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Six Characters in Search of an Author: A Qualitative Comedy in the Making

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0411425332BadleyQualitative Inquiry
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Qualitative Inquiry

Six Characters in Search of an Author:

XX(X) 1­–9
© The Author(s) 2011
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DOI: 10.1177/1077800411425332
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Graham Badley1

Abstract
A discussion about bricolage is presented in a one-act play, a qualitative comedy in the making. The play takes its initial
shape from Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” but is transformed into a more academic, but occasionally
comic, dialogue. The characters engage with a journal editor by weaving the ideas and often the words of academic writers
into a script about bricolage as a qualitative research strategy. The characters, three of whom are Shakespearean in origin,
also borrow or steal lines and bits of plot from other plays, especially “The Tempest.” The comedy ends with another
comic offering, a bricolage about bricolage.

Keywords
bricoleur, bricolage, qualitative inquiry

Characters of the Qualitative large table and his assistant at the smaller one. There are
Comedy in the Making1 several chairs scattered about the room.

The inquirer
The bricoleur Prologue
The lector Ari: I work here, but not for long. I’m a go-between and
The first coscriptor I’m your prologue for the weird thing being set before
The second coscriptor you. Six strange characters will soon come in searching,
The textor they claim, for an author. My master, that’s him, the editor
will not be pleased. He does not provide authors. In fact,
he doesn’t really like authors. He says they’re vain, unreli-
The Editorial Team of Brave New able, can’t keep to word limits, can’t spell, don’t know
World Publications Inc., Vermouth even the basics of grammar, and always expect their
Island, USA2 worthless tangles of words to be published in the next edi-
tion. Two others also work here. That’s Miranda, the edi-
The editor—Dr. Prosper3 tor’s assistant. She’s lovely, a bit naïve, but more stroppy
The editor’s assistant—Miranda than soppy. And then there’s Cal. He’s our handyman, but
The go-between—Ari he’s useless and has a huge plank on his shoulders. He
The handyman—Cal thinks he owns this island. And he once tried it on with
Miranda, but we won’t go into that now. Here he comes .
Daytime. The editor’s room at Brave New World . . with the strangers.
Publications. Characters of the comedy in the making enter from a
The comedy is without acts or scenes. [But it is not door at the back of the room. They look around nervously.
meant to be humorless]
The audience will see a large room with a huge table in
the middle and a smaller table nearby. There is a poster on 1
Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford, Essex, UK
one of the walls with “Brave New World—Bravery,
Corresponding Author:
Originality and Quality” emblazoned upon it. There is sec-
Graham Badley, Emeritus Professor of Academic Development,
ond poster on another wall. This is a version of the brico- Research Support Unit, Anglia Ruskin University, Ashby House,
lage that is offered as a gift at the end of the play. The editor, Bishop Hall Lane, Chelmsford, Essex CM1 1SQ, United Kingdom
an imposing and glowering figure, is seated behind the Email: graham.badley@anglia.ac.uk
2 Qualitative Inquiry XX(X)
The Dialogue
Handyman: [cap in hand] Excuse me, sir . . .
Editor: [rudely] Eh? What is it?
Handyman: [timidly] These people are asking for
you, sir.
Editor: [furious] Look I’m working on these articles
and I don’t want to be disturbed. [Turning to the
first character] Who are you? What do you want?
Inquirer: [coming forward a little, followed by the
others who seem embarrassed] As a matter of fact
. . . we have come here in search of an author . . .
Editor: [half angry, half amazed] An author? What
author?
Inquirer: Any author, sir.
Editor: But there’s no author here.
Inquirer: Yes, but if the author isn’t here . . . [To Editor]
unless you would be willing . . .
Editor: Are you trying to be funny?
Inquirer: No. We bring you a drama, sir. A qualitative
comedy in the making.
Editor: Will you oblige me by going away? We
haven’t time to waste with mad people.
Inquirer: [mellifluously. He has a British accent] Oh
sir, you know well that life is full of infinite absur-
dities, which, strangely enough, do not even need
to appear plausible, since they are true.
Editor: What the devil are you talking about? Are you
all British? Where does this take us?
Inquirer: Nowhere! It is merely to show you that one is
born to life in many forms, in many shapes, as tree,
or as stone, as water, as butterfly, or as woman. So
one may also be born a character in a play.4
Editor: [with feigned comic dismay] So you and these
other friends of yours have been born characters?
