489514

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QIXXXX10.1177/1077800413489514Qualitative InquiryPérez and Cannella

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Qualitative Inquiry

Situational Analysis as an Avenue for

19(7) 505­–517
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1077800413489514

Post-Katrina New Orleans qix.sagepub.com

Michelle Salazar Pérez1 and Gaile S. Cannella2

Abstract
Hypercapitalism in the United States and globally has created neoliberal conditions that have reinterpreted notions of the
public good as an entrepreneurial endeavor. In this current context, critical qualitative methods such as situational analysis
combined with theoretical perspectives like Black feminist thought can provide activist methodological tools to expose
and reenvision privatized constructions of the common good. In this article, we describe possibilities for using critical
situational analysis to examine a broad range of complex conditions and provide examples of situational mapping from a
study focusing on disaster capitalism and the privatization of the public education system in post-Katrina New Orleans. We
then offer possibilities for using situational analysis to create new imaginaries for critical qualitative inquiry.

Keywords
situational analysis, New Orleans, disaster capitalism, Black feminist thought, public education

In the midst of hypercapitalist conditions in the United
States, neoliberalism has supported the privatization of
once public services (Cannella & Miller, 2008; Giroux,
2004; Lipman, 2008; Saltman 2010). Discourses that would
interpret all human endeavor from a market perspective, the
redeployment of resources from the public to the private,
and practices like disaster capitalism and the construction
of new forms of middle management that are literally bogus
and falsely legitimated (Cannella & Swadener, 2006) dem-
onstrate the schizophrenic capitalist condition in which we
attempt to survive (Deleuze & Guattari, 1977, 1987).
As examples, in K-12 education, federal public policy
in the United States such as “No Child Left Behind” and
“Race to the Top” have created and upheld an environment
that has allowed corporate entities to profit from market
driven “reform” and reinterpret notions of the common
good in ways that privilege private business and profiteer-
ing (Buras, Randels, Salaam, & Students at the Center,
2010; Carr & Porfilio, 2010; Sleeter, 2010). For instance,
Race to the Top has encouraged a greater focus and reli-
ance on standardized testing to “measure” student achieve-
ment and to label schools whose students are unable to
score adequately on knowingly biased assessment instru-
ments as failing (Berlak, 2010). Public schools determined
to be failing are then shut down and reopened as charter
schools. Race to the Top has increased financial opportuni-
ties for the standardized testing industry and established
privatized school environments across the nation, a prac-
tice that results in profits for charter school management
companies. One example is the White Hat Group, which
since 2008, has been paid over US$230 million to run char-
ter schools in Ohio and is being sued by the state because
students are “failing” and White Hat management is unable
to account for how funds have been spent (Coutts, 2011).
Further, although private education companies like KIPP
(Knowledge is Power Program) that are operating in major
cities across the nation espouse a nonprofit status, capital-
ist interests remain, as demonstrated by KIPP’s partnership
with the Walton Family Foundation.
The neoliberal conditions experienced in K-12 public
education can be found in other government social pro-
grams like public housing. Federal and state government
connections to private interests have allowed for the demo-
lition of public housing communities across the nation, gen-
trifying cities and creating homeless circumstances for
many (Flaherty, 2008). Similar to the mechanisms that have
constructed and sustained the privatization of public
schools, a rhetoric that mixed-income housing “supports”
the poor is employed, even though this new model fails to
1
College of Education, New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM,
USA
2
School of Social Transformation, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ,
USA
Corresponding Author:
Michelle Salazar Pérez, PhD, College of Education, New Mexico State
University, P.O. Box 30001, MSC 3CUR, Las Cruces, NM 88003-8001,
USA.
Email: Michelle.s.perez@gmail.com
506 Qualitative Inquiry 19(7)
provide an adequate number of units for low-income resi-
dents (Lipman, 2008). One for one low-income housing
replacement has been disregarded by promoters of mixed-
income housing in order to allow corporations to profit
from architectural design, building, and management con-
tracts associated with the replacement of public housing
with these mixed-income communities.
Many other examples of the contemporary hypercapi-
talist neoliberal condition exist, including circumstances in
higher education, defense, the prison system, and health
care, to name a few in the United States (Cannella &
Lincoln, 2009; Cannella & Miller, 2008). Further, these
conditions extend beyond U.S. borders, performed as
global phenomena like North American Free Trade
Agreement and capitalist patriarchal systems that continue
to colonize the global south for the financial benefit of the
elite (Werlhof, 2011). For the past 10 to 15 years, critical
and qualitative scholars have recognized and described this
dire circumstance and called for the deployment of critical
qualitative research methods that would make public the
hidden agendas within dominant discourses and corpora-
tized structures, as well as generate possibilities for resis-
tance to the entrepreneurial, profiteering technologies that
are dismantling forms of democracy that would address
equity, diversity, and the shared common good (Cannella &
Lincoln, 2004a, 2004b, 2009; Lincoln & Cannella, 2004,
2009; Steinberg & Cannella, 2012). Transformative prac-
tices have been called for that include informed critique
and agonistic pluralism (Moss, 2007; Mouffe, 2000),
scholarship that is interconnected with community and
engages human relationships, the construction of alliances
within/between academia and a public concern for equity
and justice, and the ultimate construction of a revolution-
ary critical social science that is relational and collabora-
tive while grounded in the critique of all systems and
engaged in an ethical egalitarian activist-oriented struggle
(Cannella & Lincoln, 2009; Denzin, Lincoln, & Smith,
2008; Mohanty, 2004).
Qualitative research is a field that has been recognized as
uniquely situated and qualified to serve as a site and facili-
tator for this critical practice. Work in the field has continu-
ally unveiled the lives and ways of being/thinking of
