Discourses of relations and relational

Abstract

This is a story of relations and relating. There is no wolf, no Little Red Riding Hood; there are no bears, nor little piggies. It is not a heroic tale of how one particular discourse proves its superiority by vanquishing other discourses; it is not a tale told from behind the wings, the modernist author’s pen, or the realist painter’s brush. This story, like all stories, is told from a particular point of view or standpoint – one that I shall try to make explicit – one that I shall call ‘critical relational constructionism’ (CRC). From this standpoint I shall provide a schematic overview of different discourses of relations by discussing three ‘intelligibility nuclei’ (Gergen, 1995) in terms of their interrelated ‘lines of distinction’ (Deetz, 2000). I shall call these discourses (1) ‘this and that thinking’; (2) constructivism; and (3) critical relational constructionism.