people considered to be story.

Vigilance and the obligation to truth How truth was conceptualised and

managed formed a key part of the grid of sensibility for my study. This was
crucial because I viewed truth as something with which the researcher is
necessarily entwined. This entanglement is made explicit by Foucault's (1978)
suggestion that 'ours is a society which produces and circulates discourse with
a truth-function, discourse which passes for the truth and thus holds specific
power' (p. 4). I considered this 'truth function' of discourse to be just as
present and powerful in the practices of research. Here Foucault's (1984a)
notion of 'regimes of truth' suggests the circulating discourses influencing my
research. The researcher is both subject to and author of these regimes of
truth. This relationship with truth had two implications for my research.
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Firstly, it d e m a n d e d that the researcher be aware of the regimes of truth.

Secondly, it raised the challenge of how to work with the obligation to truth.
Foucault (1997) observes, 'It is within the field of obligation to truth that it is
possible to move about in one way or another, sometimes against effects of
domination which may be linked to structures of truth or institutions of truth'
(p. 295). To manage this obligation to truth it was therefore vital to ensure
that it was possible to move within this relationship to truth.
In relation to this, I argue it is not necessary to try to find a means to escape
a regime of truth in order to challenge or change its influence. As Foucault
(1997) states, 'one escaped from a domination of truth not by playing a game
that was totally different from the game of truth but by playing the same game
differently, or playing another game, another hand, with other trump cards'
(p. 295). This is important because it connects the grid of sensibility to the
possibility of n e w openings and can suggest possibilities for moving
differently with truth. Considering truth in this manner ensured an ongoing
vigilance to the obligation to truth and encouraged me to attempt different
ways to play within games of truth. On the grid of sensibility there are three
ways in which l attempted to play the truth game differently: by 'being
undetective', by tackling validity and by having an ontological emphasis and
an epistemologica~ de-emphasis.

Vigilance to truth: being undetective 'Being undetective' refers to one of my

strategies to be vigilant to the obligation to truth. The terms search, findings

and discover are all examples of notions frequently used in educational
research, terms that reveal educational research is, as Gough (1998, 1994b)
states, similar to detective fiction. 'V In this interpretation of educational
research the researcher is likened to a 'detective' and educational inquiry is 'a
quest for the truth about some aspect of curriculum, teaching and/or learning'
(Gough 1998, p. 112). To be aware of this I have made being undetective a
locale on the grid of sensibility. This meant working in ways that do not
nourish searches for truth. This practice of the detective can be illustrated by
again quoting from Eco's (1984) The Name of the Rose. In the excerpt below
the young Adso reflects on his thirst for truth and what he perceives as the
failings of his non-detective mentor:
I had the impression that William was not at all interested in the
truth, which is nothing but the adjustment between the thing

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and the intellect. On the contrary, he amused himself by

imagining h o w many possibilities were possible.
At that moment, I confess, I despaired of my master and caught
myself thinking, 'Good thing the inquisitor has come'. I was on
the side of that thirst for truth that inspired Bernard Gui. (Eco
1984, p. 306)
In the approach taken in my research I was wary of the tactics of Bernard Gui
and the detectives and attempted to adopt William's question of 'how many
possibilities are possible?' Therefore, placing 'being undetective' on the grid
of sensibility was vital to creating vigilance to truth.

Vigilance to truth: tackling validity A second means used to be vigilant to

truth was to challenge the concept of validity. Tackling validity can be

demanding (Lather 1993); a difficult task because validity is a means to
authenticate research. Indeed, it can function as a quality assurance
mechanism for truth. Because of this relationship to establishing truthfulness,
tackling validity challenges research authenticity. Therefore, to confront
validity it was necessary to deal with the notion of authenticity. These
interconnected issues were dealt with by abandoning the dual goals of
validity and authenticity in favour of 'believability'. Thus, rather than striving
for validity, my aim was to make my research believable. As Sandelowski
(1994) writes:
When you talk to me about my research, do not ask me what I
found; I found nothing. Ask me what I invented, what I made
up from and out of my data. But k n o w that in asking you ask
me this, I am not confessing to telling any lies about the people
or events in my studies/stories. I have told the truth. The proof
for you is in the things I have made how they look to your
mind's eye ... whether you believe them, and whether they
appeal to your heart. (1994, p. 61)
Since validity was something I sought to avoid, on the grid of sensibility I
firstly used my vigilance to truth to self-monitor any aspiration to validity.
Secondly, ! used believability as a tactical trump card with which to play the
game of truth differently.

