Global Dimensions of Qualitative Inquiry

Norman K Denzin, Michael D Giardina, Norman K Denzin, Michael D Giardina

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781611323269
  9781611323252
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315428079
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Research & Methodology in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This focused collection of original articles addresses the global dynamics of qualitative inquiry and the contextual dimensions within which such inquiry takes place. Contributions from many of the world's leading qualitative researchers in communications, education, sociology, and related disciplines focus on the changing landscape of social media, human rights, the Global South, and decolonizing methodologies, and guide the field toward a more engaged, global perspective. Chapters were developed from plenary sessions of the Eighth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (2012).

Part I
Theory

Chapter 1
Qualitative Inquiry and the Challenge of Scientific Status

Kenneth J. Gergen

Is qualitative research truly scientific? This is no small question in the halls of academia, and it is not insignificant in many quarters of society. It has been an especially heated issue in my field of psychology. Few of the major research journals in psychology will even submit qualitative research papers to peer review. And the recent attempt to establish qualitative research as a sanctioned section of the American Psychological Association required five years of intense struggle before achieving success. This may strike one as paradoxical, as the grounding work of many of psychology’s major theorists—including Freud, Ebbinghaus, Piaget, Lorenz, and Vygotsky, among others—was primarily qualitative in nature. We may properly ask, then, how did qualitative research lose its scientific status? And, if such research is without credentials in the scientific community, then what promise is there that such efforts can acquire global significance?

In what follows, I first touch on the rise of empiricist foundationalism and the consequent fall of qualitative inquiry from scientific grace. I then turn to the more recent erosion of foundational science within the intellectual world more generally. This erosion has, in turn, set the stage for a paradigm transformation—from an empiricist to a social constructionist epistemology of science. It has simultaneously fueled the explosion in qualitative inquiry across the social sciences. Finally, I propose that, within this latter context, we find the global potentials of qualitative inquiry to be far greater than what could ever be offered within the empiricist tradition.

The Hegemony of Empiricist Foundationalism

While this history is well known and well documented, a brief recounting is useful for understanding the potentials of qualitative inquiry today. The tension separating the quantitative and qualitative orientations to scientific understanding can be traced to at least the German intellectual debates of the late 1800s. As scholars moved to develop a science of human behavior, a major split took place between those believing such a science should emulate the natural sciences and those holding that the nature of human action demanded a far different orientation to knowledge. Scholars such as Dilthey (1896) and Weber (2011 [1917]) argued, for example, that human action largely issues from individual thought, experience, and intention. Unlike natural science orientation, in which the attempt is to observe and analyze from a dispassionate distance, understanding the subjective world of the actor requires immersion in an engaged process of nuanced and possibly empathic interpretation. This emphasis on the interpretive character of qualitative inquiry remains today. However, largely because of the visible success of the natural sciences in contributing to commerce, medicine, military might, and the economy, the argument for a seemingly nebulous science of behavior held little appeal.

Because of the dramatic successes of the natural sciences, early in the 20^th century philosophers were interested in establishing rational foundations for scientific activity. If these foundations could be properly articulated, then it would be possible for scholars in all realms of the academic world to become scientific—and thus “productive.” Drawing from longstanding empiricist and rationalist epistemologies, various amalgams emerged; what came to be known as “logical empiricism” was the preferred term used in many scientific circles more generally.

This term came to serve as the rational grounds for what many social scientists see as “mainstream science” within their respective fields. From this standpoint, the primary task of science is to generate systematic accounts of the world that accurately represent its nature. These accounts (descriptions and explanations) are objective only insofar as they can be verified by others; their universality depends on the range of observational settings in which they are verified (or fail to be falsified). Their ultimate utility in prediction and control depends on establishing causal (if/then) relationship among observables. Political, ideological, and moral values are irrelevant to the process of establishing objective knowledge. At worst, they may bias the process of observation. Methods of research were established essentially to ensure that the scientists’ accounts realized these ideals. Experimental methods could warrant propositions about cause and effect; standardized measures could ensure that the research is replicable; large, representative samples lent themselves to broad generalizations; statistics added credibility to such generalizations; and a wide range of controls (e.g., double blind experiments, standardized protocols, multiple item measures) protected against value biases. On these grounds, it is clear that qualitative research is indeed a degraded form of inquiry; it fails on virtually all of the above criteria.

