No Buts! - Researching Children's Consumption, an Exploration of Conversation and Discourse Analytic Techniques

Contemporary discussion of social research with children revolves around three trends (i) an emphasis on researching children’s ‘experiences’ rather than their ‘perspectives’, (ii) an emphasis on researching ‘with’ children rather than ‘on’ children or ‘for’ children and (iii) a conceptualisation of children as ‘social beings’ not ‘social becomings’. This paper poses questions about how qualitative data is analysed and posits a two-pronged CA/DA (conversation analysis/ discourse analysis) approach as a potential means to enhance richness in qualitative research in the area of children’s consumption phenomena. Drawing on a number of illustrations from an ongoing research project this paper seeks to illustrate how a CA/DA approach to children’s talk-in-interaction around consumer culture and brands can be useful in addressing the ways children use these resources to construct social worlds and identities.