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Preface yii
Printed in the United States of America
1. Introduction: Entering the Field
Library of Congress Cataloging-ín-Publication Data of Qualitative Research 1
Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln
Main entry under title:

The landscape of qualitative research: Theories and issues / edited PART I. Locating the Field 35
by Norman K. Denzin and Yvonna S. Lincoln.
p. em. 2. Qualitative Methods: Their History
Includes bibliographical references and index. in Socíology and Anthropology 41
ISBN 0-7619-1433-1 (pbk.: acid-free paper) Arthur J. Vidich and Stanford M. Lyman
I. Social sciences-Research. 2. Qualitative reasoning.
I. Denzin, Norman K. 11.Lincoln, Yvonna S. 3. Traditions, Preferences, and Postures
H62.L274 1998
300' .7'2-dc21 98-8869
in Applied Qualitative Research 111
Oavid Hamilton

4. Working the Hyphens: Reinventing Self

and Other in Qualitative Research 130
00 01 02 03 04 8 7 6 5 4
rv1ichelleFine

5. Politics and Ethics in Qualitative Research 156

A cqui ring Editor: Peter Labella
P roduction Editor: Astrid Virding
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Print Buyer: Anna Chin
 1
Introduction
Eruering the Field
of Qualitative Research

Norman K Denzin & Yvonna S. Uncoln

Qualitative research has a long and disringuished history in rhe

• human disciplines. In sociology the work of rhe "Chicago school" in
the 1920s and 1930s established the importance of qualitative research for
rhe study of human group Iife. ln anrhropology, during the same period,
rhe pathbreaking studies of Boas, Mead, Benedict, Bateson, Evans-
Pritchard, Radcliffe-Brown, and Malinowski charted the outlines of the
fieldwork method, wherein the observer wenr to a foreign setting to study
the customs and habits of another society and culture (for a critique of rhis
tradition, see Rosaldo, 1989, pp. 25-45). Soon qualitative research would
be employed in other social science disciplines, including education, social
work, and communications. The opening chapter in Part I, Volume 1, by
Vidich and Lyman, charts key features of this history.
ln this introductory chaprer we will briefly define the field of qualitative
research, then review the history of qualitative research in the human
disciplines, so that this volume and its contents may be located in their proper
historical momento A conceprual framework for reading the qualitative

AUTHORS' NOTE: We are grareful ro the many people who have helped with this chaprer,
including Mirch Allen, Katherine E. Ryan, and Harry Wolcorr.
 lHE LANDSCAPE DF QUALllAllVE RESEARCH
research act as a multicultural, gendered process will be presented. We wil!
rhen provi de a brief introduction to the chapters that follow.
• Definitionallssues
Qualitative research is a field of inquiry in its own right. It crosscuts
disciplines, fields, and subject matter.' A complex, inrerconnected family
of rerrns , concepts, and assumptions surround the terrn qualitatiue re-
. . .
search. These include the traditions associated with pOSltJV1Sm, post-
srructuralism, and the many qualitative research perspectives, or meth-
ods connected to cultural and interpretive studies (the chapters 111 Part II
of Volume 1 take up these paradigms). There are separare and detailed
literatures on the many methods and approaches thar fall under the
category of qualitative research, such as interviewing, participam obser-
vation, and visual methods.
Qualitative research operates in a complex historical field that crosscuts
five historical mornents (we discuss these in detail below). These five
moments simultaneously operate in the present. We describe rhern as the
traditional (1900-1950), the modernist ar golden age (1950-1970), blurred
gemes (1970-1986), the crisis of representation (1986-1990), and post-
modern or present moments (1990-present). The present mornent IS
defined Laurel Richardson (1991) argues, by a new sensibility, the core of
which "is doubt that any discourse has a privileged place, any method or
theory a universal and general claim to authoritative knowledge" (p. 173).
Successive waves of epistemological theorizing move across these five
moments. The traditional period is associated with rhe positivist paradigm.
The modernist ar golden age and blurred gemes momenrs are connecred
to the appearance of postpositivist arguments. At the same time, a vanety
of new interpretive, qualitative perspectives made their presence felt,
including hermeneutics, structuralism, semiotics, phenomenology, cultural
studies, and feminism.2 In the blurred gemes phase the humanities beeame
central resources for critica!, interpr etive rheory, and the qualitarive re-
search project was broadly conceived. The blurred gemes phase produced
the ncxt stage, the erisis of representation, where researchers struggled with
how to locate themselves and their subjects in reflexive rexts. The post-
modern mamem is charactcrized by a new sensibiliry that doubts ali
pr evious paradigms.
2 3
Introduction
Any description of what constitutes qualitative research rnust work
within this complex historical field. Qualitative research rncans different
things in each of these moments. Nonetheless, an inicial, generie definirion
can be offered: Qualitative researeh is multimethod in foeus, involving an
imerpretive, naturalistic approach to its subject matter. This means that
qualirative researchers study things in their natural settings, arrernpring to
make sense of, or interpret, phenomena in terms of the meanings people
bring to thern. Qualitarive research involves the studied use and collecrion
of a variety of ernpirical materiais-case study, personal experience, intro-
spective, life story, interview, observational, historical, interactional, and
visual texts-that describe rourine and problematic mornents and meanings
in individuais' lives. Aeeordingly, qualirarive researehers deploy a wide
range of inrerconnected methods, hoping always to get a better fix on the
subject matter at hand.
