Language and Power: Ascribing Legitimacy to Interpretive Research

Abstract

More than merely describing what constitutes a good or truthful interpretation, all judgments about the legitimacy of knowledge claims can be understood as enacting relations of power. That is, our understanding of what it means to make a reasonable claim to knowledge is already caught up in relations of power that privilege some perspectives and marginalize others. Language, understood as productive rather than reflective of meaning, both enables and constrains the kinds of statements we are entitled to make. Competing discourses do not exist equally in the world but rather differ in terms of what they are held to explain and what effect they have. The authors explore these issues and suggest that evaluating interpretive research involves not only epistemological issues but also questions of value and power.