individuals and peoples who have been traditionally mar-
ginalized by focusing data and attention on those voices and
perspectives (while at the same time recognizing research
as a power-oriented construct that should always be ques-
tioned). The field has accepted and facilitated philosophies
that are critical and directly concerned with power, oppres-
sion, and equitable circumstance. Yet, even with the exist-
ing possibilities in the field, those who would construct
critical qualitative inquiry continue to search for perspec-
tives and methods that facilitate ethical practice and oppor-
tunities for socially just inquiry from within a context that
has acknowledged science as producer of power and
privilege (Clarke, 2007a; Lather, 2007). As we struggle to
find such methodologies, we have become aware of situa-
tional analysis, a critical perspective and practice designed
by Clarke (2003, 2005, 2007a, 2007b; Clarke & Friese,
2007; Clarke & Star, 2007) that is embedded in grounded
theory while at the same time moving past the postmodern
turn and engaging with poststructuralism and feminisms.
In this article, we therefore provide some of our under-
standings, and uses, of situational analysis as a method for
critical qualitative research. These understandings and
examples are taken from the use of the method in the con-
text, or situation, of disaster capitalism demonstrated in the
city of New Orleans, Louisiana, USA, soon after the flood-
ing that followed hurricane Katrina. Qualitative situational
analysis is a research approach that allowed us to examine a
neoliberal condition and therefore conceptualize new imag-
inaries for the future.
Situational Analysis: Critical
Mapping as Research Methodology
After the Postmodern Turn
Situational analysis (Clarke, 2005) is a research methodol-
ogy that uses the situation broadly conceived as the unit of
analysis. Conceptualizations of the work boundaries phil-
osophical and academic disciplines as related to feminist,
postmodern, and poststructural approaches. While embed-
ded in conceptualizations of grounded theory, the practice
makes possible an awareness of problems with truth-
oriented perspectives and becomes a vehicle for taking
grounded theory beyond the postmodern. Further, situa-
tional analysis can be used to produce a thick analysis of
discourses, texts, “symbolisms of the nonhuman” (Clarke,
2005, p. xxiii), histories and power. Textual cartography is
used to contextualize the situation to be studied by simul-
taneously analyzing the elements (both human and nonhu-
man) surrounding, producing, and affecting positionality.
As a research method, situational analysis is designed to
(a) illustrate the complexities found within and surround-
ing social situations as they change, become stable, and
create patterns and positions, (b) reveal subjugated knowl-
edges and marginalized perspectives, and (c) empirically
decenter “the knowing subject” (Clarke, 2005, p. xxix;
Foucault, 1979).
The methodology calls for a researcher who can inte-
grate her or his personal and professional experiences
related to the issue as an integral component of critical
research design and continued analysis. Methodological
flexibility and conceptualizations of researcher as instru-
ment (Lincoln & Guba, 1985) are necessary and supported
within the practice of situational analysis. These character-
istics are especially important for inquiry within the com-
plexity of the contemporary neoliberal condition.
Pérez and Cannella 507
For the purpose of this article, we describe three types of
maps: situational (using messy and ordered in our exam-
ples), social worlds/arenas, and positional (Clarke, 2005,
2007a). In order to consider the breadth of issues surround-
ing a situation, messy situational maps allow for the exami-
nation of all the discourses related to the situation, including
those produced by individuals, groups, and institutions.
Ordered situational maps frame and organize the discourses
that emerge from messy maps, and social worlds/arenas
maps analyze the strategic organization of individuals,
groups and institutions in relation to the structures of power
present in the situation. Positional maps help to examine the
range of positions found in the situation, including view-
points that are conflicting or hidden.
The various types of maps described by Clarke (2005)
and those created within the context of any given study are
not intended to serve as “findings” or redefined notions of
truth about a circumstance. Rather, maps are to be viewed
as an interpretation of a situation that is unfixed and con-
stantly changing, much like the situation found within the
disaster capitalist environment in post-Katrina New Orleans
(the study that we briefly mention below and from which
our examples are taken).
Context of the Example Study:
Overview and the Researcher Lens
The study used to illustrate situational analysis here is a
2007 to 2009 examination of the public school situation for
young children in New Orleans following hurricane Katrina
using a Black feminist lens as researcher perspective that
would focus on intersecting oppressions (Collins, 2008).
From within this context we accepted the definition of
disaster capitalism as “orchestrated raids on the public
sphere in the wake of catastrophic events, combined with
the treatment of disasters as exciting market opportunities”
(Klein, 2007, p. 6), also a philosophical lens from which
our situational analysis was conducted. The key purposes
of the study were to (a) analyze the way in which dis-
courses have been created that influence access to an equi-
table public education for all young children following
disaster, (b) examine ways in which young children are
discussed/represented in charter school discourses with a
focus on what and who has been included and excluded
from the dominant, and (c) provide specific examples that
illustrate social justice/injustice and/or increased/decreased
opportunities for young children as related to the dis-
courses. Media and policy documents served as the major
sources of data for the study while supplementary sources
included publications distributed by local organizations,
field notes of volunteer experiences and public meetings
focusing on education.
Situational Analysis as Vehicle of Research
Design and Implementation
Situational analysis attempts to avoid the narrow and con-
stricting methods used to traditionally conceptualize research.
Situational mapping can therefore be used to facilitate
research design (e.g., for the generation of research purposes,
questions, and possible sources for data), as well as to exam-
ine already collected data (Clarke, 2007a). As an example, an
important part of the research design for our New Orleans
study was to immerse ourselves in the circumstances of the
