Asking Questions of the Data: Operationalizing the Disruptive Aims of Poststructural Discourse Analysis

Authors

• Maxxine Rattner, York University, Toronto, Ontario, CanadaFollow

Abstract

I wrote this paper to support qualitative researchers in accessibly engaging with poststructural discourse analysis. In it, I detail how I flexibly adapted this methodology to meet my study’s aims. I begin by outlining poststructural understandings of discourse and explaining why a researcher may choose a poststructural discourse analysis for a study’s theoretical and methodological framework. While published poststructural discourse analyses commonly draw upon Foucauldian concepts to guide analysis, in this paper I share a more expansive approach. I demonstrate how developing and asking questions of the data can be one way to analyze diverse texts for the presence of discourses, thereby helping to operationalize a project’s poststructural aims. Drawing upon my research in the field of palliative and end-of-life care, I illustrate how this approach can support qualitative researchers from diverse fields interested in bringing a critical, expansive – and disruptive – lens to their study.

Keywords

discourse analysis, poststructuralism, social constructionism, qualitative, palliative care, suffering

Author Bio(s)

Maxxine Rattner, Ph.D., RSW, Assistant Professor, School of Social Work, York University. My areas of interest include critical perspectives on dying, death and grief, discourse analysis and arts-based research methodologies. Please direct correspondence to [email protected]

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to the editors at The Qualitative Report for their feedback and guidance that strengthened this paper.

Publication Date

10-24-2026

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

Recommended APA Citation

Rattner, M. (2026). Asking questions of the data: Operationalizing the disruptive aims of poststructural discourse analysis. The Qualitative Report, 31(9), 6760-6772.

ORCID ID

0000-0001-6656-3488