The Qualitative Researcher as Brico/eur
The multiple merhodologies of qualitarive research may be viewed as a
bricolage, and the researcher as bricoleur. Nelson, Treichler, and Grossberg
(1992, p. 2), Lévi-Strauss (1966, p. 17), and Weinstein and Weinsrein
(1991, p. 161) clarify rhe meaning of these two terrns.:' A bricoleur is a
"[ack of all trades or a kind of professional do-it-yourself person" (Lévi-
Srrauss, 1966, p. 17). The bricoleur produces a bricolage, that is, a pieced-
rogerher, close-knit set of practices that provide solutions to a problem in
a concrere situation, "The solurion (bricolage) which is the result of the
bricoleur's method is an [ernergent] construction" (Weinstein & Weinsrein,
1991, p. 161) that changes and rakes new forms as different tools, merhods,
and rechniques are added to the puzzle. Nelson et al. (1992) describe the
merhodology of cultural studies "as a bricolage. Its choice of practice, that
is, is pragmatic, strategic and self-reflexive" (p. 2). This understanding can
be applied equally to qualitative research.
The qualitative researcher-as-bricoleur uses the tools of his or her
methodological trade, deploying whatever strategies, methods, or empiri-
cal materiais as are at hand (Becker, 1989). If new tools have to be invented,
or pieced together, theri the researcher will do this. The choice of which
tools to use, which researeh practices to employ, is not ser in advance. The
"choice of research practices depends upon the quesrions that are asked,
and the questions depend on their context" (Nelson er aI., 1992, p. 2),
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
what is availabIe in the context, and what the researcher can do in that
setnng.
Qualirarive research is inherenrly multirnethod in focus (Brewer &
Hunter, 1989). However, the use of multiple methods, ar rriangulation,
reflects an attempt to secure an in-deprh understanding of the phenomenon
in questiono Objective reality can never be captured. TrianguIation is nor a
tool or a strategy of vaIidation, bur an alternative to validation (Denzin,
1989a, 1989b, p. 244; FieIding & FieIding, 1986, p. 33; Flick, 1992,
p. 194). The combination of rnultiple rnerhods, empirical materiaIs, per-
spectives and observers in a single srudy is best understood, then, as a
strategy that adds rigor, breadth, and deprh to any investigation (see Flick,
1992, p. 194).
The brico/eur is adept at performing a large number of diverse tasks,
ranging from interviewing to observing, to interpreting personal and
historical documents, to intensive self-reflection and introspection. The
bricoleur reads widely and is knowledgeable about the many interpretive
paradigms (ferninism, Marxisrn, cultural studies, constructivism) that can
be brought to any particular problem. He or she may not, however, feel
that paradigms can be mingled, or synthesized. That is, paradigms as
overarching philosophical systems denoting particular omologies, episte-
mologies, and methodologies cannot be easily moved between. They
represem belief systems that attach the user to a particular worldview.
Perspectives, in contrast, are less well deveIoped systerns, and can be more
easily moved between. The researcher-as-bricoleur-theorist works berween
and within competing and overlapping perspectives and paradigms.
The bricoleur understands that research is an interactive process shaped
by his or her personal history, biography, gender, social class, race, and
erhnicity, and rhose of the people in rhe setting. The bricoleur knows that
science is power, for all research findings have political implications. There
is no value-free science. The bricoleur also knows that researchers all tell
stories about the worlds they have studied, Thus the narratives, or srories,
scieritists tell are accounrs couched and framed within specific storytelling
traditions, often defined as paradigms (e.g., positivisrn, postpositivism,
constructivism).
The product of the bricoleur's labor is a bricolage, a cornplcx, dense,
reflexive, collagelike creation rhat represents the researcher's images,
understandings, and interpretations of rhe world or phenomenon under
analysis. This bricolage will, as in the case of a social theorist such as
Sirnmel, connect the parts to the whole, srr essing the meaningful relation-
4 5
Inlroduclion
ships thar operare in the situarions and social worlds studied (Weinstein &
Weinstein, 1991, p. 164).
Oualitative Research as a Site of
Multiple Methodologies and Research Practices
Qualirative research, as a ser of interprerive practices, privileges no
single merhodology over any orher, As a site of discussion, or discourse,
qualirarive research is difficulr to define clearly. It has no rheory, or
paradigm, rhat is distinctly irs own. As Part II of this volume reveals,
multiple theorerical paradigms claim use of qualitative research methods
and strategies, from constructivisrn to cultural studies, feminism, Marx-
ism, and ethnic models of study. Qualitative research is used in many
separare disciplines, as we will discuss below. It does not belong to a single
discipline.
Nor does qualitative research have a distinct set of methods that are
entirely its own. Qualitative researchers use semiotics, narrative, conrent,
discourse, archival, and phonemic analysis, even statistics. They also draw
upon and utilize the approaches, methods, and techniques of e~hnometho-
dology, phenomenology, hermeneutics, feminism, rhizornatics, deconstruc-
tionism, erhnographies, interviews, psychoanalysis, cultural studies, survey
research, and participant observation, among others (see Nelson et al.,
1992, p. 2).4 AlI of rhese research practices "can provi de important insighrs
and knowledge" (Nelson et al., 1992, p. 2). No specific method or practice
can be privileged over any other, and none can be "eliminated out of hand"
(p. 2).