city by attending public meetings, volunteering in a public
school, and participating in grassroots organizing and activ-
ism surrounding education, housing, and health care. Along
with our personal concerns with intersecting oppressions,
over time our experiences and general knowledge of public
discourses were used to create preliminary situational maps.
These maps served as resources in the development of the
research purpose, specific questions and data sources to be
used for the study. See Pérez and Cannella (2011) for explicit
details and examples of situational maps generated to inform
our research-design process.
In addition to using situational analysis as a tool to con-
ceptualize research within neoliberal, as well as other com-
plex power-oriented conditions, emergent map making can
be combined with other qualitative methods in order to
facilitate continued analysis (Clarke, 2005). In our study,
coding and unitizing was used to manage the large amount
of data from one of the major media sources, 151 local
newspaper articles. Further, reflexive journaling was used
as a tool to account for (a) reactions to the data, (b) reflec-
tions upon the way in which discourses were constructed/
represented when viewed through a Black feminist lens, (c)
specific details from the unitized text that addressed our
research questions, and (d) issues with, reaction to, and/or
changes in the methodology. Constant comparison (see
Lincoln & Guba, 1985, p. 341) was also used to find emer-
gent themes, categories, and subcategories in the unitized
text which facilitated continued map making.
A variety of types of maps are possible. Further, the
researcher may revise the content and organization of a map
to fit a particular study. To illustrate, we have recently
attempted to use situational analysis with Deleuze/Guattarian
notions of the capitalist assemblage (Cannella, Perez, Bloch,
& Saavedra, 2011). In the forthcoming sections, we provide
examples of our use of situational analysis in the New
Orleans study to demonstrate messy and ordered situational,
social worlds/arenas, and positional maps.
Situational Mapping as Qualitative Methodology
Messy situational maps.  Messy maps are tools that can be
used to provide a picture of the range of discourses related
508 Qualitative Inquiry 19(7)
Figure 1.  Messy situational map: Institutions/technologies. Representation of public education for young children.
Note. Adapted from Clarke, A. E. (2005), p. 95.
to a particular situation, including discourses produced by
human actors and institutions as well as nonhuman aspects
of the situation like neoliberal discourses. As examples
related to the New Orleans study, two messy maps were
developed demonstrating discourses used to represent
institutions/technologies (see Figure 1) and rhetoric (see
Figure 2) performed in the reestablishment of public edu-
cation post-Katrina; these discourses tended to revolve
around the notion of charter schools. Including the
researchers personal perspectives that would exhibit a con-
cern for interpersonal power relations (Collins, 2008), the
first messy map shown in Figure 1 serves as an illustration
of the use of situational analysis to integrate these personal
concerns with an awareness of public discourses. As an
example, one theme included on the map is “partnerships
between schools and the business community,” the notion
that individuals and groups are placed in positions in which
they are expected to accept (and privilege) particular views
of the world.
The inclusion of discourse practices that would privilege
school/business partnerships is representative of data drawn
from specific locations like the media that serve as tech-
nologies to create and maintain the conditions necessary
(and support) for market-based management approaches to
operating public schools (and charter schools that would
require this management). To illustrate further using a spe-
cific narrative related to Project Purple, (an initiative spon-
sored by the Rex Krewe organization which is an exclusive,
mostly White, socially elite men’s club), the Times Picuyune
discusses needed business skills considered necessary for
newly operating charter schools:
Project Purple participants hope to build business skills among
school staffs to transform them into management experts. But
for now, they’re poised to help beleaguered officials and
volunteer members of individual schools’ boards that are
having to confront an avalanche of issues they had never had to
think about before. “Now that we don’t have a central office to
go to, we need the expertise,” said Carlos Zervigon, chairman
Pérez and Cannella 509
Figure 2.  Messy situational map: Rhetoric. Representation of public education for young children.
Note. Adapted from Clarke, A. E. (2005), p. 95.
of the Audubon Charter School Board. “I think it’s a wonderful
idea, and I expect that we could get all kinds of help.” But, like
so much else in post-Katrina New Orleans, this process of
building business-savvy charter-school personnel is a long-
term process. (Pope, 2006, p. 1)
This media narrative assumes that public education should
be privatized and attempts to legitimate a “need” for an
unquestioned “business savvy” considering the circum-
stances of hurricane Katrina. Further, education is assumed
to be attained through management. Each theme on a messy
situational map can be illustrated through the existence of
specific discourses in a range of locations. The generation
of this type of map facilitates the exposure of practices like
corporatized initiatives and other technologies that con-
struct complex inequitable power conditions, in this case of
our study, the performance of neoliberalism.
The second messy map (see Figure 2) illustrates the use
of situational analysis to examine the neoliberal rhetoric
dominating public conversations. For example, the theme
“teacher’s union as having lost role, power and purpose”
(see Figure 2) is demonstrated in the media excerpt below
(one of many similar publications made public over a short
period of time):
Critics have charged that the union coddled bad teachers and
exerted too much control over School Board elections. Lately,
opponents contend that the union has become irrelevant in the
post-Katrina educational landscape, where most city schools
are chartered and thus control their own hiring, salaries and
work rules. (Simon, 2008, p. 1)
Messy situational maps make possible overviews of the
language and positions produced by dominant discourses
for further specific examination. Additionally, messy maps
facilitate the use of particular personal and/or philosophical
perspectives of the researcher (in our case, the use of a
Black feminist lens to unveil various forms of intersecting
power). Methodologies that would assume the appropriate-
ness of researcher choice in philosophical perspective/lens
510 Qualitative Inquiry 19(7)

