u ' i it t ii i- íl_i íi__i if i i IDE LANIISCAPE OF QUALITATIV!; RHSfARCII Thus did flic modernist phase come to an end. '"n ' .u!m, Vvoniiii Lincoln, Roben Stake, and (illioi Eisner. By the end of the 1970s several qualitative journals were in place, from Urban Life (now four/hit of Contemporary Ethnography) to Qualitative Sociology, Symbolic Interaction, and Studies in Symbolic Interaction. Crisis of Representation A profound rupture occurred in the mid-1980s. What we call the fourth moment, of the crisis of representation, appeared with Anthropology as Cultural Critique {Marcus ßc Fischer, 1986), The Anthropology of Experience (Turner & firmier, 1986), Wiling Culture (Clifford 8c Marcus, 1986), Works and Lives (Geertz, 1988), and The Predicament of Culture (Clifford, 19H8). These works made research and writing more reflexive, and called into question the issues of gender, class, and race. They articulated (Inconsequences of Gcc(t/As "blurred genres" interpretation of the field in the early 1980s. New models of truth and method were sought (Rosaldo, 19ÍÍ9). The erosion of classic norms in anthropology (objectivism, complicity with colonialism, social life structured by fixed rituals and customs, ethnographies as monuments to a culture) was complete (Rosaldo, 1989, pp- 44-45). Critical and feminist epistemologies and cpistemologies of color now compete for attention in this arena. Issues such as validity, reliability, and objectivity, which had been settled in earlier phases, are once more problematic. Interpretive theories, as opposed to grounded theories, are now more common, as writers continue to challenge older models of truth and meaning (Rosaldo, 1989). Stoller and Olkes (1987) describe how the crisis of representation was felt in their fieldwork among the Songhay of Niger. Stoller observes: "When I began to write anthropological texts, I followed the conventions 1'1 9781 74 i ' i : i I L I l I L I i I . ' . -Ill I A\iiv;ah n m AI!IAIIVbRR-hňm:H (limy training-1 'gathered data,' and once the'data'were arranged in neat piles, I 'wrote them up." In one case 1 reduced Songhay insults to a series of neat logical formulas" (p. 227), Stoller became dissatisfied with this form of writing, in part because hi; learned "everyone had lied to me and ... the data I had so painstakingly collected were worthless. I learned a lesson: Informants routinely lie to their anthropologists" (Stoller & Olkes, 1987, p. 229). This discovery led to a second, that he had, in following 'he conventions of ethnographic realism, edited himself out of his text. "I his led Stoller tcjproduce a different type of text, a memoir, in which he became i central character in the story he told. This story, an account of his experiences in the Songhay world, became an analysis of the clash bei ween his world and the world of Songhay sorcery. Thus did Stollor'l journey represent an attempt to confront the crisis or representation in the fourth moment. Clough (1992) elaborates this crisis and criticizes those who would argue that new forms of writing represent a way out of it: While many sociologists now commenting on the criticism of ethnography view writing as "downright central to the ethnographic enterprise" (Van Mannen, 1988, p. xi), the problems of writing arc still viewed a* different from the problems of method or ficldwork itself. Tims the \ohinon usually Offered is experiments in wni ing, I hat is, a self-amsimmiic-ss about wril Ing. (p. 136) However, it is this insistence on the difference between writing and lieldwork that must be analysed. In writing, the field-worker makes a claim to moral and scientific authority. These claims allow the realist and the experimental ethnographic text to function as sources of validation for an empirical science. They show, that is, thai the world of real lived experience can soil be captured, if only in the writer's incimiirs, tiuinn.il experimentations, or dramatic leadings. These works have the danger of directing attention away from the ways in which the text constructs sexually situated individuals in a field ol tOCisJ difference. They also perpetuate "empirical science's hegemony" (Clough, 1992, p. 8), for these new writing technologies of the sublet hriimic the site "for the production of knowledge/power . . . |ahgncd ] with ... the capital/state axis" (Aronowitz, 1988, p. 300, quoted m Clough, 1992, p. 8). Such experiments come up against, and then back away from, 20 I t. V i I ■ , 1 MmbcffcM the difference between empirical science and social criticism. Too often they fail to engage fully n new politics of tcxtuality that would "refuse the identity of empirical science" (Clough, 1992, p. 1.15). This new social Criticism "would intervene in the relationship of information economics, nation-state politics, and technologies of mass communication, especially in terms of the empirical Science*" (Clough, 1992, p. 16). Tim, of course, is the terrain occupied by cultural studies. Richardson, in Volume 3, Chapter 12, and Clandinin and Connelly, Volume 3, Chapter 6, develop the above arguments, viewing writing as a method