Many of rhese rnethods, or research practices, are also used in orher
coritexts in the human disciplines. Each bears rhe traces of its own
disciplinary history Thus there is an exterisive history of the uses and
meanings of ethnography and erhnology in education (Hymes, 1980;
LeCompte & Preissle, 1992); participam observation and ethnography in
anrhropology (Marcus, Volume 1, Chapter 12), sociology (Atkinson &
Hammersley, Volume 2, Chaprer 5), and cultural studies (Fiske, Volume 1,
Chapter 11); textual, hermeneutic, feminist, psychoanalytic, semiotic, and
narra tive analysis in cinema and literary studies (Lentricchia & McLaughlin,
1990; Nichols, 1985; see also Manning & Cullurn-Swan, Volume 3,
Chapter 9); archival, material culture, hisrorical, and document analysis in
hisrory, biography, and archaeology (Hodder, Volume 3, Chapter 4; Smith,
Volume 2, Chapter 8; Tuchman, Volume 2, Chapter 9); and discourse and
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
Introduction

conversational analysis in eommunieations and edueation (Holstein &

stant rensions, and contradictions over rhe project itself, including its
Gubrium, Volume 2, Chapter 6).
rnerhods and rhe forms irs findings and interpretations take. The field
The many histories that surround each method or research strategy
sprawls between and crosscuts aIl of the human disciplines, even including,
reveal how multiple uses and meanings are brought to each practice.
in some cases, the physical sciences. Its practitioners are variously cornrnit-
Textual analysis in literary studies, for example, often treat rexts as
ted to modem and postmodern sensibilities and the approaches to social
self-contained systems. On th~ other hand, a researcher employing a
researeh that these sensibilities imply.
cultural studies or feminist perspective would read a text in terms of its
location within a historical moment marked by a particular gender, race,
Resistances to Qualitative Studies
or class ideology. A cultural studies use of erhnography would bring a set
of understandings from postrnodernism and poststructuralism to the pro-
The acadernic and disciplinary resistances to qualitative research illus-
ject. These understandings would likely not be shared by mainstrearn
trate the polities embedded in this field of discourse. The challenges to
postpositivist sociologists (see Atkinson & Hammersley, Volume 2, Chapter 5;
qualirarive research are many. Qualirative researchers are called journalists,
Altheide & Johnson, Volume 3, Chapter 10). Similarly, postpositivist and
or soft scienrists. Their work is rerrned unscientific, or only exploratory, ar
poststructural historians bring different understandings and uses to the
entirely personal and full of bias, Ir is called criticism and not theory, ar it
methods and findings of historical research (see Tuchman, Volume 2,
is interpreted politically, as a disguised version of Marxism, or humanisrn.
Chapter 9). These tensions and contradictions are ali evident in the
These resistances reflecr an uneasy awareness that the traditions of
chapters presented here.
qualitative research commit the researcher to a critique of the positivist
These separare and multiple uses and meanings of the rnerhcds of
projecto Bur the positivist resistance to qualitative research goes beyond the
qualitative research make it difficult for researchers to agree on any
"ever-preserit desire to mainrain a distinction between hard science and
essential definition of the field, for it is never just one rhing.:' Still, a
soft scholarship" (Carey, 1989, p. 99). The positive sciences (physics,
definition must be established for use here. We borrow from, and para-
chernisrry, economics, and psychology, for exarnple) are often seen as the
phrase, Nelson et a1.'s (1992, p. 4) attempt to define cultural studies:
crowning achievements of Wesrern civilizarion, and in their practices it is
assurned that "truth" can transcerid opinion and personal bias (Carey,
Qualitative research is an interdisciplinary, rransdisciplinary, and some- 1989, p. 99). Qualitative research is seen as an assault on this rradirion,
times counterdisciplinary field. Ir crosscuts the humanities and the social whose adherents often rerreat into a "value-free objectivist science" (Carey,
and physical sciences. Qualitative research is many rhings at the same time. 1989, p. 104) model to defend their position. They seldom attempt to
Ir is multiparadigmatic in focus. lts pracririoners are sensirive to the value make explicit, or to critique, the "moral and polirical commitments in their
of the multimethod approach. They are cornmitred to rhe naturalistic own contingent work" (Carey, 1989, p. 104). The opposition to positive
perspective, and to the interprerive understanding of human experience. Ar science by the postpositivists (see below) and rhe poststructuralists is seen,
the sarne time, the field is inherently political and shaped by mulriple ethical then as an attack on reason and truth. At the same time, the positive science
and political positions.
atrack on qualitarive research is regarded as an attempt to legislare one
Qualitarive research embraces rwo rensions ar the same rime. On the one
version of truth over anorher.
hand, it is drawn to a broad, interpretive, postmodern, ferninist, and critica]
This polirical terrain defines the many traditions and strands of qualita-
scnsibility. On the othcr hand, ir is drawn to more nar rowly defincd
tive research: the British tradition and its presence in other national
positivist, postposirivist, humanistic, ano naruralistic conceptions of hurnan
contexts; the American pragmatic, naturalistic, and interpretive traditions
expericnce and its analysis.
in sociology, anthropology, cornmunications, and education; the German
and French phenomenological, hermeneutic, semiotic, Marxist, srructural,
This rather awkward staternent means that qualitative research, as a ser and poststructural perspectives; ferninist, African American studies, Latino
of pracrices, embraces within its OW11 mulriple disciplinar)' histories, COI1- studies, gay and lesbian srudies, and srudies of indigenous and aboriginal

6 7
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
cultures (Nelson et al., 1992, p. 15). The polirics of qualirative research
creates a tension thar informs each of the above traditions. This tension
itself is constantly being reexamined and interrogated, as qualitative re-
search confronts a changing historical world, new intellectual positions,
and its awn institutional and academic canditions.
