Thanks for the suggestions!

It's not so much that the established theory is 'wrong' in an objective sense, since as with a lot of things in social sciences I suppose it's down to perspective and which slant you want to take. I will take a look at the recommendations. Thanks!

Hello,

I am currently writing up my ethnographic-based PhD but I have found I am struggling with write up and was looking from some advice. My main issue is that I fundamentally disagree with a lot of the 'social theory' literature commonly used (e.g. Bourdieu, Butler, extreme constructivism, etc.). I don't want to be in the situation of defending my thesis in a viva using theories that I don't particularly agree with, but I am also finding it difficult to find theorists/frameworks who work well with my thesis.

I have written and scrapped several draft chapters, mostly because I have gone down one theoretical path, only to realise I don't have faith in it as an overall model. I realise it is common to use multiple theoretic perspectives, but I also feel that mixing-and-matching too much makes the overall thesis appear weak.

Any recommendations on social theorists relevant to ethnography which have more of a 'real world' grounding (apologies for the vagueness) would be appreciated.

Many thanks.