of inquiry that moves through successive stages ol self-reflection. As a scries of writings, the field worker's texts flow from die field experience, through intermediate works, to later work, and finally to the research text that is the public presentation of the ethnographic and narrative experience. Thus do ficldwork and writing blur into one another. There is, m the final analysis, no difference between writing and fieldwork. These two perspectives inform each other throughout every chapter in this volume. In these ways the crisis of representation moves qualitative research in new, critical directions. A Double Crisis The ethnographer's authority remains under assault today, A double . tlsil of representation and legitimation confronts qualitative researchers in the social sciences. Embedded in the discourses of poststructuralism and postmodernism (Vidich &c Lyman, Volume 1, Chapter 2; Richardson, Volume 3, Chapter 12), these two crises are coded in multiple terms, variously called and associated with the interpretive, linguistic, and rhetorical turns in social theory. This linguistic turn makes problematic two key assumptions of qualitative research. The first is that qualitative researchers can directly capture lived experience. Such experience, it is now argued, is created in the social text written by the researcher. This is the representational crisis. It confront! the inescapable problem of representation, but docs so within a framework that makes the direct link between experience and text problematic. The second assumption makes the tradicional criteria for evaluating and interpreting qualitative research problematic. This is the legitimation crisis. It involves a serious rethinking of such terms as validity, gener-alizabilily, and reliability, terms already retheorized in post positivist. 21 L L l V-------1 l l I t I ___________________THE LANDSCAPE Of QUALITATIVE RESEARCH____________________ conitfuctionist-fuKufiliftic (1 incoln ft Cuba, [985,p. )(), feminlsttrbnow K Cook, ivy I, pp. i-11; Smith, 1992), and interpretive (Atkinson, 1990; Mamme rsley, 1992; Lauter, 1993) discourses. This crlili asks, How are qualitative studies to be evaluated In the poststructural moment? < ilearly (nese i wo crises blur together, for .my representation must now legitimate Itself in terms of some set of criteria thai allows the author (.nul the reader) to make connections between the text and the world written •bout The Fifth Me-ment The fifth monimi is the prevent, defined and shaped by the dual crises described above. Theories are now read in narrative terme, as "tales of the field" (Van Maanen, ivsx), Preoccupations with the representation <»i the "Olher" remain. New epistemologie* Írom previously silenced groups emerge to offer solutions to this problem. The concept of the aloof researcher has been abandoned. More action-, activist-in in it rd research is on the horizon, as are more sni ial i riticism and social Critique« The Search Im grand narratives will be replaced by more local, small .scale theories fitted to specific problems and specific situations (Lincoln, 1991). Reading History We draw four conclusions from tins brief history, noting thai it I*, like-all histories, somewhat arbitrary Pint, each of the earhn historical moments is m ill operating in the present, cither as Icg.R y oi .is.i m-1 ol pi.u lues lhal researchers still follow oi argue against, (ne multiple, and fractured, histories of qualitative resean h now make it possible for any given ie-icarchet to attach a project to a canonical text from any ol the abovc-deSCribcd historical moments. Multiple criteria of evaluation now compete for attention in this field. Second, an embarrassment of * hones now ll i, lenzes the field of qualitative research. There have never been so many paradigms, strategies of inquiry, or methods of analysis io draw upon and Utilize. Third, we are in a moment of discovery and reihst overy, as new Ways Ol looking, interpreting, aiguing, and writing are debated and dis-CUSSed. fourth, the qualitative research act can no longer be viewed from within s neutral, oi objective, positivist perspective class, race, gender, ami el htiu it y šliape the process ol inquiry, making resean li a inultiuilitiral process, h is to this topit I hul we nexl turn. .'.' ! I I_____I I_____I Ml _____________________ htliodiiclion ♦ Qualitative Research as Process Three interconnected, generJi activities define the qualitative research pro. ess. They go by a variety of different labels, including theory, method ami analysis, and rw/o/ojry- cpisle$nolog3^ and mcthixlology. behind these terms stands the personal hiogiaphy of the gendered re>c.uihci', who speaks from a particular class, racial, cultural, and ethnic Community pei spectivc. The gendered, multicultiirally situated resean her approaches the world with a set of ideas, a framework (theory, ontology) that specifies i mi of questions (epistemology) that .ire then examined (methodology, analysis) in specific ways. Thai is, empirical materials bearing on the question are collected and thľii analyzed and