To summarize: Qualitative research is many things to many people. Its
essence is twafold: a comrnitment tO some version af the naturalistic,
interpretive approach to its subject rnarrer, and an angaing critique af the
palitics and rnethods af positivism. We rum naw to a brief discussian af
the major differences between qualitative and quantitative appraaches to
research.
Qualitative Versus Quantitative Research
The word qualitative implies an emphasis an processes and meanings
that are not rigarously examined, ar measured (if measured at all), in rerrns
af quantity, amount, intensity, ar frequency. Qualitative researchers stress
the socially consrructed nature af reality, the intimare relarianship berween
the researcher and what is studied, and the situational constrainrs that
shape inquiry. Such researchers emphasize the value-laden nature af in-
quiry. They seek answers to questions rhat stress how social experience is
created and given meaning. In contrast, quantitative srudies emphasize rhe
measurement and analysis of causal relatianships between variables, nat
processes. Inquiry is purported to be within a value-free framewark.
Research Sty/es:
Doing the Same Things Ditterent/y?
Of course, both qualitative and quantitative researchers "think rhey
know something abaur saciety worrh relling to arhers, and rhey use a
varierv of farms, media and means to cammunicare their ideas and find-
ings" (Becker, 1986, p. 122). Qualitative research differs from quantitative
research in five significant ways (Becker, 1993). These paints af difference
turn on differenr ways of addressing the same ser of issues. They r eturn
always to rhe politics of rescarch, and who has the power to legislate correct
solutions to these problcms.
Uses af positiuism. First, bath perspecrives are shaped by the positivist and
postposirivist traditions in the physical and social sciences (see the discus-
8 9
Introduction
sian below). These two positive science tradirions hald to naive and critica]
realist pasirians canceming realiry and its pcrceptian. In the positivist
version ir is contended that there is a reality out there to be studied,
captured, and understaad, whereas pastpasitivisrs argue that reality can
never be fully apprehended, anly approxirnated (Cuba, 1990, p. 22).
Pasrpasitivism relies on rnultiple rnethods as a way af capruring as much
af reality as passible. At the same rime, emphasis is placed on the discavery
and verificatian af thearies. Traditianal evaluarian cri teria, such as internal
and externa] validitv, are stressed, as is the use af qualirative procedures
that lend themselves to structured (sornetimes statistical) analysis. Compute r-
assisred merhods af analysis rhat perrnit frequency counts, tabulations, and
law-Ievel statistical analyses may alsa be emplayed.
The positivist and postpositivist traditions linger like long shadaws aver
the qualitative research project. Historically, qualitative research was de-
fined within the positivist paradigm, where qualitative researchers at-
tempted to do goad positivist research with less rigarous merhods and
procedures. Some mid-century qualirative researchers (e.g., Becker, Geer,
Hughes, & Srrauss, 1961) reported participant abservation findings in
terms af quasi-statistics. As recently as 1990, two leaders af rhe graunded
rheary approach to qualitative research attempted to madify the usual
canans af gaad (positivistic) science to fit their own pastpasitivist concep-
rion af rigorous research (Suauss & Carbin, 1990; see alsa Strauss &
Carbin, Volume 2, Chapter 7; but alsa see Glaser, 1992). Some applied
researchers, while claiming to be athearetical, fit within the pasitivist ar
pastpositivist framewark by default. Spindler and Spindler (1992) summa-
rize their qualitative approach to quantitative materiais: "Instrurnentation
and quantiíicarion are simply procedures emplayed to extend and reinfarce
certain kinds af data, interpretations and test hypatheses acrass samples.
Borh must be kept in their place. One rnust avaid their premature ar overly
exrensive use as a security mechanism" (p. 69).
Althaugh many qualitative researchers in the postpositivist tradition use
staristical measures, rnethods, and docurnenrs as a way af lacating a graup
afsubjects within a larger population, they sei dom report their findings in
terrns of the kinds of camplex sratistical measures ar merhods to which
quantirative researchers are drawn (e.g., path, regressian, ar log-linear
analyses). Much af applied research is alsa arheoretical.
