Discursive psychology contributions to qualitative research in social psychology: An analysis of its ethnomethodological heritage

Abstract

This article aims to characterize the specificity of Discursive Psychology (DP) as a particular theoretical and methodological proposal for qualitative research in social psychology, differentiating it from other forms of qualitative research and discourse analysis in this area. In order to do this, we highlight the important influence of the ethnomethodological perspective as a central theoretical background of the DP, largely defining its conceptualization of social order and its approach to empirical work. First, we characterized the ethnomethodological approach to social reality, emphasizing how it conceives the social actor, the social order and the social action. After that, we describe the way in which DP adopts certain theoretical and methodological principles of the ethnomethodological tradition, which allow a better understanding of the specificity of DP in the field of qualitative research in social psychology.