Inquirer: Exactly, and alive as you see!
Editor: That’s absurd! [Editor and his team burst out
laughing]
Inquirer: [hurt] I am sorry you laugh, because we
carry in us a drama, a comedy in the making.
Editor: [losing patience and throwing the article he has
been reading down on the table] I don’t understand you!
Inquirer: [aggressively] I’m the leading character.
Editor: The leading character of what?
Editor’s assistant: I gave you their synopsis yester-
day, Professor Prosper, but here’s another copy.
[Aside: he always has to be given at least two cop-
ies of everything. The tyrant!]
Editor: Thank you Miranda. I did read it. It must be
here somewhere.
Editor’s assistant: [Aside: a likely tale! I think I’ll
tape all this. He’s bound to ask me for a synopsis.
Is this ethical?]
Editor: [to the inquirer] Perhaps you could summarize
your synopsis for me?
Inquirer: We’re just looking for an author. We want
you to find us an author.
Editor: An author for what?
Inquirer: For our comic inquiry: “Six Characters in
Search of an Author.”
Editor: You can’t use that title. It’s been used before.
Pirandello. And we don’t publish works by Piran-
dello since nobody ever understands them and the
author plays the fool with us all. [The characters
laugh]. Well—come to think of it there’s no copy-
right on titles so you could use it I suppose.
Inquirer: [getting irritated] But we were told that you
are a brave editor anyway who publishes original,
creative work.
Editor: Creative, yes! Impenetrable, no!
Bricoleur: [calming things down and speaking with a
charming French accent. He looks just like Gérard
Depardieu] Sir, we don’t think our material is trés
impenetrable. We just think it needs a good author
to make it a little more accessible and amenable.
Editor’s assistant: [smiling—she’s obviously quite
taken with this rugged bricoleur] Surely we can
help, Dr. Prosper?
Editor: Well, we need to find out more about this so-
called comic qualitative inquiry. We don’t usually
do comic. What’s comic about it? Are you just
playing the fool with us?
Inquirer: We are characters in a performance inquiry,
so, yes, there’s a bit of foolery but what do you
expect? King Lear? Well there’s a fool there too:
And my poor fool is hang’d! No, no, no life! Why
should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no
breath at all? (King Lear)
Editor: Let’s keep to the point. What is this inquiry
about?
Bricoleur: We are lectors, scriptors, textors, collabo-
rators constructing an inquiry. We don’t exactly
know where we’re going, and sometimes we don’t
even know where we’ve been, but we do assemble
something in the end. We find things out en route
and then produce our bricolage. We are not sci-
entists who claim to know where they are going.
For us the journey is the inquiry. Now that’s comic
foolery, n’est-ce pas?
Editor’s assistant: O brave new world that has such
people in’t! (The Tempest)
Bricoleur: [sotto voce] Admir’d Miranda! (The Tempest)
Lector: [not liking Miranda’s obvious infatuation with
the bricoleur] It’s not quite as romantic as Mon-
sieur le Bricoleur makes out. We do actually work
with texts. I do a lot of really hard, critical reading.
Badley 3
Bricoleur: Yes, we know! You deconstruct! And I
construct!
First coscriptor: That’s not fair! We all deconstruct,
construct, and reconstruct. You’re making your
part more important than anyone else’s. As usual.
Second coscriptor: True! You always do that! Just
because you’re French you think you invented
deconstruction and construction!
Bricoleur: We did and we invented assemblage and
bricolage and collage. . .
Textor: . . . and décolletage!
Bricoleur: Now you’re just being silly!
Editor: Miranda, I think we could all do with some
tea.
Inquirer, lector, coscriptors, and textor: [together] Not
for us! Coffee please! [Quietly to one another—
You can’t get a decent pot of tea over here!]
Bricoleur: Tea! Pah! Anglo-Saxon dish-water! I’ll
have coffee too, and none of that pathetic decaf-
feinated stuff either—I want the fully leaded ver-
sion!
Editorial assistant: O dear!
Editor: Coffee, Miranda! [Miranda exits, reluctantly
but checks the tape recorder] Perhaps each one of
you could tell me what roles you play.
Inquirer: I’m the initiator. I usually come up with an
issue or a problem for us to look into. I share my
ideas with the rest of the team.
Bricoleur: Team! This is not a game we’re playing.
We make things. An assemblage, a bricolage, a
collage, a drama . . .
Lector: But it is a team effort! We all contribute. I
produce my critical readings for the rest of the
team to consider. I produce my own constructions.