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Vigilance to truth: an ontological emphasis Another tactic utilised to unsettle

truth was to focus on an ontological rather than epistemological dominant.
McHale (1992) describes this different concern as a move from modernist to
postmodernist thinking. According to McHale:
. . . modernist fiction is fiction organised in terms of an
epistemological dominant, fiction whose formal strategies
implicitly raise issues of the accessibility, reliability or
unreliability, transmission, circulation etc., of knowledge about
the world ... postmodernist fiction, on the other hand, is fiction
organised in terms of an ontological dominant, fiction whose
formal strategies implicitly raise issues of the mode of being ...
and/or reflect on the plurality and diversity of worlds.
(pp. 146-7)
In my study I specifically sought to engage with the knowledges of young
people who had been subjugated and disqualified. This meant countering the
epistemological emphasis of dominant knowledge with a strategy that
encouraged the valuing of 'modes of being'. This ontological emphasis
provided a tactic that kept me aware of the 'plurality and diversity of worlds'.
The placement of.-an ontological emphasis and an epistemological deemphasis on the grid of sensibility was a tactic that constantly reminded me
of these purposes.
Distortion a n d obliquity The research style I crafted assumed that researchers
shape research. On the grid of sensibility this perspective viewed researchers
as telling their narratives of the stories of the subjugated disqualified
knowledges. This differs from the more accepted notion of the objective,
neutral researcher (Casey 1995-96, Cathro 1995, Clough 1996, Scheurich
1995). When the researcher is presumed to be neutral it is possible to report
undistorted results. My view is quite the opposite. Because as a researcher I
am telling my perspective of the research, what is told is necessarily distorted.
This influence is aptly illustrated in Rosaldo's (1987) analogy of constructing
research with the making of a photograph:

It is as if one imagined that photographs told the unadorned

real truth without ever noticing how they were constructed.
Their images, after all, are framed, taken from particular angles,

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shot at certain distances, and rendered with different depths of

field. (p. 88)
This analogy makes it clear that, as with the photograph, the researcher is
implicated in the composition of the research. As Zeller (1995, p. 224) points
out, 'scheming is an unavoidable even natural part of any creative act' (p.
224). Since research is creative and involves scheming it cannot be neutral.
Because I was interpreting research as a creative act, the researcher can be
said to be scheming, non-neutral, and imposing bias on the research. This bias
and non-neutrality are not features to be concealed but are essential tactics
with a forthright agenda.
One way to work with researcher non-neutrality is to directly state that what
is written is the researcher's version of events. This style is used by Barone
(1989) in 'Ways of being at risk: the case of Billy Charles Barnett'. At the
beginning of this article Barone (1989) states: 'let me tell my own short
version of Billy Charles' life story' (p. 148). In a similar manner to Barone
(1989), I utilised this notion of 'my version' as a tool on the grid of sensibility.
Therefore, a foremost tactic on the grid of sensibility was the constant
awareness of my bias in choosing to represent my research as persuasively as
possible. Thus my aim was to tell good stories that would, as Barone (1992a,
p. 143) suggests, 'prick the consciences' of my readers.
Relations of power In my research it was imperative to develop a tactic that
was cognisant of the relations of power between the researcher and the
researched. As Foucault states (1997), 'in human relationships, whether they
involve verbal communication ... amorous, institutional, or economic
relationships, power is always present' (pp. 291-2). The research relationship
is no different; it is situated within and amongst a complicated and circulating
milieu of power relations. Moreover, I argue that relations of power require
particular attention in research with subjugated disqualified knowledges.
Indeed, to do research with young people experiencing stigmatisation the
researcher m u s t be acutely aware of the relations of power that occur
between the participants and the researcher. This awareness involves being
alert to the positioning of the researcher as expert and deliberately attempting
to disrupt this status. This disruption is of consequence because I contend it
is not possible to access subjugated disqualified knowledges by replicating
the relations of power that make them subjugated.

