Written almost fifteen years ago now, I
return to "What is the essence of Qualitative Research?" in an era
rife with qualitative researchers and wannabes in a hurry to get qualitative
work done. Using terms such as 'analysis' makes them feel important and
scientific, possessing special abilities that others can only aspire to.
No, qualitative research has always
been particularly about being human. By being human I mean sometimes unsure,
befuddled and even confused. That's all okay. It's about a humanness that
speaks to being alive and searching for aliveness in others through the work
that we do.
In qualitative research, the tyranny of numbers is
abandoned for the enigma of words. It is often seen as rooted in a non-tangible
domain, fundamentally experiential and intuitive.
_____________________________________________________
Qualitative work is in
constant, dynamic flux, but moving toward some end-point in an evolutionary
way.
There are efforts by the
mind to concretise meaning and the qualitative dimension has an integrative
function for the researcher. Unity
provides context and meaning and it is toward such unity that the researcher is
striving.
Qualitative efforts make use of that part of the
person concerned with meaning, truth, purpose or reality—the ultimate
significance of things.
Not mere exercises in truth
or falsehood, however, these investigations are polyvocal attempts at
interfacing with cultural/relational/linguistic accounts of the real. They are, therefore, interpretations and not
truths in the positivistic sense. The
potential of intuition is ultimately a great advantage to this very process.
‘The social sciences need to
re-imagine themselves, their methods and, indeed, their “worlds” if they are to
work productively in the 21st Century’ (Law & Urry 2004).
Qualitative research is no
longer the poor stepchild of quantitative enquiries. Over the past twenty years, qualitative
research has come into its own, particularly in terms of wider acceptance in
academic and policy communities.
- Qualitative research is always about story reporting and story making.
- Narrative is a democratising factor in social science research.
Interpretations of narrative
stories strive to capture meanings behind life events at the individual and
family levels, often illuminating the social contexts of health, ill health and
social care needs. Stories become data within other fields as well, including
business, media and even hard science.
One of the virtues of qualitative
research is its inclusionary nature and ability to give people a voice, both
through the research process itself (for example, through a wide range of
qualitative social science practices that include participatory action
research, in-depth interviewing, ethnographic studies, visual anthropology,
biographic narrative studies and so forth) and in reports, documents and
presentations. The importance of this kind of research cannot be
overemphasised, particularly when dealing with the disadvantaged and/or the
"seldom heard voice".
An
anthropological approach to social science studies
Definition: Anthropology is the science of the
nature of humankind, embracing Human Physiology and Psychology and their mutual
bearing.
Narrative
is a core element of anthropology because it provides access to people’s life
worlds.
Adopting a narrative rather than an empirical mode of inquiry allows
investigators to get closer to the phenomena studied in several ways:
1. First, the narrative provides access to the
specific rather than the abstract;
2. Secondly, narratives allow experience to
unfold in a temporal way;
3. Thirdly, everyday language and its nuances
are encouraged;
4. Finally, narrative permits dynamics to
reveal themselves in the actions and relationships presented.
Anthropology advances knowledge of who we are, how
we came to be that way and where we may go in the future.
We see the
lives of others through lenses of our own grinding and they look back on ours
through ones of their own’—Geertz
Anthropology seeks to
uncover principles of behaviour that apply to all human communities.
Social constructionism, as described by Kenneth Gergen (1985), maintains
that knowledge, scientific or otherwise, is not obtained by objective means but
is constructed through social discourse. No single point of view is more valid
than another, because all points of view are embedded in a social context that
gives them meaning. ‘Such a view does not obliterate empirical science; it
simply removes its privilege of claiming truth beyond community’ (Gergen,
1997).
All truth is
local
·
If
truth is local, then knowledge can be mined
·
in
the self,
·
the
family,
·
the
community
An era of
emergent knowledge
We occupy ‘a
world that enacts itself to produce unpredictable and non-linear flows and more
mobile subjectivities’ (Law & Urry 2004)
French educator Pierre Lévy (1991; c. 1997) believes that profound
changes are occurring in the way we acquire knowledge and supports the
potential collective intelligence of human groups through emerging spaces of
knowledge that are continuous, evolving and non-linear. Lévy states that since the end of the 19th
Century the cinema has given us a kinetic medium for representation (Lévy,
2003b: 3). In fact, ‘we think by
manipulating mental models which, most of the time, take the form of
images. This does not mean the images
resemble visible reality, they are more of a dynamic map-making’ (Lévy, 2003b:
4).
Rethinking our relationship
within communities and across disciplines such as the arts and humanities
offers up opportunities for us to move beyond imitation of “scientistic”
reports in dissemination of our work and look towards means of representation
that embrace the humanness of social science pursuits. This creates a clearing in which meaningful
dialogue with a wider audience is possible, feedback that is constructive and
dialogical in its nature becomes feasible, and dissemination of social science
data transforms into something not only convivial, but also even playful. Presentations can then evolve into ways of
creating meaningful local encounters and performances, in the best sense of
these words.
Collaborations offer us
opportunities for meaningful dialogue between disparate communities, opening up
unknown possibilities for future dialogues and associations. Co-operation itself, therefore, becomes a
creative act, often stretching the boundaries of our understanding and prodding
us to come up with fresh and innovative ways of overcoming practical obstacles
in knowledge transfer.
Knowledge-sharing is sought that is
Emergent
Collaborative
Local
Producing
knowledge that is
Inquisitive
Performative
Sensuous
Emotional
Kinaesthetic
‘A fluid and decentred social science
for knowing the world allegorically, indirectly, perhaps pictorially,
sensuously, poetically…’
(Law & Urry 2004).
‘I seek an interpretive social science
that is simultaneously auto-ethnographic, vulnerable, performative and
critical’ (Denzin 2001).
Credits
Clifford Geertz Anthropologist
Thomas Scheff Sociologist
Yvonna Lincoln Educationalist
Norman Denzin Sociologist
Mark Freeman Philosopher of Psychology
John Urry Sociologist
Pierre Lévy Anthropologist of Communication
Rom Harré Philosopher of Psychology Science Language and Thought
Kenneth Gergen Social Psychologist
John Law Sociologist
Mary Gergen Social Psychologist and Feminist
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