Individual Human Elements/Actors (key individuals and significant unorganized people in the situation

Children (rarely differentiated by age and/or grade)        Parents

Principals                                Teachers
School Board Leaders- Recovery School District (RSD): Robin Jarvis, Paul Vallas; Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB): Daryl Kilbert;
Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE): Cecil Picard, Paul Pastoreck
 
Collective Human Elements/Actors (particular groups; specific organizations)
 
Education Organizations: Cowen Institute (Tulane University institute run by president of school); Algiers Charter School Association
(ACSA)
 
Recovery School District (RSD); Orleans Parish School Board (OPSB); Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE)
 
Community      Teacher’s Union      Charter Schools    Non-Charter Schools
 
Teach for America and other non-educator based teacher/principal recruiting organizations
Business/Public School Partnerships (e.g., Charter school management organizations, for-profit and non-profit)
 
Discursive Constructions of Individual and/or Collective Human Actors (As found in the situation)
 
Paul Vallas as savior                   Non-educators as experts/leaders
Rhetoric of community input                Parents as having choices
Union as having lost role/power/purpose
Non-local teachers and principals as saviors/seek opportunity
Charter schools have more autonomy to regulate teacher’s pay/contracts

Figure 3.  Ordered situational map: Individual and collective actors. Rhetoric and institutional/technological constructions used for
systematic representations (related to young children and education).
Note. Adapted from Clarke, A. E. (2005), p. 97.