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A central component in this reconfiguration of expertise was making

conversation an essential part of my relationship with the participants. This
use of conversation is noted by Casey (1995-96), who states, 'Participant
structured conversations have become an imperative addition to the research
repertoire' (p. 239). I suggest that this 'research repertoire' is especially useful
for accessing subjugated disqualified knowledges. For example, in research
with First Nations university students in Canada, Cathro (1995) uses
conversations as 'a way of encouraging students' narratives and as a way of
listening to those narratives, and as a way of interpreting and writing about
those narratives' (p. 63). The use of conversation in my study not only
provided a means to access the young people; it also provided a way to listen
and record what they chose to say. This indicates that my study required an
imaginative approach that was alert to potential replication of processes that
may have subjugated or disqualified the participants.

Narrative therapeutic practices Several ideas from narrative therapy were

included on the grid of sensibility. White (1993) states that 'The narrative
metaphor proposes that persons live their lives by stories that these stories are
shaping of life, and that they have real, not imagined effects and that these
stories provide the structure of life' (p. 36). ~Of relevance to my research is the
way narrative theral~y manages the obligation to truth. This treatment of truth
is explained by McKenzie and Monk (1997), who state narrative therapy is
'not seen as a process of discovering the truth about who people are but as
an exploration of how people construct truths about themselves and their
relationships' (p. 85). By construing truth in this manner narrative therapy
provides access to techniques that play the game of truth differently. This
perspective was of relevance to my tactics of questioning truth and the
construction of subjectivity. V'
Significantly, the assumption that the therapist is the expert is questioned by
narrative therapy (Monk 1997). Integral to questioning this point is alertness
to the way the narrative therapist approaches the task of therapy (Winslade et
al. 1997). Extrapolating this to the grid of sensibility, I argue that the way the
researcher approaches the research is integral to performing this Foucaultian
consideration of subjugated disqualified knowledges. In narrative therapy, this
attentiveness to practice and the position of the therapist is informed by
scepticism of 'modernist' assumptions of the expert. On the grid of sensibility
this attentiveness was crucial to the researcher disrupting notions of the expert

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and diagnosis. In relation to this, narrative therapy also shares my scepticism

of practices that imbue individuals with personal deficits (Drewery &
Winslade 1997, p. 32). Being alert to the construction of personal deficit
means that narrative therapy pays careful attention to language and its
decisive role in the construction of identities and experiences. This attention
to language and the construction of identities was placed on the grid of
sensibility and used to draw attention to how the young people constructed
their mentally disordered subjectivity.

The self and subjectivity In my research I did not make the assumption that
there is such a p h e n o m e n o n as a unitary self. Rather, the perspective adopted
followed Foucault's (1996a, 1996b) idea of multiple subjectivities. This
conceptualisation had two important repercussions in my study. First, it
framed the way in which I interpreted and made sense of the identities of the
subjugated disqualified young people. Through the Foucaultian lens that I
devised, these identities were understood as subjectivities, and, therefore,
were not knowers of the young person. The second effect was that I shifted
my understanding of the young people from passive victims of subjugation to
active interpreters of subjection. This construction is tied to a salient point
made by Hacking (1986), who argues that Foucault does not imagine the
subject to be simply constituted through acts of repression. As Hacking (1986)
suggests 'repression' is 'too limited an outlook ... we constitute ourselves as
subjects acting on others as agents, that is, not as victims' (p. 235).
Constituting the young people as agents counteracted presumptions of the
young people as victims. Although the extent of this agency is variable and
intertwined with multiple disciplinary practices, this notion of agency was
used to deliberately shake the researcher's own presumptions about those
who participated in the study.
Ethical considerations The ethical considerations involved in conducting
research with the young people who had been subjugated and disqualified
formed a key component of the grid of sensibility in my study. By positioning
ethical considerations in this way, I was forced to reflect constantly on how
my research met the ethical criteria I had set out. These ethical considerations
involved three key points: how I worked with participants who had
experienced subjugation and disqualification; how consent was gained for
participation in the research and, lastly, how confidentiality was maintained.
It is my contention that it is vital to pay close attention to the ethical issues

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FOUCAULT, NARRATIVE AND THE SUBJUGATED SUBJECT

involved in research with subjugated disqualified knowledges. By dividing the

ethical considerations into these three points I was able to maintain an active
vigilance to each consideration. This was achieved by constantly drawing on
each of these on the grid of sensibility and using the ethical considerations to
inform other tactics in the research landscape. Importantly, the grid of
sensibility functioned as a means to communicate this vigilance through all
stages of the research process: from planning, to fieldwork, to writing. This
forced me to be constantly vigilant to the specific issues of working with
young people who have experienced subjugation and disqualification.