My own constructions of other people’s construc-
tions of what they have been up to.
Bricoleur: You’re just quoting . . . what’s his name . . . ?
Geertz! You aren’t deconstructing him. You’ve
done it before: Ethnographers explicate explica-
tions. They construct constructions. . . . It is expli-
cation I am after, construing social expressions on
their surface enigmatical (Geertz, 1993).
Lector: Here we go again. Why are you so aggressive?
Bricoleur: Aggressive? Moi? Why are you so domi-
nated by all these authorities? Even the French
ones: Barthes, Bourdieu, Deleuze, Derrida, Fou-
cault, and so on?
First coscriptor: She does actually read them . . .
unlike you. You just root about in them for the odd
idea you can plagiarize or steal. You’re just a scav-
enger! She’s a real scholar!
Second coscriptor: When Leonard Bernstein was
accused of plagiarism, he said, “I don’t plagiarize,
I steal. And when I steal, I steal classy.”
Bricoleur: Who is this Bernstein? Some German soci-
ologist?
[Miranda returns]
Editor: Ah! Coffee! Thank you, Miranda.
Bricoleur: I’m a Lévi-Strauss kind of bricoleur. And I
have read him. In the French. Unlike you Anglos.
Editor: I’m fluent in French and German.
Lector: Moi aussi! Y espanol tambien!
Editor: So what is a Lévi-Strauss bricoleur?
Inquirer: Do we really need to go into this?
Bricoleur: I want to answer Dr. Prosper. It might help
with our search for an author. But I can’t drink this
ersatz stuff. Do you have any Perrier?
Editorial assistant: O dear! Shall we send Ari for
some, Dr. Prosper?
Editor: Yes. [Exit Ari] Please tell us about the Lévi-
Strauss bricoleur.
[Loud groans from the other characters]
Bricoleur: Of course, moaning Anglo Saxons think
of bricoleurs as frivolous. They think they’re not
serious, just glorified do-it-yourself odd jobbers.
Lévi-Strauss does say that the bricoleur is typically
someone who works with his hands and uses devi-
ous means compared to those of a craftsman. So
the French bricoleur is a kind of professional do-it-
yourself man, which is better than your crude Anglo
version of the handyman (Lévi-Strauss, 1962/1966).
Handyman: What’s wrong with a handyman?
Editor: [ignoring Cal] Even though you present him
as a professional don’t you also imply that the bri-
coleur may also be seen as tricky or devious?
Handyman: I can be tricky. And devious too, if I
knew what it meant.
Bricoleur: If devious means using different materi-
als, methods, and tools creatively compared with
other craftsmen then “yes” the bricoleur is devi-
ous. However, if you suggest that devious means
an approach to the task in hand that might be con-
sidered insincere or even unscrupulous then I think
we could have an argument.
Textor: Yet another argument! When devious is used in
an underhand sense then bricolage writing may be
seen as scribbling, which Derrida says is a form of
abuse. Devious scribbling is writing that becomes
an instrument of abusive power, of a caste of intel-
lectuals, who manipulate and mislead the common
man. But that’s not what we’re after (Derrida, 1979).
Handyman: I’m a common man! Why do you want
to mislead me?
Editor: [ignoring Cal again] But what you are say-
ing is that we readers and writers need to be wary
about all academic scribbling, indeed all academic
writing, as potentially devious and tricky. And so
bricoleurs may be like Hermes, full of chicanery
4 Qualitative Inquiry XX(X)
and cunning. And their writing may also connote
the ambiguity and slipperiness of all texts as Joe
Kincheloe once said (Kincheloe, 2004).
Bricoleur: Who is this Joker Inchlow? Did you say
that the bricoleur is a joker?
Editor: No, no. Of course not. I just mentioned one
of our American writers, Joe Kincheloe, who has
written a lot about the bricolage. As an editor, I
obviously have to keep potentially devious mean-
ings of any text in mind. Nevertheless, following
the general principle of Caveat Lector, I think that
we should regard bricolage as a mainly positive
outcome of any qualitative inquiry.
Inquirer: Hallelujah!
Editor: [ignoring the sarcasm] But why do you have
two coscriptors on your team? And what do they
do?
Bricoleur: I wish you wouldn’t call us a team.
Editor: Team? Group? Sextet?
Bricoleur: I like sextet.
