Anekdotisk teori som videnskabsteori

– i socialpædagogik og andre relationelle professioner

Abstract

Anecdotes circulate widely in professional practice, yet they are rarely granted epistemic status. They are told, shared, and discussed, but seldom recognised as legitimate contributions to the production of knowledge. In everyday language, an anecdote is a short narrative rooted in reality. In this article, however, I focus on a particular theoretical understanding of anecdotes through Jane Gallop’s Anecdotal Theory, originally developed within literary studies. Anecdotes contain an exorbitant moment in which practice breaks down and something appears that falls outside the problem definitions of theories and methods. I translate and further develop this theory within a social pedagogical context and argue that anecdotal theory can function as a profession specific epistemological position. The anecdote is not understood as an illustration, but as an epistemic rupture that makes visible the margins of professional knowledge and thus calls for self limitation, where theories and methods are temporarily bracketed in deference to the other’s utterance, so that the relation is not closed through overly rapid theoretical or methodological integration. The article examines how anecdotal theory can support forms of professional knowledge that can be transformed in encounters with what is marginal. The point of departure is social pedagogy, but the perspective may be relevant to other relational professions.