Reading around recently about QDA software, I've seen references to
programs supporting "system closure". The Richards' essay in one of the
Handbook of Qualitative Research books, for example, mentions it, and I've
seen mention elsewhere. Coming from a different disciplinary tradition
(rhetoric, theories of language and discourse, continental philosophy, and
such), I find myself reacting with suspicion to the notions both of
"system" and of "closure". Yet at the same time, know I do so in full
ignorance of what "system closure" might mean in sociology, and, in
particular, in the analysis of qualitative data.
Some of the questions that come up for me around this concept are:
What is the pursuit of system closure meant to address, does it speak to
validity, completelness, consistency, what?
If system closure is acheived, isn't it, at best, a momentary closure--even
with a fixed set of data, and the same analyst or researcher, doesn't a
later look open up new directions, new insights, thus breaking that closure?
Is theoretical system closure meant to reflect systemicity of the object of
research?
Or, more basic, does system closure refer to the researcher's method, her
theory, her project, her object, or something else?
Is system closure something that some of the programs support or even
encourage, that others do not? Whether or not all do, isn't this something
that bears on questions of the methodological and theoretical implications
of the use of the technology?
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