The Open University ’ s repository of research publications and other research outputs Discursive and psychosocial ? Theorising a complex

This article outlines one tradition of qualitative research in social psychology, that of discourse analysis and discursive research. It proposes that the tradition offers an alternative conceptualisation of a psychosocial subject to accounts which draw on psychoanalytic theorising. The article reviews some of the problems around conceptualising a subject in discursive terms, then sets out some resolutions. It outlines a narrativediscursive approach to subjectivity and proposes that this is consistent with a psychosocial project to explore the person as inseparable from their social contexts. The narrativediscursive conceptualisation admits of agency and change, avoiding over-complete accounts of subjectification, while retaining the critical and political focus of the discursive tradition. It is also consistent with sociological theorisations of the subjects of late capitalism and neoliberalism. The article discusses an example of narrative-discursive analysis from research on identities of residence and relationships to place.