Applying the grid of sensibility

Each of the tools and tactics describe above contributed to my study in
interdependent ways. Through facilitating this, the grid of sensibility was able
to function as a communicative meta-tool throughout my study. Importantly,
this enabled the study to be conducted in a flexible, responsive and reflective
manner. This application of the grid of sensibility can be divided into the way
I chose to research subjugation and disqualification and the way I chose to
write the sto W of the research. In this section I illustrate how each of these
tools and tactics were applied in my study and how the grid of sensibility
formed a theoretical basis that supported their interdependent functioning.
2

As stated above, ethical considerations formed a key component of the grid

of sensibility. One of the key issues with which I had to grapple was the issue
of the sensitivities of the young people. It was vital to be attentive to the
possible sensitivities they had to certain issues, particularly those relating to
experiences of subjugation and disqualification. The participants in the study
had experienced considerable intervention by authority in their lives (for
example, from school counsellors, Department of Community Services
workers, the police, psychologists and psychiatrists). In my professional
experience I have noticed that a possible consequence of such intervention is
that young people can acquiesce to questioning. This issue warranted careful
consideration since I did not want to perform research that mirrored past
experiences of subjugation. To manage this issue I employed several
approaches, one of which was to state on several occasions to the participants
that they could choose what to discuss and could withdraw from the research
at any time. A second was to structure the research process so that I consulted
with each young person prior to using any of the material obtained from the
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VALERIE H A R W O O D

interviews. For example, I ensured the audio recordings of interviews were

transcribed and made available prior to the commencement of the next
interview. Doing this provided the opportunity for material in the transcript to
be scrutinised and altered. This process resulted in some material being
altered or deleted from the transcripts. These examples illustrate how the grid
of sensibility ensured I could respond to ethical considerations on an
individual basis.
As previously stated, the grid of sensibility enabled me to adapt and modify
my research practices in response to the requirements of the individual young
person. Part of this adaptability was not adhering to a definition of narrative
or story. Because I deliberately chose not to use a definition, I was obliged to
listen for what the young person considered to be story or narrative. Whilst
this made the fieldwork unpredictable, it was integral to enabling the young
people to initiate and continue research conversations. This tool made
important contributions to the approaches taken in the collection of the young
people's stories of subjugation and disqualification. For example, avoiding a
definition of story enabled me to consider the young people's perspectives
without the imposition of temporal order. The young people infrequently
followed a temporal sequence, preferring to discuss their stories in non-linear
and sometimes cyclical ways. Importantly, one of the young people explained
that to tell a sto W in sequence would 'miss out on lots' (young person to
researcher, Harwood 2000, p. 80). Reflecting this, my stories of the research
were arranged in a layered analysis that did not abide by temporal order.
Vigilance and obligation to truth enabled me to be responsive and adaptable
to participant needs. Referring to my tactic of being undetective when
conducting the fieldwork I would constantly ask myself, 'how many
possibilities are possible?' For example, during the research process some of
the young people indicated they did not want to be audio taped. Because of
the flexibility afforded by the grid of sensibility, the method of recording the
stories was adjusted and a style of 'recording through writing' was used. In
this approach the young people dictated and authored their stories whilst the
researcher typed them into a computer. One young person who chose this
process stated, 'I hate the thought of someone listening to my voice on a tape'
(young person to researcher, Harwood 2000, p. 71). Through using the two
approaches of audio tape recording and recording through writing I was able
to respond to the choices of the young people. This responsiveness was

