i','.      i      i '   .  :   i      i—i
THE LANDSCAPE Of (JlíAl ITATIVE RESEARCH
methodologies (usually ethnographies) ue also employed. Bmpirieift* materials and theoretical arguments are evaluated in terms ol iheii cmancipa-
tory Implications. Criteria from gender and racial coi.....unities (e,g„
African American) may be applied (emotionality and feeling» caringi personal accountability, dialogue),
ľostsiructural feminist theories emphasize problems with i In- m mal text,
us logic, .nul its inability aver to represent hilly the world ol lived experience. Positivist and postposltivist criteria of evaluation are replaced
by "i hers, including the reflexive, mult i voiced text that is grounded in the expciicnees o&opprcssed peoples.
The Cultural studies paiadigm is multifocused, with many different
sti.iiuls drawing from MaiMsm, liiinuisin, and the postmodern sensibility.
There Is a tension between humanistic cultural studies sinking lived experiences and more struetur.il cultural studies projects stressing the structural .md material determinants (race, class, gender) of experience. Hi« cultural studies paradigm uses methods strategically, that is, as resources for understanding and foi producing resistances to lot al structures «>f domination. Cultural studies scholars may do «lose textual readings and discourse analysis of cultural texts .is well as local ethnographies, open-ended interviewing, ami porticipani observation! ľne focus >s on how race, class, and gendei are |>toduccd and enacted in historical!)
specific situations.
Paradigm and history in hand, focused on a concrete empirical problem
to examine, the researcher now moves to the next stage ol ilie research process, namely, working with a specific strategy of inquiry.
Phase 3: Strategies of Inquiry and Interpretive Paradigms
table 1.1 presents some of the irutjoi strategies of inquiry i researcher
ma) USe. I'hase 1 begins with rest-.uch design, which, htoadly .omeivcd,
involves h cleat focus on (he research question, the purposes of the study, ''what information moel appropriately will answer spceili«. ie',can h mies-tions, and winch strategies arc moM effective foi obtaining It" (l e< ompte
tV Prdsste, 1993, p, to) A research design desuibes .1 llcxible set ol guidelines that connects theoretical paradigms to strategies ol inquiry and methods for collecting empirical material, A research design situates researchers in the empirical world and connects them to Specific sites, persons, groups, institutions, and bodies of relevant interpretive material.
/
28
J      iJ      Ü       J      Ü       J        J       '»
i/|
UMlOihCllOII
im hiding documents and archhrea A research design also specifies how ihe investigator will address the two critical issues ol representation and legitimation. A strategy of inquiry comprises s bundle of skills, assumptions, and
practices that researchers employ .is they move from then pai.hhgin to the empirical world. Strategies ol inquiry put paradigms Ol intei pi elation into motion. At the same lime. Strategies of inquiry council the lescarcher to specific methods of collecting and analyzing empirical materials. For example, the case study method relies on interviewing, observing, and document analysis. Research strategics implement and anchor paradigms m specific empirical sites, or in specific methodological practices, such as making a case an object of study. These strategies include the case study,
phenomenological and ethnomethodological techniques, as well as the use
ol grounded theory, the hiogiapliK.il. historical, action, and clinical methods   I ach of these strategies is loiinri trd to a complex literature; CSM h has Sep irate history, exemplary works, and preferred ways foi pulling the
strategy into motion.
Phase 4: Methods of Colkictimi and Analyzing Empirical Materials
The researcher has several met hods for collecting empirical materials,11 ranging from the interview to direct observation, to the analysis of artifacts,
documents, and cultural records, to the use of visual materials or personal experience. The researcher may also use a variety of different methods of reading and analyzing interviews or cultural texts, unhiding content, narrative, and scmiotic Strategies. Kited with large amounts of qualitative materials, the investigator seeks ways of managing and interpreting these documents, and here data management methods ami computet assisted models of analysis ni.iy he <»( us,-.
Phase 5: The Art of Interpretation
Qualitative research is endlessly creative and inter pieiive. The reseat« hei does not just leave the field With mountains ol empiru il materials and then easily write up his or hei findings. Qualitative miei prel.itions are
constructed. The researcher first creates a field text consisting of field notes
and documents from the Held, what Roger Sanjek (1990, p. 386) calls
nidi \mg" and David Plat h (1990, p. .17-1) calls "filework. "The writcr-as-
/•i
21
36
0
I       i      t  I   i  i   l  I   I
___________         TI* lAHOSCAPg OF QUAUTMIVE RESEARCH
Interpreter tnovci from this texi to .1 research texts notes and interpreta
liona based on tilt field text. This text ll then rc-crcatcd ;is .1 workup
interpretive «document ihm cootaini the writer's initial attempts to make
•eme out of wl1.1i h« or she has learned, ľmally, the writer pfoduCCi the public text that COinea to the reader. This final lale of the íiclil may assume several forms: confess»mal, realist, impressionistic, critical, Formal, literáty, analytic, grounded theory, and so on (sec Van Maanen, 1988).
I he interpret 1 v e practice of making sense nl one's findings is hot h artful and political, ýluliiplľ criteria for evaluating qualitative research now extat, and ihosJ we emphasize stress the situated, relational, ami textual Structures of the ethnographic experience.  I here is 110 single interpretive
truth. As we argued earlier, there are multiple interpretive communities, culí having its own criteria for evaluating an interpretation!