Yet, within the empiricist perspective a place—however minuscule—is reserved for qualitative research. Influential here is Popper’s (1959) early distinction between the context of discovery and the context of justification. As he proposed, there is, strictly speaking, no foundational logic for the development of an idea (abstract propositions, theoretical conceptions). However, the full arsenal of rigorous methods, sampling, and statistical analyses are required for the justification of any scientifically sound proposition. For this, the place for qualitative research is to be found in the context of discovery. It is typically argued that as Freud listened to his patients or Piaget interacted with children, important theoretical ideas emerged. In no way did these initial observations justify the truth value of their theories, but they were useful as creative catalysts. Truth value depended on rigorous scientific test. Although qualitative researchers themselves seldom use this logic, it has left them a small place at the table of mainstream psychology.

As the qualitative movement has mushroomed in the social sciences more generally, other means have slowly developed for justifying the scientific status of qualitative inquiry. Of special appeal to mainstream empiricists has been the argument for mixed methods. Mixed methods research advances the idea that while standardized measures, sampling, statistics, and so on are essential in establishing objective accuracy, qualitative research is useful in locating more subtle features of the subject matter. And, too, qualitative research can be used to assist in justifying explanations for the observed phenomena. Many qualitative researchers add that qualitative approaches are actually more acceptable for reflecting the nature of certain subject matters, for example, the personal experience of the research subject. More recently, scholars such as Westerman (2011) and Yanchar (2011) have attempted to demonstrate how quantitative methods can be used in the service of qualitative and humanistically invested research. Importantly, however, all of these arguments remain “in paradigm”; they all assume that the function of science is to generate accounts that are true to the world as it is.

From Empiricist Foundations to Social Epistemology

During the past several decades of scholarly inquiry, an enormous and far-reaching transformation has taken place in the concept of knowledge and the attendant concepts of truth, objectivity, and validity. Briefly, the transformation can be traced in its earliest phases to a number of insoluble conceptual problems inherent in attempts to establish rational foundations for scientific knowledge, especially empiricists’ accounts of such knowledge. Included among the insoluble problems is the challenge of matching words to world (Quine, 1960), accounting for the origin of theory (Popper, 1959), and sustaining falsification in light of the infinite plasticity of theory (Duhem, 1954). However, with the growing critiques of the dominant orders—government, commerce, law, and military, and the resulting oppression and bloodshed of the past century—a new wave of critical work began to emerge. From this work, an alternative to what Mislevy (1997) characterized as a “discarded epistemology” came about. To appreciate the implications for a world-relevant psychology, three of these critical movements need particular attention: (1) ideological analysis; (2) linguistic and literary theory; and (3) the social construction of scientific knowledge.

Ideological Analysis

Central to the positivist/empiricist movement is the view that empirically grounded descriptions carry no ideological biases. As proposed, properly supported scientific accounts of the world do not reflect the values, moral prescriptions, or religious beliefs of any particular group. This view met an early challenge from Marxist theorists, who argued that capitalist economic theory—despite all the research and analysis in its support—was essentially a mystifying means of fortifying the existing class structure. Such critique gained additional depth as scholars began to study the rhetoric of scientific accounts (see, e.g., Gross, 1996). One could begin to see how social science terms such as “conformity,” “prejudice,” “obedience,” “aggression,” “altruism,” “development,” “mental illness,” and “intelligence” were saturated with value, and how such values would not only color the interpretation of findings but the way in which such findings were presented to and used by the public.

This early critical work subsequently unleashed a broad and continuing critique of scientific accounts in terms of their subtle biases in matters of gender, race, economic class, religion, culture, and more. Whose voices, they continue to ask, are being silenced, exploited, or erased? Many critics found their work galvanized by the writings of Michel Foucault (1978, 1980). As Foucault argued, when authoritative claims to knowledge are circulated through society, they act as invitations to believe. As people embrace these claims, they come to act in ways that support them. Or, in Foucault’s terms, claims to knowledge function to build and sustain structures of power. Thus, for example, when an authoritative group singles out certain behaviors and calls them indicators of “intelligence,” develops measures that claim to be valid indicators of intelligence, and uses these to grant privileges to certain people and not others, they sustain a position of power in society. More broadly, these critiques raise questions regarding the ideological and social implications and outcomes of all representations of the world.

