Rashomon Effect

Last Monday I was talking with a new friend (Milena Zafir) about the structural similarities between the church and the academy. She suggested me to read "Michel Foucault – from “The Order of Discourse” (Michel Foucault, from “The Order of Discourse” R. Young, ed. Untying the Text (1971). We were in a garden, talking and drinking beer after a frustrating talk of Don Buchla, at the School of Communications and Arts, University of Sao Paulo. I was reading the small book today while traveling form Sao Paulo to Limeira.

http://webspace.qmul.ac.uk/sbaumgarten/Foucault_The%20Order%20of%20Discourse.pdf

Foucault was talking about discourse, truth.

http://www.michel-foucault.com/trans/od.html




In reply to the following FB post by Professor James K Gimzewski:

(JAmes K Gimzewski)
If you tell the truth, you don't have to remember anything.
12 June at 11:40


I wrote:

(Clarissa Ribeiro) and when we hard believe we are telling the truth but we are inventing realities?
12 June at 14:57 · Like · 1 person

Venkatram Dattu wrote the following replying to my reply:


(Venkatram Dattu)Rashomon effect .......
12 June at 21:29 · Like · 1 person

Googling "Rashomon effect", I selected a few references, including the trailer of the film "Rashomon" (Akira Kurosawa, 1950)and an interesting paper of two Harvard University researchers:




The Rashomon Effect: Combining Positivist and Interpretivist Approaches in the Analysis of Contested Events. by WENDY D. ROTH and JAL D. MEHTA
Harvard University
Abstract:
Positivist and interpretivist analytical approaches are frequently believed to be incompatible as research strategies and ways of understanding the world. This article argues that not only may versions of positivism and interpretivism be combined in the analysis of contested events, but this combination can further the goals of both approaches by contributing information that may have been missed by adopting only one perspective. The authors illustrate this using two case studies of lethal school shootings near Paducah, Kentucky, and Jonesboro, Arkansas, and introduce methodological strategies to manage potential biases that may lead to contradictory testimony. However, these same contradictions act as distinct data points from the interpretivist perspective, offering insight into the cultural understandings of a community. The authors develop new forms of triangulation that are tailored to these research goals and illustrate how, just as positivist analysis may be used to aid interpretivism, an interpretive understanding of a community may be necessary to develop causal theories of contested events such as school shootings.