written about Every researcher speaks from wiilim a distinct interpretive community, which configures, in its special way, the multicultural, gendered components of tip«- («search act. Behind all of these phases of interpretive work stands the hiogiaphically situated researcher. This Individual enters the research process from inside nit interpretive community that incorporates its own historical research ti.nil mms- into a distinct point of view. This perspective leads die researcher in adopl particular views of the "other" who is studied. Al the same time, the politici and the ethics ol research must also be considered, for these concerns permeate every phase ol the research process. ♦ The Olher as Research Subject Prom ils[|iru-of-the-ceniury buili in modern, interpretive lorm, qualitative research has been haunted hy a double-faced ghost. On the one hand, qualitative researchers have avsumed that qualified, competent observers can with objectivity, clarity, and precision report on their own observations of I he social world, induding tfie experiences of others. Second, re- ■earchers have held ro a belief In a real subject, or real Individual, who is preienl in the world and able, in some form, to report on his or her experiences. So armed, researchers could blend their observations with the observations provided by subjects through interviews and life story, pei ■onal experience, case study, and othei documents. I hase two beliefs have led qualitative researchers across disciplines to seek a method thai would allow them to record their own observations 23 3985 53 fc ft—' fc—I I— t- ' t. f t,___I t THE LANDSCAPE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH accurately while still uncovering the meanings iheir subjects bring to, their life experiences. This method would rely upon the subjective verbal and written expressions of meaning given by lbe individuals Studied, these expressions being windows into the inner life oř the person. Since Dilthey (190(1/1976), this search for a method bas led to a perennial focus in the human disciplines on qualitative, interpretive methods. Recently, this position and its beliefs have come under attack. Poslstruc-turalists and postmodernists have contributed to the understanding that there is no cle^r window into the inner life of an individual. Any ga?.e is always filtered through the lenses of language, gender, social class, race» and ethnicity. There are no objective observations, only observations socially situated in the worlds of the observer and the observed. Subjects, or individuals, are seldom able to give full explanations oi their actions or intentions; all they can offer are accounts, or stories, about what they did and why. No single method can grasp the subtle variations in ongoing human experience. As a consequence, as argued above, qualitative researchers deploy a wide range of interconnected interpretive methods, always seeking better ways lo maku more understandable (he worlds of experience [hat have been studied. Table 1.1 depicts the relationships we see among the five phases thai define the research process. Behind all but one of these phases stands the biographically situated researcher. These five levels of activity, or practice, work their way through the biography of the researcher. Phase 1: The Researcher Our remarks above indicate the depth and complexity of the traditional and applied qualitative research perspectives into which a socially situated researcher enters. These traditions locate the researcher in history, both guiding and constraining work that will be done in any specific study. This field has been characterized constantly by diversity and conflict, and these, David Hamilton argues in Volume 1, Chapter 3, arc its most enduring traditions. As a carrier of this complex and contradictory history, the researcher must also confront the ethics and politics of research. The age of value-free inquiry for (he human disciplines is over, and researchers now snuggle to develop Situational and transsituational ethics that apply to any given research act. 24 t t t ! * í It ti ti tltl ______________________ _________introduction TABLE 1.1 The Research Process Phase I Ihn RoseaiclMfr at! a Mullictflluial Subject htslwy and research traditions conceptions ol soil and llie olhcf ethics aixt politics of research Phase2: rheoieHcal fciradigmsandrtrspectives positivism, poslpositivism constructivism feminism(s) ethnic models Marxist nwdels cultural studies models Phase 3: Research Strategies stud)' design C3SC study ellinograpliy. participant observation phenomenology, ethnomcthodology grounded theory toopaphicaj molhod historical method action and applied research clinical resflarcii Phase 4: Methods ol Collection and Analysis interviewing observing arlilacls. documenls. and records visual methods personal eaperience methods data management methods compufeŕassísied analysis textual analysis Plase 5: The Art ol Interpretation and Presentation crlie/ia lor judging adequacy tie ail and politics of imerpielalion writing as Inlei pielation policy analysis ovalualiod Kiidiiiws