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crucial to creating an environment that could employ the tools of narrative
therapeutic p/'actices. For example, it enabled me to consider the construction
of people's truths about themselves and to apply this w h e n collecting the
stories of the young people's construction of mentally disordered subjectivity.
The tools of narrative therapy were also drawn on and applied through the
use of externalising conversations. Externalising conversations encourage a
different way of describing and talking about problems: 'As persons become
engaged in these externalising conversations, their private stories cease to
speak to them of their identity ... Persons experience a separation from, and
an alienation in relation to, these stories' (White 1993, p. 39). The use of
externalising conversations is illustrated in the following example from
McKenzie and Monk (1997). In response to a statement such as 'I've been very
weak and ineffectual' one could use an externalising question such as 'what
does weakness or ineffectiveness have you do?' (McKenzie & Monk 1997, p.
99). In my study I utilised this tactic from the grid of sensibility as a way to
avoid positing problems onto the young person.
The grid of sensibility provided an ongoing point of reference for my
consideration of the relations of p o w e r between the researcher and the
researched. This tool, in combination with other locales on the grid of
sensibility, enabled me to be flexible in the way the research was conducted.
In my fieldwork with the young people I used this to inform the way I
disrupted and problematised my position as expert. For example I used my
consideration of the relations of p o w e r to reflect on my use of multiple
interviews to engage with participants. I had intended the process of getting
to k n o w one another to occur in the initial interview. However, one of the
young people did not want to make such an acquaintance at the start of the
interviews. With this participant I changed my tactic and we focused almost
immediately on the research questions. We had four interviews, and it was not
until the second or third that the young person steered the conversation
toward more interpersonal topics. By reconfiguring the plan in terms of what
suited the young person, I was able to engage with the young person and
collect valuable stories. In this example, by being alert to the relations of
power, I was able to make use of the tool of self and subjectivity to construct
the young people not as passive victims of subjugation but as active
interpreters of subjugation. This deliberate repositioning forced me as a
researcher to ask 'how do these agents want to interpret their subjugation?'

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and, furthermore, 'how do these agents want to communicate this to the

researcher?'
One of the many important decisions in the study was formulating how to
write my stow of the research with the young people. Here I used the grid of
sensibility to grapple with traditional research notions of validity, exactness
and truth. To respond to these notions I drew from my tools of distortion and
obliquity, and vigilance and obligation to truth. In doing this I used ideas from
Scheurich (1995) who argues against traditional 'positivist' notions of research
and proposes:
What we need are some new imaginaries of interviewing that
open up multiple spaces in which interview interactions can be
conducted and represented, ways that engage the indeterminate
ambiguity of interviewing, practices that transgress and exceed
a knowable order. (p. 250)
In my attempt at 'new imaginaries', I did not try to report the young people's
speech. Rather, I attempted to invent a way to build on my argument using
subjugated disqualified knowledges. By disengaging from validity and truth I
was able to use the grid of sensibility to manipulate my research and play with
'new imaginaries' that could prompt the reader to look differently at the
construction of mental disorder. By doing this I was able to manipulate the
distant murmurs of subjugation and disqualification into protestations that
unsettle the truth of mental disorder.
Disengaging w i t h validity enabled me to conceptualise how to write my
fiction of the research. I use the term 'writing fiction' to draw attention to my
argument that what is written about the young people is myfiction, my stow
of their stories. In.terms of my role as a researcher, I understood that what I
perceived to be narrative or stow may well be quite different from that
perceived by the participants. On this basis it can be stated that, whilst trying
to be as close as possible to the stories of the young people, what was written
was my narratives of my perceptions of the narratives of the subjugated
disqualified knowledges of the participants. Further to this, even though parts
of the discussion contain pieces of recording through writing, these were not
'pure' pieces of writing because they had been modified in terms of my
choice to use them and my placement of them within my own text. This was

