Jonathan Potter (born 8 June 1956)[1] is a British psychologist and Dean of the School of Communication and Information at Rutgers University.[2] He is one of the pioneers of discursive psychology.
Life
Jonathan Potter was born in Ashford, Kent, and spent most of his childhood in Laughton, East Sussex. His father was a school teacher, and his mother was a batik artist. He attended school in Lewes and pursued a degree in Psychology at the University of Liverpool in 1974. During his studies, he became interested in alternative therapies and the emerging critical perspectives in social psychology, influenced by the work of John Shotter, Kenneth Gergen, and Rom Harré.
In 1979, Potter applied for PhD funding at the University of Bath to work with Harry Collins, but the offer was withdrawn due to budget cuts. He began a part-time PhD at the University of Surrey, studying the experiences of overseas tourists in Bath. During this period, he met and started living with Margaret Wetherell, a prominent figure in British social psychology.
Potter later transferred to the University of York, working with Michael Mulkay on the sociology of scientific knowledge, focusing on scientific discourse analysis. He completed his DPhil in 1983.
Potter joined the University of St Andrews, where he taught statistics and developed a course on discourse, covering various theories and methods that influenced his later work. After four years of temporary contracts, he moved to Loughborough University in 1988. He progressed from lecturer to Professor of Discourse Analysis and eventually became Head of Department in 2010. At Loughborough, he collaborated with colleagues such as Derek Edwards, Michael Billig, Charles Antaki, and Elizabeth Stokoe.
Since 1996, Potter has lived with and collaborated with Alexa Hepburn. He has conducted workshops and short courses internationally. In 2005, his book Cognition and Conversation (co-edited with Hedwig te Molder) received the inaugural prize of the American Sociological Association's Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis section. In 2008, he was elected to the UK Academy of Social Sciences.
Work
In 1984, Jonathan Potter published Social Texts and Context: Literature and Social Psychology with Margaret Wetherell and Peter Stringer. This collaboration developed alongside Potter and Wetherell's PhD research.
Potter co-authored the influential book Discourse and Social Psychology with Margaret Wetherell, which is a foundational text in the development of a discourse analytic approach to social psychology, now known as discursive psychology. The book introduced new ways to conceptualize fundamental social psychological concepts such as attitudes, categories, social representations, and rules. It has been cited over three thousand times in more than a hundred different journals. One of its key contributions was the development of the analytic notion of 'interpretative repertoires,' adapted from Gilbert and Mulkay's work on scientific discourse, and its application to social psychological topics. A joint grant led by Margaret Wetherell resulted in the 1992 volume Mapping the Language of Racism, which examined how racism is expressed and legitimized in conversations, newspaper articles, and parliamentary debates.
In the early 1990s, Potter and Derek Edwards authored Discursive Psychology, establishing a specific style of work now prevalent in social science journals. This approach challenged core notions in cognitive psychology, particularly memory and attribution, by demonstrating that cognitive processes and events are embedded in and part of language use. For example, they reanalyzed Ulric Neisser's work on the Watergate testimony, showing how John Dean's accounts of his memory were used by counsel in building the case against Richard Nixon. This work differed from earlier discourse analytic approaches by using records of natural interaction rather than open-ended interviews and focusing on sequential interaction instead of identifying interpretative repertoires.
In 1996, Potter published Representing Reality, which built on his engagement with the sociology of scientific knowledge and other approaches to factuality. The book provided an overview, extension, and critique of social constructionism in the social sciences, developing a discursive version of constructionism in contrast to the more familiar social constructionism of thinkers such as Peter L. Berger and Thomas Luckmann.
Potter co-edited Conversation and Cognition with Hedwig te Molder, a collection that brought together conversation analysts, ethnomethodologists, and discursive psychologists, including Geoff Coulter, John Heritage, Anita Pomerantz, and Robert Hopper, to address fundamental issues at the intersection of cognition and interaction.