Lector: Well you would, wouldn’t you? [Miranda
smiles]
Bricoleur: We have two coscriptors because they’re
inseparable. They think the same and they back
each other up.
First coscriptor: That’s not true! There are two of us
because we bring two different perspectives to our
work as writers. Two contrasting critical stances.
Second coscriptor: That’s right!
Bricoleur: See what I mean! They’re clones. Miss
Tweedle-scriptum and Miss Tweedle-scriptee.
[Miranda laughs]
Editor: Of course, in a sextet there should be a leader,
a first violin, like your inquirer, a couple of second
violins (two coscriptors), a viola (your lector), a
cello (your textor), and a double bass (the brico-
leur).
Bricoleur: I like the idea of being double and bass.
Lector: You are doubly base!
Editor: [quickly moving on] But as coscriptors what
do you actually play—do?
First coscriptor: We write of course!
Second coscriptor: That’s right.
Bricoleur: Same old tune!
First coscriptor: I often write a first draft from my
own perspective as a critical posthumanist. [It’s
the bricoleur’s turn to groan]
Second coscriptor: And I write a response from my
perspective as a feminist. [Another groan from the
bricoleur]
Inquirer: It’s a kind of reflective collaborative writing
that also uses the constructions originally submit-
ted by the lector. We all contribute and we all col-
laborate.
Bricoleur: Critical feminist, critical posthumanist!
What are you talking about?
Lector: You wouldn’t understand.
Editor: I’m sure that Monsieur le Bricoleur does
understand that feminism and posthumanism are
appropriate critical stances for qualitative inquir-
ers in a complex, multilayered social world.
Bricoleur: Sure. But we’re getting away from the cen-
tral role of the bricoleur. Bricolage is a process of
collecting materials and tools on the principle that
they might come in handy for future projects. We
bricoleurs begin our work retrospectively, by look-
ing back at existing materials and ideas with which
we engage in a kind of dialogue. We bricoleurs
judge which objects or ideas might be most suit-
able (Kincheloe, 2004; Lévi-Strauss, 1962/1966).
Editor: Are you just saying that bricoleurs, as
cultural artists or makers, use the means at
hand and the instruments already available but
adapt and change them by trial and error when
necessary?
Bricoleur: Yes. I am saying that although the rest of
this “sextet” [sneeringly] don’t like to hear me say-
ing it because they think it inflates my role. I also
argue that bricolage is a critique of language in
general and, indeed, that bricolage is the critical
language itself (Derrida, 1978). But they wouldn’t
like that either. It’s too French and too Continental
for them.
Handyman: You taught me language; and my profit
on’t is, I know how to curse (The Tempest).
Bricoleur: What’s he on about?
Lector: Look, I accept what you say. I just wish you’d
say it without that underlying sense of threat.
Indeed, if we see bricolage as the desirability of
borrowing concepts from other texts then we could
agree with Derrida that every discourse is a form
of bricolage.
Editor: And doesn’t Derrida go on to say that if this is
so then even engineers and scientists are also spe-
cies of bricoleurs? (Derrida, 1978).
Lector: Yes, but he also says that in this way the very
idea of bricolage is menaced and the difference in
which it took its meaning decomposes.
Bricoleur: Derrida’s just indulging in one of his intel-
lectual pranks here by stretching the concept of
bricolage.
Lector: So he not only deconstructs bricolage but also
snaps it and destroys it?
Bricoleur: We don’t have to go that far.
Lector: I suppose not.
Inquirer: Agreement at last! We should celebrate!
Ari: [suddenly appearing out of nowhere] I couldn’t
find any Perrier or any other spring water.
Badley 5
Handyman: This island’s mine, I show’d thee all the
qualities o’ th’ isle, The fresh springs, brine-pits,
barren place and fertile. . . . (The Tempest).
Bricoleur: [ignoring Cal] Well let’s celebrate, any-
way! But I don’t want to lose sight of the power
of Derrida and his deconstructive scribbling. We
should celebrate his success in showing us that
texts do not have decidable meanings and do not
fit in with notions of totality or essence. Indeed he
shows us that totality rules out both individuality
and alterity whereas deconstruction and scribbling
further the postmodern concern for the particular,
for difference, for diversity, for heterogeneity, for
pluralism, for the fragmentary and the marginal.
All these terms are useful descriptions of scrib-
bling itself. Similarly, essence is oppressive for
it results in dogmatism, which itself legitimizes
expertocracy. And expertocracy is the tyranny of
those who claim to be in the know, the tyranny of
the status quo. (Madison, 1997; Badley, 2011).
