Thematic analysis and Michael Ondaatje

It can also be a ‘contextualist’ method, sitting between the two poles of essentialism and constructionism, and characterized by theories, such as critical realism (eg, Willig, 1999), which acknowledge the ways individuals make meaning of their experience, and, in turn, the ways the broader social context impinges on those meanings, while retaining focus on the material and other limits of ‘reality’ (Braun & Clarke, 2006: 6).

I started reading In the Skin of a Lion last night night, and this is what it’s like. I suppose most books do this. It’s how I think of people experiencing their lives and the world around them: individual parts in large social and historical realities and patterns, but also fully creating a world and meaning in their own right against the broader milieu.