In 2007, Potter edited a three-volume set of books that compiled a wide range of studies in discursive psychology.
Recent Work
Much of Jonathan Potter's recent work has been in collaboration with Alexa Hepburn. They have developed a research program using material collected from the UK National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children's child protection helpline. This research combines a theoretical interest in how concepts such as emotion and joint understanding are conceptualized in social psychological research with a focus on applied topics, such as advice resistance and its management.
Their paper on the problems and prospects of using qualitative interviews in psychology, published in Qualitative Research in Psychology, sparked a debate with Jonathan Smith, Wendy Hollway, and Elliot Mishler, and has been widely cited. This discourse stimulated further discussion in Qualitative Research with Chris Griffin and Karen Henwood.
Potter and Hepburn's new research focuses on studying video records of mealtime interactions in families with young children. This work examines actions such as directives, requests, and threats, with a broader concern about how interaction analysis can contribute to the study of obesity.
In a 2010 paper in the British Journal of Social Psychology,[3] Potter summarized and continued the debate over the status of discursive psychology concerning both traditional social psychology and alternative styles of critical work.
Bibliography
Books
Potter, Jonathan; Wetherell, Margaret; Stringer, Peter (1984). Social texts and context: literature and social psychology. London Boston: Routledge & Kegan Paul. ISBN9780710095534.
Potter, Jonathan; Wetherell, Margaret (1987). Discourse and social psychology: beyond attitudes and behaviour. London Newbury Park, California: SAGE. ISBN9780803980563.
Potter, Jonathan (1996). Representing reality discourse, rhetoric and social construction. London Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. ISBN9780803984110.
Potter, Jonathan; Puchta, Claudia (2004). Focus group practice. London Thousand Oaks, California: SAGE. ISBN9780761966913.
Potter, Jonathan; te Molder, Hedwig (2005). Conversation and cognition. Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521793698.
Potter, Jonathan (2007). Discourse and psychology: Volumes I, II and III. SAGE Benchmarks in Psychology. Los Angeles: SAGE. ISBN9781412934039.
Book chapters
Potter, Jonathan (2001), "Wittigenstein and Austin", in Wetherell, Margaret; Taylor, Stephanie; Yates, Simeon J. (eds.), Discourse theory and practice: a reader, D843 Course: Discourse Analysis, London Thousand Oaks California: SAGE in association with the Open University, pp. 39–46, ISBN9780761971566.
Potter, Jonathan; Wetherell, Margaret (2001), "Unfolding discourse analysis", in Wetherell, Margaret; Taylor, Stephanie; Yates, Simeon J. (eds.), Discourse theory and practice: a reader, D843 Course: Discourse Analysis, London Thousand Oaks California: SAGE in association with the Open University, pp. 198–209, ISBN9780761971566.
Potter, Jonathan; Speer, Susan A. (2002), "From performatives to practices: Judith Butler, discursive psychology, and the management of heterosexist talk", in McIlvenny, Paul (ed.), Talking gender and sexuality, Amsterdam Philadelphia: John Benjamins, pp. 151–180, ISBN9789027251145.
Potter, Jonathan; Puchta, Claudia (2007), "Mind, mousse and moderation", in Hepburn, Alexa; Wiggins, Sally (eds.), Discursive research in practice: new approaches to psychology and interaction, Cambridge New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 104–124, ISBN9780521614092.
Potter, Jonathan; Speer, Susan A. (2007), "The management of heterosexist talk: Conversational resources and prejudiced claims", in Potter, Jonathan (ed.), Discourse and psychology: Volume II, SAGE Benchmarks in Psychology, Los Angeles: SAGE, ISBN9781412934039.
Potter, Jonathan; Stokoe, Elizabeth (2010), "Interrogating tears: Some uses of "tag questions" in a child-protection helpline", in Freed, Alice; Ehrlich, Susan (eds.), Why do you ask? the function of questions in institutional discourse, Oxford New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 108–132, ISBN9780195306903.
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