Billig2012

From emcawiki
Jump to: navigation, search
Billig2012
BibType ARTICLE
Key Billig2012
Author(s) Michael Billig
Title Undisciplined beginnings, academic success, and discursive psychology
Editor(s)
Tag(s) Discursive Psychology
Publisher
Year 2012
Language
City
Month
Journal British Journal of Social Psychology
Volume 51
Number 3
Pages 413–424
URL Link
DOI 10.1111/j.2044-8309.2011.02086.x
ISBN
Organization
Institution
School
Type
Edition
Series
Howpublished
Book title
Chapter

Download BibTex

Abstract

This paper reflects on the conditions under which Discourse and social psychology, Common knowledge, and the author's Arguing and thinking were written. These books, which were independently conceived, were not specifically written as contributions to ‘discursive psychology’, for discursive psychology did not exist at that time. Their authors were rejecting conventional approaches to doing psychological research. The paper discusses what it takes for a new academic movement, such as discursive psychology, to be successfully established in the current climate of ‘academic capitalism’. Two requirements are particularly mentioned: the necessity for a label and the necessity for adherents to be recruited. Of the three books, only Discourse and social psychology was outwardly recruiting its readers to a new way of doing social psychology. Arguing and thinking, with its celebration of ancient rhetoric, was much more ambiguous in its aims. It was turning away from present usefulness towards the past. By claiming to be ‘an antiquarian psychologist’ the author was rejecting disciplinary thinking. The paper also considers the intellectual costs of establishing a new specialism or sub‐discipline. The ‘first generation’ may have freedom, but success can bring about a narrowing of perspectives and the development of orthodoxies for subsequent academic generations. This applies as much to the development of experimental social psychology as to discursive psychology. These processes are particular enhanced in the present socio‐economic situation of contemporary universities, which make it more difficult for young academics to become, in the words of William James, ‘undisciplinables’.

Notes