Acceptance cf postmodern sensibilities. The use af quantirative , positivisr
methods and assumptions has been rejected by a new generation af
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH Introduction

qualitative researchers who are attached to posrsrrucrural, posrmodern Securing rich descriptions. Qualirarive researchers believe that rich descrip-
sensibilities (see below; see also Vidich & Lyrnan, Volume 1, Chapter 2, tions of rhe social world are valuable, whereas quanwatJve researchers,
and Richardson, Volume 3, Chapter 12). These researchers argue that with their etic, nomothetic commirments, are less concerned with such
positivist methods are but one way of telling a story about society or the detai\.
social world. They may be no better or no worse than any other rnethod;
they just tell a different kind of story f . f di fference described above (uses of positivism,
Th e Ive points o . . .' , . f
ibili . .ng the mdlvldual s pomt o
This tolerant view is not shared by everyone. Many members of the acceptance of postmodern sensi I ines, captun .' .
. f d 1"fe and secunng nch descrip-
critical theory, constructivist, poststrucrural, and posrrnodern schools of view, examining the constramts o every ay I , . ._
thought reject positivist and postpositivist cri teria when evaluating their tions) reflect commitments to differenr styles of research, dlfferenr .episre
ownwork. They see these criteria as irrelevant to their work, and contend · d di fferent forms of representation. Each work rradition IS
mo Iogles, an 1 . .
that these criteria reproduce only a certain kind of science, a science that diff ent set of genres' each has its own classics, its own
governe d b y a I er '. .
silences too many voices. These researchers seek alrernative rnethods for preferred forms of representation, inrerpretanon, and textual evaluatlon
134-135). Qualitative researchers use erhnographic
evaluating their work, including verisimilitude, ernotionaliry, personal (see Bec k er, 1986 , pp. . h h lif
responsibility, an ethic of caring, political praxis, multivoiced texts, and . 'cal narrarives first-person accounts, snll p otograp s, I e
prose, h Iston , . . h' I -
dialogues with subjects. ln response, positivists and postpositivists argue . . fictionalized faces and hiographical and autobiograp JCa mate
111stones, l' . I d I
thar whar they do is good science, free of individual bias and subjectiviry; rials among others. Quantitative researchers use mathematlca mo e s,
as noted above, they see postmodernism as an attack on reason and truth.
.'. I bl and graphs and often write about their research m
stansnca ta es, '
im personal third-person prose. '11
Capturing the indiuidual's point o] view. Both qualitative and quantitative With rhe differences between these rwo traditions understood, we WI
researchers are concerned about the individual's point of view. However, now offer a brief discussion of the history of qualttatlve research: We can
qualitative investigators rhink they ean get closer to the actor 's perspective break this into four historical moments, mindful that any history 15always
through detailed interviewing and observation. They argue that quantita- somewhat arbitrary.
tive researchers seldom are able to capture the subject's perspective beeause
they have to rely on more remote, inferential empirical materiais. The
empirical materiaIs produced by the softer, inrerpretive methods are r e- • The History of Qualitative Research
garded by many quantitative researchers as unreliable, impressionistic, and
Vidi h d L n remind us
not objective. The hisrory of qualitative research reveals, as : ic an yma. r have
. Ch ? f "olume 1 that the modern social scierice discip mes
1ll aprer - o V,, . f h d
Examining the constraints of everyday life. Qualitative researchers are more taken as rheir mission "rhe analysis and understandmg o t. e pa~tern~d
likely than quantitative researehers to confrom the constraints of the conduct and social processes of sociery.". The notion that t~IS tas cou ve
everyday social world. They see this world in action and embed their be carried out presupposed that social sciennsrs had the ability to obfser h
.' h d a major too l o sue
findings in it, Quantitative researchers abstracr from this world and sei dom this world objectively. Qualttatlve met o s were
. 6
study it direct!y. They seek a nomothetic or eric science based on prob- observatlons. . . h ve al-
abilities derived fram the study af large numbers of randomly selected hout rhe history of qualitative research, 1l1vestlgators a .
TI .iroug dI" 110"10USfalths
cases. These kinds of statements stand above and outside the constraints ways defined their work in terrns of hopes an . va ues, re o y, I I.
of everyday life. Qualitative researchers are committed to an ernic, idio- o~cu ational and professional ideologies" (Vidich & Lyman, o ume d
graphie, case-based position, which directs rheir attention to the speeifics Pter?) Qualitative research (like a11research) has always been Judhge
Chap - . . "somet 111g
of particular cases. on the "standard of whether the work commU11lcates or says

11
10
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
to us" (Vidich & Lyrnan, Volume 1, Chapter 2), based on how we
conceptualize our realiry and our images of the world. Epistemology is the
word that has historically defined these standar ds of evaluation. In the
conternporary period, as argued above, many received discourses on
episternology have been "disprivileged," or cast into doubt.
The history presented by Vidich and Lyrnan covers the following
(sornewhar) overlapping stages: early etbnography (to tbe sevenreenth
century); colonial ethnography (seventeenth-, eighteenth-, and nineteenth-
ceritury explorers); the ethnography of rhe Arnerican Indian as "other "
(late ninereenth- and early rwentierh-cenrury amhropology); the erhnog-
raphy of the "civic other," or cornmuniry srudies, and ethnographies of
American irnmigrants (early rwentierh cenrury through rhe 1960s); srudies
of erhnicity and assimilation (rnid-cenrury through rhe 1980s); and the
present, which we call the fifth momento
In each of these eras researchers were and have been influenced by their
political hopes and ideologies, discovering findings in their research rhar
confirrned prior theories or beliefs. Early erhnographers confirrned the
racial and cultural diversity of peoples throughout the globe and attempted
to fit this diversity into a theory about the origin of history, rhe races, and
civilizations. Colonial ethnographers, before the professionalization of
ethnography in the twentieth century, fostered a colonial pluralism rhat left
natives on their own as long as their leaders could be co-opted by the
colonial administration.