Editor’s assistant: [almost swooning] That’s brilliant!
We should have taped this, Dr. Prosper. Shall I
send Cal to get some spring water? Or there might
be some wine in the ice box.
Editor: [frowning] Let’s not get carried away,
Miranda.
Editor’s assistant: [getting irritated] I’m not getting
carried away.
Editor: While Derrida appears to disrupt the coher-
ence and value of bricolage, Joe Kincheloe argues
that no concept better captures the possibility of
the future of educational research (Kincheloe,
2004).
Textor: Yet others sneer at the whole idea of bri-
colage: That’s when you really don’t know any-
thing about research but have a lot to say about it
(Kincheloe, 2004). [Some laugh and some groan]
Editor: That negative response comes from neocon-
servatives who wish to reassert the dominance
and power of traditional disciplines. They see
knowing and research “through only Eurocen-
tric, patriarchical, class, elitist, and reductionist
lenses.” Kincheloe goes on to say that brico-
lage is especially challenged by “neo-positivis-
tic and reductionist modes of ‘evidence-based
research’.” (Kincheloe, 2004).
Bricoleur: I’d like to meet your Joke Kincheloe. He
sounds like my kind of guy. Mind you I’m a bit
Eurocentric myself, I suppose!
Lector I’d like to meet him too. I fully agree with
his anticonservative, anticlassist, antielitist, anti-
Eurocentric, and especially his antipatriarchical
sentiments.
Coscriptors [in unison] He’s our kind of guy too!
Ari: Shall I fetch him, great master, grave sir?
Editor: Not now Ari. We don’t do that kind of thing
anymore.
Ari: Is there more toil? Let me remember thee what
thou hast promis’d, which is not yet performed me.
Editor: How now? Moody? What is’t thou canst
demand?
Ari: My liberty (The Tempest).
Bricoleur: What’s going on here? Why are you speak-
ing like this? Is this another joke?
Editor: It’s a private matter.
Bricoleur: When someone demands their liberté,
that’s no private matter. Especially to a Frenchman.
And just who is this strange creature?
Cal: This island’s mine which thou tak’st from me
(The Tempest).
Editor: It’s a long story. We can’t go into it now. [To
Cal] Both you and Ari will be free soon.
Bricoleur: Can we get back to the point?
Editor: Yes, I think we’ve agreed that bricolage is a
positive concept. You’ve described a complex and
rich version of what it entails. But it can also be
described simply. For example, Rorty admitted that
he didn’t have any original ideas, but he did have a
talent for bricolage. He said that all he did was to
pick up bits of Derrida and bits of Dewey and put
them next to each other and bits of Davidson and bits
of Wittgenstein and stuff like that. It’s just a talent
for bricolage. If you don’t have an original mind,
you comment on people who do (Knobe, 1995).
Bricoleur: Actually I like that. It reminds me of
Barthes who claimed that a text is not a line of
words releasing a single theological meaning, the
message of the Author-God, but a multidimen-
sional space in which a variety of writings, none of
them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue
of quotations drawn from the innumerable centers
of culture (Barthes, 1977).
Inquirer: Yes. Just as Rorty’s “bits” from other phi-
losophers are juxtaposed so that he can comment
on their differences and similarities so Barthes’s
variety of quotations are melded with and clanged
against one another.
First coscriptor: Yes. Barthes’s scriptor is similar to
Derrida’s deconstructed bricoleur. Just as the mod-
ern scriptor is born simultaneously with the text so
the bricoleur is homemade at the same time as and
along with the bricolage (Barthes, 1977).
Second coscriptor: Also there’s a parallel between
the bricoleur and the nomadic researcher. The
feminist, Rosi Braidotti, suggests that transdisci-
plinarity is a style that comes close to bricolage.
It connects with bricolage through its use of cita-
tions and quotations in order to let other voices
echo through the text. She calls this a “metabolic
consumption” of the old in order to engender the
6 Qualitative Inquiry XX(X)
new, which is not dissimilar to the bricoleur’s use
of existing ideas, materials, and tools to create a
new bricolage (Braidotti, 1994).
Editor’s assistant: Wow! I said we should have taped
all this. [And I have!]
Editor: Perhaps you were right, Miranda.