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FOUCAULT, NARRATIVE AND THE SUBJUGATED SUBJECT

a tactic where my writing was deliberately composed to make the best use of
the subjugated disqualified knowledges to create a persuasive account of
subjugation, or what Barone (1995) calls 'an artfully persuasive educational
story' (p. 66, author's emphasis). I wrote my fiction drawing from several points
on the grid ofr sensibility, including the tools of distortion and obliquity,
vigilance and obligation to truth, and the non-definitive stow.
It was important to temper the writing of this 'artful persuasion' with
'believability' and 'readability'. In support of this style of writing research I quote
Sandelowski's (1994) criteria for a 'readable research report': '! am drawn to a
research report that reads like a novel: one that tells a good story that is
coherent, consistent and believable but that is also aesthetically and
intellectually satisfying' (p. 60). As indicated earlier, my approach to educational
storytelling drew from Sandelowski's (1994)'readabili~' and Barone's (1995)
'artful persuasion'. These believable and readable stories told of the experiences
of mental disorder. An example of such a story is the following by a young
person who had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder, which he
termed his 'disability'. In the excerpt below this young person explains his
confusion over 'his ADD disability':
It's hard to come to terms with whether I've got a disability or
not. It's like is it there or isn't it there? I think it is there when !
think I'm dumb in myself, when I think that I'm not going to get
anywhere. I think it's not there when something good's finally
gone right and my disability hasn't stuffed it up for me. (young
person to researcher, Harwood 2000, p. 222)
This comment tells how a young person constructed good or bad experiences
in terms of either not having or having a disability. As outlined in the opening
of this paper, it seems that the experience of being diagnosed with mental
disorder can cause confusion. Through using the grid of sensibility it was
possible to present such stories persuasively, a strategy that could prompt the
reader to look differently at the construction of mentally disordered subjectivity.

Conclusion
As a communicative meta-tool, the grid of sensibility provided a means to
construct a research style that drew from narrative research and Foucault's
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VALERIE H A R W O O D

(1980) notion of subjugated disqualified knowledge. As I argued at the

beginning of this paper, subscribing to definition and mandating a rigid
method would be problematic when doing research with subjugated
disqualified knowledges. By using the grid of sensibility I was able to create
a research style that could be vigilant to definition and thereby be flexible and
responsive to the varying participant needs. Significantly, this meant that the
grid of sensibility enabled me to take account of the multifaceted influences
present in my study.
Based on the usefulness of this strategy in my study, I suggest that the grid of
sensibility could also be appropriate for other studies that seek to consider the
perspectives of subjugated disqualified knowledges. The grid of sensibility
could provide a communicative meta-tool suited to specific research projects.
This could be achieved by crafting a grid of sensibility with tools and tactics
suited to individual project needs. In making this suggestion, it is important
to note that I have not sought to create a method. Rather, I have endeavoured
to fashion an outline of the various perspectives, literature, philosophies and
research influencing the grid of sensibility. One way to think of this approach
is to imagine the researcher on the grid of sensibility surrounded by a plethora
of moving interconnected ideas. The researcher draws on and responds to
these ideas throughout the course of the fieldwork and the processes of
writing the research. It is on this basis that I suggest there is the potential to
use the grid of sensibility to construct a methodological landscape suited to
the particular needs of specific research projects.

Notes
i

This was for my doctoral research titled Truth, power and the self: a Foucaultian analysis of the truth
of Conduct Disorder and the construction of young people's mentally disordered subjectivity (Harwood

20oo).

ii In the study described in this paper, this would suggest coalescing with the American Psychiatric
Association's (1994) Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This is the qualified and
dominant knowledge used primarily to define mental disorder in Australia (Gosden 1997) and many
other countries (Caplan 1995).
m Here I am reminded of Lather's (1993, p. 680) reference to rhizomes: 'To function rhizomatically is to
act via relay, circuit, multiple openings' and her description of rhizomatics where she cites Pefanis (1991,
p.22): 'Rhizomatics are about the move from hierarchies to networks and the complexity of problematics
where any concept when pulled, is recognised as "connected to a mass of tangled ideas"' (p. 680).
iv I refer to the term fiction here in passing. There is much debate around fiction-non fiction in education.
Fiction is discussed by both Barone (1995) and Gough (1994a, 1994b, 1998).
. . .

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FOUCAULT, NARRATIVE AND THE SUBJUGATED SUBJECT

v

Narrative therapy originated from the work of Michael White and David Epston (Drewery & Winslade

1997). Other terms used to refer to narrative therapy include 'narrative approaches' (Monk 1997) and
'narrative perspective' (White 1995). For convenience I use the term 'narrative therapy' throughout this
paper.
vi It is important to note that although I drew on narrative therapy for aspects that are relevant to the grid
of sensibility my. study did not enter the realm of therapeutic practices.

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