European ethnographers studied Africans and other Third World peo-
pies of color. Early Arnerican ethnographers studied the American Indian
from the perspective of the conqueror, who saw the life world of the
primitive as a window to the prehistoric past. The Calvinist mission to save
the Indian was soon transferred to the mission of saving rhe "herdes" of
immigrants who emered the United States with rhe beginnings of industri-
alization. Qualitarive cornrnunity studies of rhe ethnic other proliferated
from the early 1900s to the 1960s, and included the work of E. Franklin
Frazier, Robert Park, and Robert Redfield and their students, as well as
William Foore Whyte, the Lynds, August Hollingshead, Herbert Gans,
Stanford Lyman, Arthur Vidich, and Joseph Bensman. The post-1960s'
ethniciry srudies challenged the "melting por" hypothesis of Park and his
followers and corresponded to the emergence of cthnic studies prograrns
that saw Narive Arnericans, Latinos, Asian Arnericans, and African Arneri-
cans attempting tO take conrrol over rhe srudy of their OWIl peoples.
12
Introduction
The postmodern challenge emerged in the mid-1980s. It questioned the
assumptions that had organized rhis earlier history, in each of irs colonial-
izing moments. Qualitative research that crosses rhe "postrnodern divide"
requires one, Vidich arid Lyrnan argue, to "abandon al! established and
preconceived values, theories, perspecrives, ... and prejudices as resources
for erhnographic srudy." In this new era rhe qualitative researcher does
more than observe history; he or she plays a part in it. New rales of the
field will now be wrirten, and rhey wil! reflect the researcher's direcr and
personal engagemem with this hisrorical period.
Vidich and Lyrnari's analysis covers the full sweep of ethnographic
history Ours, presented below, is confined to the twentieth century and
complements many of rheir divisions. We begin with the early foundarional
work of the Brirish and French, as well the Chicago, Columbia, Harvard,
and Berkeley schools of sociology and anthropology. This early founda-
tional period established the norms of classical qualitative and ethno-
graphic research.
• The Five Moments
of Qualitative Research
As noted above, we divide our history of qualitative research in this ceritury
imo five phases, each of which is described in turn below.
The Traditional Period
We call the first rnoment the rraditional period (this covers Vidich and
Lyrnari's second and third phases). It begins in rhe early 1900s and
continues until World War 11. In this period, qualirative researchers wrote
"objective," colonializing accounts of field experiences that were reflective
of the positivisr scienrist paradigrn. They were concerned with offering
valid, reliable, and objective interpretations in their writings. The "other "
who was srudied was alien, foreign, and srrange.
Here is Malinowski (1967) discussing his field experiences in New
Guinea and the Trobriand Islands in rhe years 1914-1915 and 1917-1918:
Norhing wharcver draws me to erhnographic studies .... On the whole rhe
village struck me rather unfavorably. There is a certain disorganization ...
13
 THE LANOSCAPE OF QL.:.~LlT~TIVE RESEARCH
the rowdiness and pcrsistence of the pcople who laugh and stare and lie
discouraged me somewhat. ... Wenr to rhe village hoping to photograph
a few stages of thc bara dance. I handed our half-sticks of robacco, then
warchcd a few dances; then took picrures-but resulrs wcr e pOOT.... thcy
would nor pose long enough for rime cxposures. Ar mornents I was furious
ar them, parricu larly because after I gave rhern rheir portions of tobacco
they ali wenr away. (quoted in Geertz, 1988, pp. 73-74)
In another work, this lonely, frustrated, isolated field-worker describes
his methods in the following words:
In the field one has to face a chaos of facrs .... in this crude form they are
nor scienrific facts at ali; they are absolutely elusive, and can only be fixed
by inrerpretation .... Only laws and generalizations are scienrific facts, and
field work consists only and exclusively in the inrerpreration of the chaotic
social reality, in subordinaring it to general rules. (Malinowski, 1916/1948,
p. 328; quoted in Geertz, 1988, p. 81)
Malinowski's remarks are provocative. On the one hand they disparage
fieldwork, but on the other they speak of ir wirhin rhe glorified language
of science, with laws and generalizations fashioned out of this selfsame
experience.
The field-worker, during this period, was lionized, made imo a larger-
than-Iife figure who werit into and then rerurned fram the field with srories
about strange people. Rosaldo (1989) describes this as rhe period of the
Lone Ethnographer, the story of the rnan-scientisr who went off in search
of his native in a distam land. There this figure "encounrered rhe object of
his quest ... [and] underwent his rite of passage by enduring the ultirnate
ordeal of 'fieldwork' " (p. 30). Returning home with his data, the Lone
Ethnographer wrote up an objective accaunt of the culture he studied.
These accounts were structured by the norms of classical ethnography. This
sacred bundle of terms (Rosaldo, 1989, p. 31) organized erhnographic
texts in terrns af four beliefs and comrnitments: a comrnitment to objectiv-
ism, a complicity with imperialism, a belief in monumentalism (the ethnog-
raphy would create a museumlike pictur e of the culrure srudie d), and a
belief in timelessness (what was srudied never changed). This model of the
researcher, who cauld also write complex, dense theories about what was
srudied, holds to the present day.