Lector: Of course, a more complex and rigorous
reading of bricolage presents it as “a critical dis-
course,” another form of interdisciplinarity, which
critiques dominant forms of power. Bricoleurs as
scriptors reject naïve realism and focus, instead,
on their own ways of seeing as well as on how
other writers shape their descriptions and inter-
pretations of reality. Through this interdisciplin-
ary approach bricoleurs therefore reject theory as
explanation or accurate representation of reality
and conceive it as an explanation of their relation
to the world.
Textor: In effect, bricoleurs are committed to research
eclecticism and to selecting from what the dis-
ciplines have to offer and therefore become, as
Kincheloe pointed out, “methodological negotia-
tors.” Thus, bricoleurs not only interrogate their
own treasures they also examine the treasures of
others. Or, less grandiosely, they give themselves
“the writer’s licence to steal and exploit the lan-
guage of other disciplines.” (Kincheloe, 2004).
Lector: Yes. Margaret Atwood said more or less the
same things. First, all writers “negotiate with the
dead,” and, second, all writers are like jackdaws
in that they steal whatever is bright and shiny from
other writers for their own use (Atwood, 2002).
Textor: And this is especially where textors come
in . . . to help bricoleurs create new “boundary-
knowledge” that not only weaves existing threads
together but also forms a new research conscious-
ness. Such interdisciplinarity is a form of collabo-
ration between and among border workers in the
disciplines (Lincoln, 2001).
Lector: Yes, but we have also have to be careful.
Collaboration may be difficult since claiming to
be bricoleurs and textors in some fields may well
invite ridicule from colleagues in the “hard” disci-
plines and from political advocates of education-
is-a-business (Lincoln, 2001; Pinar, 2001).
Editor: Collaboration and interdisciplinarity are not
tranquil pursuits . . . bricoleurs may be accused of
“epistemological relativism.” Bricoleurs need to
be wary of assuming that each different perspec-
tive is of equal value. They need to be critical, to
speak truth to power, “to interrogate the existing
liberal consensus,” to be wary of the attractive
“glitter of deconstruction.” Perhaps their inter-
disciplinary approach would be better used to
develop a critique that leads to economic, politi-
cal, and social action (McLaren, 2001).
Bricoleur: Presumably you are not saying that brico-
leurs need to be Marxists, who insist that all expe-
riences must be seen in relation to class struggle
and social antagonism?
Editor: No. I’m not going that far, but I do believe
that bricolage can be and often should be a form of
social and political action.
Lector: Yes. Bricolage as reading and writing should
be seen as a form of political and social action.
Bricoleurs are jacks and jills of all trades who
scrabble to acquire useful, often textual, materi-
als and select different interpretive practices and
methodological tools in order to construct new
assemblages and bricolages. These assemblages
and bricolages become thick descriptions and
interpretations of cultural, educational, and social
phenomena as critical contributions to social and
political dialogue (Kincheloe, 2004).
Editor: What do you mean when you say that bricoleur-
lectors scrabble for their textual materials?
Lector: Well, I think they scrabble in three over-
lapping ways: through critical inquiry, through
resource material collecting, and through criti-
cal reading. But it is scrabbling as critical read-
ing that most engages the bricoleur as lector. It is
not just a simple matter of gathering and hunting
down useful resource material but an active pro-
cess of engagement and conversation with others.
Scrabbling is a way of reflecting upon our experi-
ence and on the experience of others. Scrabbling
bricoleur-lectors do not achieve mastery or final
answers but, rather, see the process of writing
as dialogical, open, questioning, skeptical, and
Socratic (Winter and Badley, 2007).
Editor: So, scrabbling as critical reading is a form of
deconstruction or teasing out a text’s contested
meanings? (Culler, 1983, 1997).
Textor: Yes. Qualitative research in this sense is
a series of deconstructions, constructions, and
reconstructions aiming not at closure but at raising
further doubts and questions. It is often a reanimat-
ing of existing knowledge in an attempt to make
new knowledge.
Lector: It’s reading the texts of others affirmatively
rather than destructively to find something use-
ful for our purposes. It is a critical, interpretative,
and persuasive process rather than an attempt to
prove that any one reading of a text is the right
one. When we read other texts we do so in order to
examine concepts, ideas, suggestions, and values
that may be useful to us as researchers or writers or
even as social and political activists. It is reading
Badley 7
in order to understand. Deconstructing or scrab-
bling is usually a respectful, but sometimes a play-
ful or even frivolous analysis of texts to see how
they function internally (Badley, 2011).