Program evaluation is a major site of qualitative research, and qualitative
researchers cin mllticiicc social polky in nuporiani ways. David Mauuhon,
in Volume  1, Chapter   f, traces the rich history of applied qualitative
research in the i m 1*1 sciences. This utihe critical sue where theory, method,
praxis, or action, and policy all come together. Qualitative rcscauhfis Oafl isolate target populations, show the immediate effects of certain programs on such groups, m\A isolate the constraints that operate against policy . nanges in such setting!, Action-oriented and clinically oriented qualitative
leu-archer* can also create spaces for those who arc studied (ihr other) to
speak. The evaluatot becomes the conduit for making such voices heard. Greene, in Volume 1. chapter 13, and Rist, In Volume i, Choptci 14,
develop these topics.
♦  Tlie Filih Mumunt: What Comes Next?
Marcus, in Volumu I, Chapter 12, argues that we arc already in the post "post" period—pOSt-pOStatructuralism, post -post modernism. What tins means for interpretive, ethnographic practices is Mill not clear, bin n is
certain that things w.ill never be the same. Ware in a new age where measv,
Uncertain, mullivolced texts, cultural criticism, and new experimental
works will become more common, as will more reflexive forms ol field-work, analysis, ami miei textual representation.  I he subject «'I "itr final
essay in this volume is this "fifth moment." It is true that, as the poet said, the cent« cannot hold. We can reflect on what should be at b new center.
30
»Ji
tlUltXtUCltOfl
Ums we come  lull circle. Hie  t hapli'ts in these voluntes take the
researcher through every phase of the research act. The contributors
examine the relevant histories, controversies, and current practices associated with each p.uadigni, strategy, and method. They also offer projections for the future—where specific paradigms, strategies, or methods will he 10 years from now.
In reading the ihapters that follow, it is important to remember lhat the Geld of qualitative i< search is defined by a series of tensions, contradictions, and hesitations. This tension works h.u k and forth between (he broad, doubling postmodern sensibility and the more certain, innre traditional positivist, postpowlivist, and naturalistu comepiions of t Im project. All of the chapters that follow are caught in and .ulit ulate 'his tension.
Notes
1.  Qualitativ« rtMartfa b» separate and illtliii|iuished histories in edu. e ■ wi)tk,commiiiiKiii«>nvrrt^ho!ogRhii!oiy,orB«n"*'0«*l"^>eí.n>c*JicalKtriKf.a»thio-pulogy, and sociology.
2.   Definitions of 1......1 Ol these ternu are in order here, ľotitiviun usertl 1 hat objective
accounts of the work! can be Riven. Po$tpoütM$m holdi thai only partially objective
accounts of the world can he (uodiiccd.bccauv all methods are flawed. Am« rWrjiMi» hn-ms itiii any system it made ipj> ol a set ol oppovHional caicRories embedded in l.>tii'.ii><'.r.
S.....otk» in the Klence ol ilgni »r *.i^n lyitemi   .1 Hrucniralisi projecti According to
poil$trueturailtm, larifuasa ll an unstable lyaNm ol raferenia, ihm ii 1« Impouibli evtl to
iipuite completely llir meaning nl .hi action, ICJIt, M   inlcniion. AulMIonVnillM        i porary sensibility, developing since Wohl Wit II. laOC plflilcgf I BO llfla aUIBOthft
method, or pwadlam Utrmtmntíes h an ■ pproacn 10 the analyiisof texts that ■irctsei how
jiiior understanding! and prejudices shape (hr interpretive process. PhiHQtnWQlagy is a complex system o( ideas associated with the worki ol Hnsscrl, f icidcsjijer, Sartre, Merle au-Poniy, and Alfred Schuw. Cultural studies is a complex, interdisciplinary field lhat merges critical theory, feminism, and poststructiiralitm.
Í. According 10 Weinstein and Weinstein (ľ'1'I), "Ihr meaning of/»iVo/rw in ľtench popular speech is "someone who works with his (or her) hands and uses drvioiu means CCdaoatcd to ihOM Ol ihr 11.illMiian.' . .. the btttoltH' it pr.Ktical and gets the job done" (p, 161). These aufholt prOVfOC a history of this leim, connecting il to the winlt ..I ihe German wcJoloafii ind ndal theorist (.Ymi-, Simmrl ami, by implication, limuletalre.
•I.   Here it is relevant to make a divfini lion between fi'iluuipies fhiil me Iliad KfOM
disciplines and mrflmdsiliai are used wit hm «Im |p|.....   I llwoauthodolotW*, foi example,
rmploy ii.ru apptoach as a mrihod. where»« Qiaefl trleclively borrow thai method as a
lechnkjoe lor tbali own appKcadons. Harry wolceti (penonal conimnnicai....., i'*'M)
siiHK<'»l* this distill« lion, ll is also relevant to make distinctions aniónu topic, metlunl, anil resource. Metbodl i IK br «nulled as topics of iiHiiiiiy—for instance, bow a case smdv |etl
31
40
75
91
90
7
1
63
THE LANDSCAPE OF QUALITATIVE RESEARCH
done. In this ironic, etlmomeihodological sense, method i* boih a resource and a iífjílc- ol inquiry.
5.   Indeed, any attempt m give'" essential definition »I qualitative research tccjuircs .1 qualitative analysis »f tlic circumstances that produce s«cli a definition.
6.   In this sense all icscaicli is qualitativen because "the observer is at ilic center ol the research process" (Vidich & I-yman, Volume I, Chapter 2).
7.   Sec Lincoln and Guba (1985) for an extension and elaboration of this tradition in the mid-1980s.
8.   Olcsen (Volume 1, Chapter 9) identifies three strands of feminist research: mainstream empirical, standpoint and Cultural studies, and posisttuí tutal, postmodern, placing Afroccntric and othfr models of color under the cultural studies and postmodern categories.
9.  These, of course, arc our interpretations of ihc.se paradigms and interpretive styles. 10. Empirical materials is the preferred term for what are traditionally described as data.
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