14
Introduction
1'.11ernyth of rhe Lone Ethnographer depicts rhe birrh of c1assic erhnoz-
raphy. The texts of Malinowski, Radcliffe-Brown, Margarer Mead, an"'d
Gregory Bateson are still carefully studied for what they can reli the novice
about fieldwork, raking field notes, and writing rheory (see the discussion
of Bateson and Mead in Harper, Volume 3, Chapter 5). Today this image
has been shattered. The works of rhe c1assic ethnographers are seen bv
many as relics of rhe colonial pasr (Rosaldo, 1989, p. 44). Alrhough manv
feel nosralgic about this image, orhers celebrare its passing. Rosaldo (1989')
quores Cora Du Bois, a retired Harvard anthropology professor who
lamented this passing ar a conference in 1980, reflecring on the crisis in
anthropology: "[I feel a distance] from the complexity and disarray of what
I once found a justifiable and challenging discipline .... Ir has been like
moving from a distinguished art museum into a garage sale" (p. 44).
Du Bois regards the c1assic erhnographies as pieces of timeless artwork
such as rhose comained in a museum. She deresrs the chaos of rhe garage
sale, which Rosaldo values: "It [rhe garage sale] provides a precise image
of the postcolonial situation where cultural artifacts flow between unlikely
places, and nothing is sacred, perrnanent, or sealed off. The image of
amhropology as a garage sale depicrs our present global situation" (p. 44).
Old srandards no longer hold. Erhnographies do not produce rimeless
rruths. The commitment to objectivism is now in doubr. The complicity
with imperialisrn is openly challenged roday, and the belief in monurnen-
ralism is a thing of rhe pasto
The legacies of rhis firsr period begin at rhe end of the nineteenth
century, when rhe novel and the social sciences had become distinguished
as separare systerns of discourse (Clough, 1992, pp. 21-22). However, rhe
Chicago school, wirh its emphasis on the Iife story and rhe "slice-of-life"
approach to ethnographic marerials, sought to develop an interprerive
merhodology thar maintained the centrality of rhe narrated life history
approach. This led tO the producrion of rhe texts thar gave the researcher-
as-aurhor the power to represem rhe subject's story. Written under the
mande of srraighrforward, senrimenr-free social realism, these texts used
the language of ordinary people. They articulated a social science version
of literary naturalism, which often produced the sympathetic illusion that
a solurion to a social problem had been found. Like films abour rhe
Depression-era juvenile delinquem and other social problems (Roffman &
Purdy, 1981), these accoums ramamicized the subject. They turned the
deviant imo the sociological version of a screen hero. These sociological
srories, like their film counterparts, usuaJly had happy endings, as they
15
 THE LANDSCAPE OF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
followed individuais rhrough rhe rhree srages of rhe classic morality tale:
exisrence in a state of grace, seducrion by evil and rhe fall, and finally
redemprion through suffering.
The Modernist Phase
The modernist phase, ar second moment, builds on rhe canonical works
of rhe traditional period. Social realism, naturalism, and slice-of-life eth-
nographies are still valued. This phase exrended rhrough the posrwar years
to rhe 1970s; it is still present in the work of many (see Wolcott, 1992, for
a review). In this period many texts atternpted to formalize qualitative
methods (see, for example, Bogdan & Taylor, 1975; Cicourel, 1964;
Filstead, 1970; Glaser & Strauss, 1967; J. Lofland, 1971; Lofland &
Lofland, 1984).7 The modernist ethnographer and sociological participam
observe r attempred rigorous, qualitative studies of importam social pro-
cesses, including deviance and social comrol in rhe classroom and sociery.
This was a mornent of creative fermem.
A new generation of graduate students, across the human disciplines,
encoumered new interpretive theories (ethnomethodology, phenomenol-
ogy, critical rheory, feminism). They were drawn to qualitative research
pracrices that would ler them give a voice to sociery's underclass. Postpo-
sirivism functioned as a powerful episremological paradigm in this mo-
ment. Researchers atternpred to fit rhe argumems of Campbell and Sranley
(1963) about interna! and external validity to constructionist and interac-
tionist models of the research act. They rerurned to the texts of rhe Chicago
school as sources of inspiration (see Denzin, 1970, 1978).
A canonical text from this moment remains Boys in White (Becker et aI.,
1961). Firrnly entrenched in mid-cenrury methodological discourse, this
work atternpted to make qualitative research as rigorous as its quantitative
coumerpart. Causal narrarives were central to this project. This mul-
rimethod work combined open-ended and quasi-structured inrerviewing
with participam observation and the careful analysis of such materials in
srandardized, statistical formo In a classic article, "Problems of Inference
and Proof in Participant Observarion," Howard S. Becker (1958/1970)
describes the use of quasi-statistics:
Participant observations have occasionally becn garhcrcd in standardizcd
form capable of being transforrncd into legitimare statistical data. But the
exigencies of rhe field usually prevent rhe collecrion of data in such a form
16
Introduction
to meet rhc assumptions of sraristical rcsrs, so thar the observe r deals in whar
have been callcd "quasi-sranstics." His conclusions, while implicitly numeri-
cal, do not require precise quantificarion. (p. 31)
In the analysis of data, Becker notes, the qualitative researcher takes a
cue from sraristical colleagues. The researcher looks for probabilities or
support for arguments concerning rhe likelihood rhat, or frequency with
which, a conclusion in fact applies in a specific siruation, Thus did work
in rhe modernisr period clorhe itself in rhe language and rhetoric of
positivist and postpositivisr discourse.