Editor: Yes, it’s clear what you’re saying but how
would you summarize these bricoleur-lectors?
Lector: They are, in my view, ethnographers of texts.
They enter and deconstruct the texts that they read
and then construct their own readings out of what
others have previously constructed. These con-
structions are thick descriptions and interpreta-
tions made out of other constructions, descriptions
and interpretations.
Textor: And, as lectors, they provide such scrabbled
readings for themselves or others as scriptors to
scribble with and as textors to scribe and weave
into new reconstructions and texts. These new
texts, woven out of the strands and threads pre-
viously teased out of and disentangled from old
texts, show that the textor’s role is based on modes
of de-texting and re-texting. Textors use the scrab-
bled readings of lectors (theirs and others’) and
the scribbled constructions of scriptors in order to
weave their own inter-texts (Barthes, 1977).
Lector: I agree about these processes. Lectors as eth-
nographers act as more or less passionate “I”-
witnesses, and not as disinterested observers, who
use their own ways of “witting-ness” to interpret
what they experience. Lectors, however, are not
just “eye” witnesses since their witnessing of expe-
rience uses all their senses and all their “knowing-
ness” (knowledge, intelligence, understanding) to
interpret and connect the ideas that their own read-
ings stimulate. All these forms of “I”-witnessing
help lectors to scrabble together a range of evidence
(data) for them to reflect on and scribble/write about
as scriptors. As critical lectors they are also critical
interpreters of what they witness since they not only
want to satisfy their own desires for knowledge and
understanding but also to help scriptors and textors
offer plausible accounts of their understandings to
other critical lectors (Geertz, 1993, 1998).
Textor: What bricoleur-lectors have to do as “I”-
witnesses is to place the reach of their sensibili-
ties, not just their analytical powers or their social
codes, at the center of their ethnography. And this
requires them to solve “a distinctive sort of text-
building problem” in order to render their writ-
ing credible through making themselves credible
(if not authentic). And, as Geertz pointed out, in
order to be convincing “I-witnesses” all research-
ers have to become convincing “I”s. This clearly
links with what Geertz calls the “discourse prob-
lem”: “How to author an authoritative presentation.”
It is one thing for bricoleur-researchers to become
convincing “I-witnesses” but another to develop
as reliable narrators of what they claim to have
witnessed (Badley, 2004; Geertz, 1993, 1988).
Bricoleur: I think I agree with what you are say-
ing, although it’s difficult to follow you at times
since you both ramble on. And of course, I like
the notion of being a passionate “I”-witness since
we bricoleurs are passionate human beings and not
cold, impersonal academics. Like some I could
mention.
Lector: But we lectors are also passionate about what
we do because we are guided in our reading by
the need to be interesting, relevant, and timely.
We know too that our readings need to pass tests
of theoretical rigor and credibility as well as those
of methodological and practical significance.
Lectors’ readings, their constructions and inter-
pretations, need to achieve a certain meaningful
coherence that connects with other readings of rel-
evant literature (see Tracy, 2010).
Inquirer: So you see, Dr. Prosper, that we are passion-
ate about our own characters and also passionate
about our qualitative comedy in the making.
Editor: The problem is that
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
- W.B. Yeats
Bricoleur: But we are all committed to our work and
we are all passionate about it.
Editor: But what I can’t understand is that you have
come to me in search of an author when it is clear
that you are all writers in your own ways. You
don’t need an author.
Lector: The trouble is that as a team [the bricoleur
bristles], as a group or sextet, [the bricoleur relaxes]
we can’t agree who should be our chief writer. We
all collaborate in writing, but we can’t come to a
consensus about who should lead and about what
should count as the final bricolage. That’s why we
are here. [The lector leaves the room]
Coscriptors [together] We have killed the Author-God!
Long live the scriptors! [They leave the room]
Bricoleur: Like Barthes we have rejected the Author-God.
Vive les bricoleurs! [The bricoleur leaves the room]
Textor: The Author-God is dead! But textors live on!
[The textor leaves the room]
Inquirer: As bricoleurs, lectors, scriptors, and textors
we all know now that to give writing its future the
birth of the reader must be at the cost of the death
of the author (Barthes, 1977).
Editor: So . . .
8 Qualitative Inquiry XX(X)
Our revels now are ended. These our actors are
melted into air, into thin air. . . . We are such stuff. As
dreams are made on; and our little life Is rounded
with a sleep (The Tempest).