applied iBsoiiicti 25 I I U k ! i ! V , L_J THE LANDSCAPE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH Phase 2: Interpretive Paradigms *iw All qualitative researchers arc philosophers in chat "universal sense in which all human beings ... are guided by highly abstract principles'' (Bateson, 1972, p. 320). These principles combine beliefs about ontology (What kind of being is the human being? What is the nature öf reality?), cpistemology (What is the relationship between the inquirer and the known?), and methodology (How do we know the world, or gain knowledge of it?) (seejGuba, 1990, p. 13; Lincoln & Cuba, 1985, pp. 14-15; see also Guba & Lincoln, Volume I, Chapter 6). These beliefs shape how the qualitative researcher sees the world and acts in it. The researcher is "bound within a net of epistemological and ontologies I premises which—regardless of ultimate truth or falsity—become partially self-validating" (Bateson, 1972, p. 314). This net that contains the researcher's epistemological, ontologica), and methodological premises may be termed a paradigm (Guba, 1990, p. 17), or interpretive framework, a "basic set of beliefs that guides action" (Guba, 1990, p. 17). All research is interpretive, guided by a set of beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and studied. Some of these beliefs may be taken for granted, only assumed; others arc highly problematic and controversial. However, each interptetive paradigm makes particular demands on the researcher, including the questions that are asked and the interpretations that are brought to them. At the most general level, four major interpretive paradigms structure qualitative research: positivist and post posit i v ist, constructívist-interpre-tivp, critical (Marxist, emancipatory), and feminist-poscstruelural. These four abstract paradigms become more complicated at the level of concrete specific interpretive communities. At this level it is possible to identify not only the constructivist, but also multiple versions of feminist (Afrocentric and poststructural)3 as well as specific ethnic, Marxist, and cultural studies paradigms, these perspectives, or paradigms, are examined in Part It of Volume 1. The paradigms examined in Volume 1, Part II, work against and alongside (and some within) the positivist and posipositivist models. They all work within relativist ontologies (multiple constructed realities), interpretive epistemologie« (the knower and known interact and shape one another), and interpretive, naturalistic methods. Table 1.2, presents these paradigms and their assumptions, including their criteria for evaluating research, and the typical form that an interpre- ZG i ,1.1 i r i-j ĺ. r i ■- ... -..■■;,,■; TABLE 1.2 Interpretive Paradigms Paradigm/lheory Criteria Form of Theory Type of Narration ftBitivistf internal, exlemal validity postposilivist Conslruclivisl trustwoflhiress. credibility, transferability, confirmabllily ;--iR.L.t :ľvu: ].'.?:■ ■",! "uľi.v.1 š! nil ::, Aftocenlfic. lived experience, dialogue, caring, accountability, race, class, gendei. reflemiiy, praxis, emotion, concrete (jiourriirc) Alrocenl'ic, lived experience, dialogue, caring, accountability, race, class, gender emancipatory theory, lalsiliable, diaiogical, race, class, gender cultural practices, praxis, social tests, subjectivilies logical-deductive, seieniilic report scientific, grounded subslantive-formai interpretive case studies, ethnographic fiction critical, standpoint essays, stories, experimental wiling standpoint, critical, historical critical, historical, econutnic social criticism essays, fables, dramas historical, economic, scciocultural analysis cultural theory as Cfilicism tive or theoretical statement assumes in the paradigm.9 Each paradigm is explored in considerable detail in Volume 1, Parr II, by Guba and Lincoln (Chapter 6), Schwandt (Chapter 7), Kincheloe and McLaren (Chapter 8), Olesen (Chapter 9), Stanfield (Chapter 10), and Fiskc (Chapter 11). The positivist and posipositivist paradigms have been discussed above. They work from within a realist and critical realist ontology and objective epistemologies, ;uid rely upon experimental, quasi-experimental, survey, and rigorously defined qualitative methodologies. In Volume 3, Chapter 7, 1 Iuberman and Miles develop elements of this paradigm. The constructivist paradigm assumes a relativist ontology (there are multiple realities), a subjectivist epistemology (knower and subject create understandings), and a naturalistic (in the natural world) set of methodological procedures. Findings are usually presented in terms of the criteria of grounded theory (see -Strauss & Corbin, Volume 2, Chapter 7). Terms such as credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmahility replace the usual positivist criteria ká internal and external validity, reliability, and objectivity. Feminist, ethnic, Marxist, and cultural studies models privilege a materialist-realist ontology; that is, the real world makes a material difference in terms of race, class, and gender. Subjectivist epistemologies and naturalistic ?■! ,f ■