Linguistic and Literary Theory

A second major challenge to empiricist foundationalism emerged from linguistic and literary theory. To appreciate what is at stake, it is useful to consider two broad implications of de Saussure’s classic work, Course in General Linguistics. In simple terms, de Saussure first proposed that the relationship between words and their referents is ultimately arbitrary. For example, each of us is assigned a name, and this assignment is useful in sustaining longstanding social conventions of identification. Yet, there is no inherent reason we could not have been given other names (or no name at all). Or, more generally, all naming is essentially arbitrary. In this light, it is interesting to consider the empiricist concepts of accuracy, objectivity, and truth. All depend on the assumption that certain words correspond to or mirror what is the case. In this view, certain utterances are truth bearing, while others are exaggerated or untrue. If, however, the relationship between words and world is ultimately arbitrary, then multiple possible utterances could be used to represent any state of affairs. What privileges any particular arrangement of words as being “true” is established solely through social convention. In terms of observations, it is no more true to say that objects are propelled to Earth by the force of gravity than to say that they are thrust downward by God’s will. Thus, when claims are made to truth, objectivity, or accuracy in reporting, we are being exposed to one way of putting things that is privileged by certain groups of people. Following the preceding discussion on value saturation, the question that must then be asked is to what extent does a given way of putting things serve particular interests?

de Saussure’s second significant proposal was that words function within rule governed systems of usage. Put simply, our language functions in terms of various conventions, most particularly in terms of rules of grammar and syntax, but more generally in terms of genres, idioms, definitions, and vernaculars. It may be said that all descriptions of the world will be significantly affected by conventions of writing. Or, more extendedly, all descriptions and analyses of the nature of the world will necessarily be driven by the demands of a tradition of representation. This line of thinking has subsequently led to substantial study of the ways in which scientific accounts are governed by linguistic devices such as metaphor (e.g., Leary, 1990) and narrative (e.g., Genette, 1980). In the latter case, for example, evolutionary theory is only intelligible by virtue of its drawing from narrative traditions of storytelling (Landau, 1993).

The Social Construction of Scientific Knowledge

These preceding critiques, emerging in quite separate domains of scholarship, are amalgamated in a third and perhaps the most essential contribution to a viable replacement for empiricist epistemology. The movement here is also essentially toward a social epistemology. Its origins may be found in Mannheim’s (1952 [1929]) volume, Ideology and Utopia. As Mannheim proposed: (1) the scientist’s theoretical commitments may usefully be traced to social (as opposed to empirical) origins; (2) scientific groups are often organized around certain theories; (3) theoretical disagreements are therefore issues of group conflict; and (4) what we assume to be scientific knowledge is therefore a byproduct of a social process. This seminal work was followed by a substantial number of influential contributions, including those of Fleck (1981), Winch (1946), Gurvitch (1966), Berger and Luckmann (1966), and Habermas (1971).

However, in terms of ultimate impact, Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions is unparalleled. Most importantly, this work represented a frontal challenge to the longstanding presumption that scientific knowledge is progressive, that with continued research—testing hypotheses against reality—we come ever closer to the truth. Thus, proposed Kuhn, the shift from a Ptolemaic to a Copernican account of the relation of the Earth to the sun is not progress toward truth; nor is the shift from Newtonian theory to quantum mechanics in physics. Rather, Kuhn proposed, our propositions about the world are embedded within paradigms, roughly a network of interrelated commitments (to a particular theory, conception of a subject matter, methodological practices, and the like).

Even our most exacting measurements are only sensible from within the paradigm. A look into a microscope tells you nothing unless you are already informed about the nature of the instrument and what you are supposed to be looking at. What we call progress in the above cases of astronomy and physics is not, then, movement from a less to a more objectively accurate account of the world. They represent shifts in paradigm, different ways of thinking and observing. In recent decades, this social view of science has been buttressed by an enormous body of scholarship centered on the cultural and historical contingency of scientific knowledge.

As broadly acknowledged, the philosophical attempt to establish logical foundations for empirical knowledge, is now moribund. Rather, summarizing the three critical waves outlined above, we find that scientific knowledge is a byproduct of negotiated agreements among people concerning the nature of the world. Whatever exists makes no fundamental requirements regarding our attempts to describe and explain. But once we have entered into a particular tradition of understanding as represented in a shared language, this tradition will provide both direction and limits on our explanations, descriptions, and observations. Further, all such traditions will be wedded to particular ways of life; that is, they will carry certain implicit or explicit values or desired goals. The implications here for globally relevant inquiry are substantial. This turn to a social epistemology—often viewed as social constructionist—invites a r...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Dedication
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• Part I: Theory
• Part II: Praxis
• Part III: Method
• Coda Are You Serious? Playing, Performing, and Producing an Academic Self
• Index
• About the Authors