are especially important for inquiry within the neoliberal
condition. In New Orleans, dominant media discourses
basically did not support veteran, mostly Black, union
teachers, with thousands being fired only months following
the failure of the levees and as a result struggled to return to
the city (Flaherty, 2008). Situational analysis allows for the
researcher flexibility that would reveal hidden conditions.
Additionally, as a critical qualitative tool that could unveil
the complexity of neoliberal conditions, situational analysis
with messy maps allows the researcher to choose which sto-
ries to tell without eliminating important aspects of the situ-
ation. Although all aspects may not be fully examined, all
remain visually present for later study and/or a graphic rep-
resentation of the complexity of the situation (again, espe-
cially important within a neoliberal context).
Ordered situational maps.  Discourses and themes that emerge
from messy maps can be framed, organized, and specifically
illustrated using ordered situational maps (Clarke, 2005).
Entrenched situations are examined by focusing on the
details of (a) discursive constructions of the individual and
collective human elements in the situation incorporating
whatever philosophical lens is preferred by the researcher
(in our case, Black feminist thought), (b) discursive con-
structions of nonhuman elements or technologies in the situ-
ation such as particular rhetorical performances that produce
the dominant, and (c) positions that are marginalized,
excluded, even made invisible from within dominant dis-
courses. Several messy maps, including those used as exem-
plars in Figure 1 and Figure 2, informed the creation of our
ordered maps for the New Orleans study (see Figure 3, Fig-
ure 4, and Figure 5).
Creation of the first ordered map (Figure 3) considered
the discursive constructions of individuals and organiza-
tions (e.g., the human elements) in the situation. The inclu-
sion of a more detailed and organized description of
discourses is vital to unraveling the intricate circumstances
found in complex (in this case, hypercapitalist) conditions.
As an example, naming key human actors (such as busi-
nessmen like Paul Vallas, the once appointed CEO of the
Recovery School District in New Orleans) and the way in
which these human actors are discursively constructed in
the media (e.g., Paul Vallas as a “savior” for public educa-
tion), provide distinct insight into the ways in which to
begin to piece together individual and institutional roles in
privatization in the circumstances of this particular study.
Pérez and Cannella 511

Nonhuman Elements/Actants (technologies, material infrastructures, specialized information and/or knowledges, material
“things”)
 
Limited resources for services like special education and transportation
Accountability system - LEAP, “failing” schools, school performance ratings
Schools overall - competition, selective admission, decentralized system difficult for parents to navigate
Algiers as model for a system of charters
Teachers - firing of displaced, procedures for hiring and pay, shortage as opportunity to recruit non-local teachers without education
background (organizations like Teach for America)
 
Discursive Construction of Nonhuman Actants (as found in the situation)
 
Charter school system as a better system        Urgency, Opportunity, Lab/Experiment
 
Political/Economic Elements- The state; particular industry/ies; local/regional/global orders; political parties; politicized issues
 
Policy (NCLB)      State take-over     Teacher’s Union- contract renewal
State accountability system; Louisiana Education Assessment Program (LEAP) exam
 
Major political figures have larger voice concerning all public school issues. Major Issues/Debates (Usually Contested) -As
found in the situation; and see positional map
 
Issues related to return of local control from state
 
Related Discourses (Historical, Narrative, and/or Visual): (normal expectations of actors, actants and/or other specified
elements, moral/ethical elements, mass media, popular cultural discourses, situation-specific discourses)
 
Aristocracy - Rex organization’s Project Purple matching members’ business skills with educators at charter schools
Religion - Catholic schools/Archdiocese

Figure 4.  Ordered situational map: Nonhuman actants. Rhetoric and institutional/technological constructions used for systematic
representations (related to young children and education).
Note. Adapted from Clarke, A. E. (2005), p. 97.

