Thinking differently: challenges in qualitative research (original) (raw)

Qualitative Inquiry: Tensions and Transformations

The domain of qualitative inquiry offers some of the richest and most rewarding explorations available in contemporary social science. This bounty is the outcome of a host of historical convergences. The area has welcomed scores of scholars who have found their disciplinary traditions narrow and constraining. Despite potential peer criticism, they have entered the qualitative world brimming with energy. Other denizens have found outlets for expressing particular commitments or skills; here there is space for societal critique and political activism, just as there are clearings for literary, artistic and dramatic expressions. Further, scholars from diverse arenas --AIDS researchers, market analysts, ethnographers and more --have entered in search of ways to bring new vitality to their customary pursuits. Perhaps most significantly, the tidal wave of theoretical and metatheoretical debates sweeping across the intellectual world -variably indexed as post-foundational, post-structural, post-Enlightenment, and postmodern -has swept into the qualitative harbor. Here these turbulent interchanges have produced profound challenges to the ways in which the social sciences are understood and practiced.

Talking and Thinking About Qualitative Research

Qualitative Inquiry, 2008

This special session featured scholars informally responding to questions about their personal history with qualitative methods, epiphanies that attracted them to qualitative work or changed their perspectives within the qualitative tradition, ethical crises, exemplary qualitative studies, the current state of qualitative methods, and challenges and goals for the next decade. Panelists included Arthur Bochner (communication), Norman Denzin (sociology/communication/critical studies), Yvonna Lincoln (education), Janice Morse (nursing/anthropology), Ronald Pelias (performance studies/ communication), and Laurel Richardson (sociology/gender studies). Carolyn Ellis (communication/sociology) served as organizer and moderator.

Qualitative Research in Action

Journal of Marketing Research, 1992

Welcome to Qualitative Research in Action. In the planning of this volume a particular process was adopted. The reasons for this were not only due to the geographical spread of the contributors, but also to permit chapters to be exchanged and commented upon. Overall, the purpose was to enable a thematic coherence to emerge within the volume as a whole. It was also recognized that while we talk about the links between process and product in research practice, along with the need to share experiences, this is often not the case when it comes to the production of edited collections. Given this, the idea of 'pairing' was introduced. The aim here was to make the process of writing for an edited collection more thematic, as well as pleasurable and supportive. The result is a book structured around 'issues in practice' as its main focus. Before moving on to provide an overview of the chapters, it is necessary to situate them in terms of the issues that have informed, in various ways, thinking about the practice of qualitative research. To detail these transformations, brought about by a number of different traditions-for example, feminisms, social constructionist perspectives, critical theory, critical realism, postmodernism and post-structuralism-is not my task here. Nevertheless, it is to draw out some of the themes in order to provide a context for the chapters and part headings that appear in this volume.

Journeying the Quagmire: Exploring the Discourses That Shape the Qualitative Research Process

Affilia, 2001

In the struggles to have its legitimacy recognized, qualitative research has been framed as a singular entity understood in relation to quantitative research. This interpretation is now being challenged, resulting in the emergence of increasingly complex, frequently contradictory, and often unarticulated understandings of the goals and practices associated with qualitative research. This article chronicles the pragmatic and ethical struggles the author encountered as her own ideas, reflecting the developing status of qualitative research perspectives, gradually shifted during the process of conducting a doctoral study. The purpose is to open for discussion the implications associated with contradictory discourses around qualitative research.

The Changing Face of Qualitative Inquiry

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

When examining the changes in society and the concomitant changes in research methods in the last century, unquestionably qualitative inquiry has been superseded by quantitative methods and had to work to find its niche in the social sciences. Here, I explore the push factors that have made space for the establishment and legitimization of qualitative inquiry. I discuss what we are doing well in qualitative methods, then examine the status quo—present worries, concerns, and future trends. I present three major problems that need attention, critique, and resolution in qualitative methods to further strengthen our foothold as we move forward. Methodological development is one of the primary purposes of the International Institute of Qualitative Methods (IIQM). In closing, I examine the role of the IIQM in the global development of qualitative methods.

But is it Innovation?: The Development of Novel Methodological Approaches in Qualitative Research

Methodological Innovations Online, 2013

Focusing on three case studies of novel approaches about which claims of innovation have been made, this paper explores the process of methodological innovation and the response of the social science community to innovations. The study focuses on three specific innovations: 'netnography', 'child-led research' and 'creative methods' and draws on interview data with researchers who have developed these approaches and those who have engaged with them. Data are explored through the lens of the social context of contemporary qualitative research methods and specifically what has been referred to in the UK as the 'impact' agenda. We argue that while methodological innovation may be viewed by researchers as important for the continued success of social science disciplines, the processes whereby new methods are developed and marketed, within the context of contemporary social research and the impact culture, may limit their acknowledgement and acceptance within the broader social science community. This culture increases the speed at which innovations are developed and marketed, encourages the dissemination of codified or procedural approaches to innovations which limit the craft of qualitative research and encourages early career researchers to adopt approaches without being reflexive about the affordances these methods might provide.

Qualitative Research: Mapping an Ongoing Journey

Journal of Medicne and the Person

In this personal essay, the author argues for a language-centered approach to qualitative research, with a focus on reconstructing the practices of those we study as reflexively constitutive of our social world.