Inquirer: So now they’ve all gone and I feel tired
myself. It’s hard work constructing a comic bri-
colage. But that is what we’ve done with the stuff
we’ve collected and reflected on . . . the stuff we
and our dreams are made on . . . the stuff we’ve
used in our character roles as inquirers, lectors,
scriptors, and textors.
Editor: So you never were “Six Characters Searching
for an Author” at all!
Inquirer: No. Just one complex character split into six
writers searching first of all for an identity. But “I”
or “We” still feel the need for a com-passionate
editor to help us produce something a little more
coherent out of this qualitative comedy in the mak-
ing. Can you, will you, help us, Dr. Prosper? [The
inquirer leaves]
Epilogue
Miranda: Have they really gone? Even the bricoleur?
Dr. Prosper: Yes, they’ve all gone. But the bricoleur
left you a gift.
Miranda: A gift! Let me see. And will you help them?
Dr. Prosper: First I must deal with Ari and Cal.
Ari: [aside to Dr. Prosper] Was ‘t well done?
Dr. Prosper: [aside to Ari] Bravely, my diligence.
Thou shalt be free.
Cal: How fine my master is! I am afraid He will chas-
tise me.
Dr. Prosper: This thing of darkness I acknowledge
mine.
Cal: I shall be pinch’d to death.
Dr. Prosper: You ‘ld be King o’ the isle, sirrah? . . .
as you look
To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.
Cal: Ay, that I will; and I’ll be wise hereafter,
And seek for grace
Miranda: And will you help the characters in
search of an author?
Dr. Prosper: I’m an editor and so . . .
I’ll deliver all;
And promise them calm seas, auspicious
gales. . . (The Tempest)
It’s what editors do. We are not all tyrants you know
[he looks at Miranda]. Just because my favorite
word is “cut” doesn’t make me a brute. Asking for
shorter sentences isn’t cruel. Reducing academic
windbaggery is not rude. Criticizing polysyl-
labic bullshit, detecting crap, and promoting plain
speaking and writing can actually be helpful and
supportive. Look—I’ve questioned these strange
characters in order to help them clarify some of
their own ideas. I’ve made my own modest contri-
butions too. Indeed I—no, we’ve all become part
of this comedy too. Now I wish you had taped the
whole discussion. We could do with a transcript—
a working script of the play.
Miranda: [laughing] We shall have a (tran-) script
tomorrow. I taped the whole thing. Did I do well,
Dr. Prosper? Was I right? Was I ethical?
Dr. Prosper: [smiling] You did well Miranda. No
harm was done. They will be pleased that you
made a transcript. They can check it out and
make any corrections they like—subject to the
usual editorial oversight, of course! And they
will realize that they didn’t really need either an
editor or an author at all. Just a script! And a
publisher!
Miranda: Now, finally, shall we look at the brico-
leur’s parting gift, his strange bricolage?5
Author’s Note
A .pdf version of the Bricoleur-as-Writer Bricolage is available by
e-mail from: graham.badley@anglia.ac.uk.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with
respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Notes
  1. Luigi Pirandello’s (1921) play is entitled “Six Characters in
Search of an Author (Sei personaggi in cerca d’autore)”
and sub-titled A COMEDY IN THE MAKING. I read
the English version by Edward Storer (New York, NY:
E. P. Dutton, 1922).
  2. “Vermouth Island” is a fantasy, similar to Prospero’s or Caliban’s
island in The Tempest. “Vermouth” is also a pun on the play’s
reference to the “still vexed Bermoothes” (1.ii). I like the idea
of sitting somewhere on a shaded terrace on the island sipping
an iced gin and vermouth sharpened with a slice of lime. More
fantasy!
  3. The Arden Shakespeare edition of The Tempest (1964) edited
by Frank Kermode used Ari. and Cal. as abbreviations for
Ariel and Caliban. Dr. Prosper is my version, and Miranda is
not presented here as his daughter. I chose not to go into the
business of Caliban’s attempt “to violate the honour of my
 Badley 9
child” as an unnecessary diversion from the comedy in the
making.
  4. The first few lines of this comedy are based on the opening of
Pirandello’s play.
  5. This bricoleur’s bricolage is another fabrication, woven out of
various mini-texts about bricolage and writing.
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Bio
Graham Badley, PhD, FRSA, is emeritus professor of academic
development, Research Support Unit, Anglia Ruskin University.
He has special interests in learning and teaching issues, links
between research and teaching and with academics and postgradu-
ates as effective writers.