Identifying both specific and collective actors (like nonedu-
cators as experts) that create and support corporatized envi-
ronments become important details to consider as situational
analysis further unfolds through the construction of more
complex maps.
The next ordered map (see Figure 4) addresses nonhu-
man actants/elements and the ways in which they are dis-
cursively constructed in dominant discourses. Actants
include the Louisiana state standardized testing program,
while political elements include federal policy like No
Child Left Behind. This second ordered map also addresses
the discursive construction of nonhuman actants such as
advertising the charter school system as a better approach
to public education. The related discourses section that
includes topics like aristocracy and religion in the city of
New Orleans further illustrate the rhetoric.
The final ordered map example (see Figure 5) demon-
strates another use of situational analysis as incorporating
both personal lens/philosophy and detailed analysis of
dominant discourses. Concerns for intersecting oppres-
sions (as mentioned previously through Black feminist
thought) are infused with questions of exclusion, address-
ing the marginalized/invisible perspectives/knowledges
placed under erasure by the dominant in this particular
study. Further, this map is an example of the way in which
situational analysis is malleable to “fit” the context of a
particular study as some of the headings were conceptual-
ized to reflect a Black feminist lens (Collins, 2008), a
form of flexible response that is directly facilitated within
the methodology.
Situational maps can work directly against the tendency
of science to oversimplify. These maps should generate
visual representations of heterogeneous elements and the
complex messiness of a situation (Clarke, 2007a). Avoiding
reification and acknowledging complexity and uncertainly
are the purposes.
Social worlds/arenas maps.  Clarke discusses the possibilities
for meso-level analytics using grounded theory after the
postmodern turn with social worlds/areas maps as the key
(2005). Both dominant and marginalized social spheres can
be organized in relation to larger structural situations
512 Qualitative Inquiry 19(7)

What/Who are Excluded from Dominant Discourses (as found in the situation)
 
Young children’s viewpoints; viewpoints of displaced students, teachers, principals, and communities; critical views of a public school
system composed mostly of charters; viewpoints and arguments of the Teacher’s Union
Other ways of measuring student/school “success”
Concerns with a market-based system - children as commodities, competition as creating racial divide related to schools with privilege,
“sorting” of students in order to raise performance scores at charter schools
 
Sociocultural/Symbolic Elements (religious, racial, sexual, gendered, ethnic, national, logos, icons, other visual and/or aural
symbols)
 
Constructions of race, class, gender, ability, and sexuality
Sexual - all discourses heteronormative
Racial - leadership predominately Caucasian; children in public schools and fired teachers mostly Black
Class - denying transportation to children (which is necessary for parents with little economic resources)
Ability - students with special needs turned away from charter schools
Gendered - parents having difficulty navigating system (women as single parents with limited time and resources)
 
Temporal Elements: US National Historical Frame (historical, seasonal, crisis, and/or trajectory aspects)
 
Historical understandings of school system prior to Katrina
 
Intersecting Oppressive Elements (either explicitly part of dominant discourses or marginalized discourses that systemically
represent young children)
 
Firing of displaced teachers, recruiting of non-local teachers with non-education backgrounds
Impact of business and school partnerships
Rhetoric of community input
Young children’s experiences with non-local teachers, principals, and district leaders (who often do not have a background in
education); implications/dynamics of these interactions with children in a public school system that is predominately Black and/or from
low socioeconomic backgrounds; young children (mostly Black and/or “poor”) as needing to be saved (by organizations recruiting and
lead by mostly Caucasian, middle to upper-class teachers/principals from outside the city)

Figure 5.  Ordered situational map: Perspectives excluded from the dominant. Rhetoric and institutional/technological constructions
used for systematic representations (related to young children and education).
Note. Adapted from Clarke, A. E. (2005), p. 97.

(Clarke, 2005). Collective action is displayed directly. Social
worlds/arenas maps are distinctly postmodern because
directionality, boundaries, and traditional forms of scientific
negotiation are all challenged. “Things could always be oth-
erwise-not only individually but also collectively/organiza-
tionally/institutionally/discursively, and these maps portray
such postmodern possibilities” (Clarke, 2007a, p. 353).
Since situational analysis is a flexible tool, maps can be
used differently from their originally conceptualized for-
mats in order to fit the context of a particular situation. To
illustrate, since we were concerned about intersection
oppressions in the New Orleans study, our social worlds/
arenas example map was reconceptualized as a “social
spheres/power arenas” map (see Figure 6).
The concept of social spheres directly interacting with
power arenas better suited our analysis of rhetoric and insti-
tutions that discursively produced privatizing conditions.
Further, our Black feminist lens made possible the consid-
eration of neoliberal technologies as systemically infused
within structural, disciplinary, interpersonal, and hege-
monic power (Collins, 2008). Reconceptualizing the design
of the social spheres/power arenas map helped to account
for the complexity of intersectional power relations (Collins,
2008) functioning within the situation while resisting a
static or fixed approach to examining discourses.
Specifically, construction of our social spheres/power
arenas map (Figure 6) helped to further illuminate the neo-
liberal rhetoric and institutions/technologies present in the
discourses. The largest outer circle on the map illustrates
the sphere that encompasses dominant discourses in the
situation. The power arenas labeled as “Opportunity
Discourses,” “Urgency Discourses,” and “Lab/Experiment
Discourses,” represent dominant rhetoric/technologies that
framed arguments that strongly influenced support for
school system privatization. The dominant social spheres
on the map are representative of the discourses functioning
within intersecting structural, disciplinary, hegemonic, and
interpersonal power (Collins, 2008). Examples of
Pérez and Cannella 513
Figure 6.  Social spheres/power arenas map. Relationships between power arenas that support social spheres and the construction of
exclusions.
Note. Adapted from Clarke, A. E. (2005), p. 195.
neoliberal technologies intersecting within domains of
power include (a) the selection of district and school leaders
with noneducation, business-oriented backgrounds, (b) the
firing of displaced teachers and organizations that serve the
purpose of recruiting nonlocal teachers with noneducation
backgrounds, (c) the rhetoric found in dominant discourses
that creates the illusion of community input, and (d) busi-
ness and school partnerships. The marginalized social
spheres are illustrated with smaller circles, denoted with
lighter lines. Marginalized elements in the situation include
(a) community input, (b) a decentralized public school sys-
tem that was difficult for parents and children to navigate,
(c) explicit conversations about childhood, the system, and
intersecting oppressive power, (d) the teacher’s union, (e)
viewpoints of fired teachers, and (f) young children’s view-
points. This type of map can be used to represent both the
intersecting of spheres and forms of power as well as social
exclusions. As a fluid and unfixed construct, the social
spheres/power arenas map can reveal connections and help
to make sense of them. These relationships may be between
larger structures present in a contemporary circumstance
(like hypercaptialism) and the dominant and marginalized
social spheres functioning within, being produced by, and
interacting with complex power systems.
Positional maps.  Rather than serving the purpose of analyz-
ing discourses, positional maps account for the range of
positions present in a situation, whether oppositional, domi-
nant, or marginalized (Clarke, 2005). These positions also
include those not taken in the particular situation studied.
Most importantly, the positions are discursive, not individ-
ual or group articulations (Clarke, 2007a). The positional
map created in the New Orleans study (see Figure 7) reveals
the range of positions present in privatizing charter school
discourses. On the face of the map, the positions in regular
font represent the dominant discourses, and the underlined
514 Qualitative Inquiry 19(7)

Figure 7.  Positional map. Standpoints/stances concerning young children and charter schools. The dominant is illustrated in regular
font and the marginalized text is underlined. Invisible positions are three-dimensional in lower right hand listing.
Note. Adapted from Clarke, A. E. (2005), p. 130.

positions are those that are present in the dominant but are
marginally represented (and often quickly refuted or justi-
fied). The invisible positions are illustrated in abstract form
on the map.
Specifically, this positional map (see Figure 7) illustrates
positions that “support” charter schools and those that sig-
nify “concerns” with charters (see the vertical axis of the
map). The horizontal axis represents positions about chil-
dren’s “school experiences,” those concerning the state’s
standardized “Louisiana Educational Assessment Program
(LEAP) as defining learning” and positions addressing “the
system.” Together, the vertical and horizontal axes help to
organize the elements on the map so that the range of posi-
tions present in the situation can be considered. In the New
Orleans study, positions that were marginally found in the
discourses (denoted by the underlined text) include (a) lack
of services for young children (e.g., transportation, special
education), (b) insignificant improvement of LEAP scores
post-Katrina, (c) mixed results of LEAP scores post-
Katrina, (d) a decentralized system that is difficult for par-
ents to navigate, and (e) inequitable access for all children
to charter schools. The dominant positions (denoted by the
regular text) include (a) favorable student experiences with
charter schools, (b) legitimating discourses that assume the
importance of standardized LEAP scores, (c) parents and
children as having a “choice” in the new system of charters,
and (d) Charter School Associations as models for the
rebuilding of the public school system.
Pérez and Cannella 515
As a tool to examine neoliberal conditions, the positional
map organizes the various viewpoints that sustain capitalist
environments. As an example, our map shows the ways in
which dominant discourses support charter schools by
reflecting market-based interpretations of public education.
Further, our three-dimensional conceptualization of the
positional map allows for the inclusion of invisible or hid-
den forms of power that are revealed with a Black feminist
framework. In the New Orleans study, these include (a)
young children’s viewpoints, (b) explicit conversation
about childhood, the system, and intersecting oppressive
power, (c) other ways of accounting for student learning,
and (d) challenges to measurement definitions of education.
When viewed as a whole, the positional map provides an
important mode of critical situational analysis that exposes
varying, oppositional, and invisible positions within hyper-
capitalist contexts. The purpose of positional mapping is to
open up discourses thereby decentering and disarticulating
them from sites of production (Clarke, 2007a). This disar-
ticulation literally creates new positions for further in-depth
analysis as well as critical activism.
Conclusions and New Imaginaries:
Situational Analysis and Critical
Qualitative Inquiry
Discussing the method from a feminist perspective, Clarke
asserts that situational analysis is, and/or certainly can be
(dependent on the researcher), always and already feminist
(Clarke, 2007a). As feminist attributes, she discusses some
of the characteristics that we have already mentioned in
describing map construction and content. First, situational
analysis accepts the partialities and instabilities of know-
ing, as well as the situatedness of the knower. This perspec-
tive has long been part of feminist research (Haraway,
1991, 1997; Harding & Norberg, 2005; Visweswaran,
1994) and also represents a postmodern lens (Fine, 1994;
Lather, 1991, 2007). Second, the focus on the situation as
the unit of analysis directly challenges the tendency of tra-
ditional research (and even grounded theory) to construct
conditions that support overgeneralization. Haraway’s
(1991) discussion of feminist objectivity as situated and
necessitating researcher reflexivity in addition to
Massumi’s (2002) Foucauldian analysis of the importance
of understanding that situations generate their own life, are
major theoretical perspectives that facilitate this under-
standing. Third, situational analysis enables inquiry that
would counter notions of normality (Foucault, 1965, 1975),
conceptually making visible difference and complexity.
Variation and difference are foregrounded for purposes of
enhancing their study (Clarke, 2007a). Finally, situational
analysis attempts to be all inclusive, mapping all actors and
discourses, going beyond what could be called master dis-
courses (Hughes, 1971). “The goal of situational analysis
is not prediction but vivid descriptions and strong analytic
insights” (Clarke, 2007a, p. 357) that make visible differ-
ences, unveil discourses that have been placed under era-
sure, and generate new positions from which to approach
the world.
Over the past 20 years, beginning with her work before
publication of Situational Analysis: Grounded Theory After
the Postmodern Turn (2005) that delineates the methodol-
ogy in a complete volume, Clarke and others have used situ-
ational analysis in a range of fields. This scholarship is
found in medicine, public health, and nursing (Clarke &
Montini, 1993; Gagnon, Jacob, & Holmes, 2010; Mills,
Chapman, Bonner, & Francis, 2007; Mills, Francis, &
Bonner, 2008), family studies (Khaw, 2012), and human
rights and gender studies (Waldman, 2011), as well as our
own research in education (Pérez, 2009; Pérez & Cannella,
2010, 2011).
Our work in exposing neoliberal circumstances related
to the dismantling and privatization of the public educa-
tion system in post-Katrina New Orleans is an example of
how situational analysis can be used for critical, feminist,
poststructural purposes. Since the researcher acts as a
methodological instrument, one has the flexibility to
allow analytic processes to emerge, shift and change,
leading to insights and avenues for action. Situational
analysis is a tool that can be used across disciplines to
examine neoliberal, and other complex situations and cir-
cumstances which are constantly changing, messy, and
political. The method allows for the rethinking of critical
qualitative inquiry and the unmasking of inequities pro-
duced by institutional and social domination like those
produced through disaster capitalism in post-Katrina New
Orleans. Most importantly, situational analysis is not a
method that should be replicated or followed explicitly;
rather it can be used as part of continually emergent
research design, implementation, and reconceptualiza-
tion. In our experiences, the maps serve as critical meth-
odological tools to uncover a range of positions, allowing
us to decide which “stories to tell” (Clarke, 2005, p. 111)
in order to dismantle and unveil possibilities for resis-
tance to oppressive social circumstances. We found that
our work with situational analysis provides profound pos-
sibilities for critical inquiry (Kincheloe, 2008), even
opening doors for hybridity and new combinations of per-
spectives and methods. Additionally, critical qualitative
approaches that are both systematic and adaptable (Allen,
2010) are needed as critical social science is further con-
structed (Cannella and Lincoln, 2009). Finally, as we
explore the theoretical insights infused within the method
and create maps in differing studies, our own imaginaries
are aroused—awakened to new ways of being and under-
standing—provoked to previously unknown and
unthought critical forms of being and ways of taking
action.
516 Qualitative Inquiry 19(7)
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect
to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The authors received no financial support for the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
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Author Biographies
Michelle Salazar Pérez is an assistant professor of Early
Childhood Education at New Mexico State University. Her work
uses situational analysis and marginalized feminist perspectives to
unveil contemporary performances of neoliberalism.
Gaile S. Cannella is a research professor at Arizona State
University in the School of Social Transformation. Her most
recent book is the Critical Qualitative Research Reader with
Shirley Steinberg.