This was the golden age of rigorous qualitativa analysis, brackered in
sociology by Bays in White (Becker er al., 1961) ar one end and The
Discovery o] Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) at the other. In
education, qualirative research in this period was defined by George and
Louise Spindler,Jules Henry, Harry Wolcorr, andJohn Singleton. This form
of qualirarive research is srill presem in rhe work of such persons as Strauss
and Corbin (1990) and Miles and Huberman (1993), and is represented in
their chapters in this rhree-volurrie set.
The "golden age" reinforced a picture of qualitative researchers as
cultural rornanrics, Irnbued wirh Promerhean human powers, they valor-
ized villains and oursiders as heroes to mainstream sociery. They embodied
a belief in rhe comingency of self and society, and held to emancipatory
ideais for which "one lives and dies." They put in place a rragic and often
ironic view of society and self, and joined a long line of leftist cultural
romamics that included Emerson, Marx, James, Dewey, Gramsci, and
Martin Luther King, Jr. (Wesr, 1989, chap. 6).
As this mamem carne to an end, the Vietnam War was everywhere
present in American sociery. In 1969, alongside these political currents,
Herbert Blumer and Everett Hughes met wirh a group of young sociologists
called the "Chicago Irregulars" ar the American Sociological Associarion
meetings held in San Francisco and shared their memories of the "Chicazo
o
years." Lyn Lofland (1980) describes rhe 1969 meetings as a
moment of creative ferment-scholarly and polirica!. The San Francisco
meerings wirncsscd nor sirnplv rhe Blumer-Hughes evenr bur a "counrer-
rcvoluricn." ... a group first carne to ... ralk about the problems of bcing
a sociologisr and a female .... the discipline seemed literally to be bursring
with ncw ... idcas: labelling rheory, erhnomerhodology, conflicr rheory,
phenomenology, drarnaturgical analysis. (p. 253)
:------
17
t -- .• • _
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
Thus did the modernist phase come ro an end.
Blurred Genres
By the beginning of the third srage (1970-1986), which we call rhe
momenr of blurred gemes, qualitarive researchers had a full complemenr
of paradigms, methods, and strategies ro ernploy in their research. Theories
ranged from symbolic interacrionism ro constructivism, naturalistic in-
quiry, positivism and postpositivism, phenomenology, ethnomethodology,
critical (Marxist), semiotics, structuralism, feminism, and various ethnic
paradigms. Applied qualitative research was gaining in stature, and rhe
politics and ethics of qualitative research were topics of considerable
concern. Research strategies ranged from grounded theory to the case
study, ro methods of historical, biographical, erhnographic action and
clinical research. Diverse ways of collecting and analyzing empirical mate-
riais were also available, including qualitative inrerviewing (open-ended
and quasi-structured) and observational, visual, personal experience, and
documenrary rnethods. Cornputers were enrering the situation, to be fuJly
developed in rhe next decade, along wirh narrative, conrent, and serniotic
methods of reading inrerviews and cultural texts.
Two books by Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (1973) and Local
Knoioledge (1983), defined the beginning and end of this momento In these
rwo works, Geertz argued that rhe old funcrional, positivist, behavioral,
totalizing approaches to the human disciplines were giving way to a more
pluralistic, inrerpretive, open-ended perspective. This new perspective
took cultural representations and their meanings as its poinr of deparrure.
Calling for "thick description" of particular events, rituais, and customs,
Geertz suggesred that ali anthropological writings were interpretations of
interprerations. The observer had no privileged voice in the interpretarions
that were written. The cenrral task of theory was to make sense our of a
local situation.
Geertz wenr on to propose that the boundaries berween the social
sciences and the humanities had become blurred. Social scientists were now
turning to the humanities for modcls, theorics, and methods af analysis
(semiotics, hermcneutics). A form of geme dispcrsion was occurr ing:
documenraries rhat read like fiction (Mailer), parables posing as erhnogra-
phies (Castaneda), theoretical tr eatises rhat look likc travelogues (Lévi-
Strauss). At rhe same time, many new approachcs were emerging: post-
structuralisrn (Banhes), neoposirivism (Philips), nco-Marxism (Althusser),
18
Introduction
micro-macro descriptivism (Ceertz), ritual theories of drama and cultur e
(V Turner), deconsrructionism (Derrida), ethnomethodology (Garfinkel).
The golden age of the social sciences was over, and a new age of blurred,
interpretive gemes was upon us. The essay as an art form was replacing
rhe scienrific article. At issue now is rhe aurhor 's presence in the inrerprerive
rext, or how the researcher can speak with authority in an age when there
are no longer any firm rules concerning the text, its standards of evaluarion,
and its subjecr matter (Geertz, 1988).
The naruralisric, postpositivisr, and construcrionist paradigms gained
power in this period, especially in education in the works of Harry Wolcott,
Egon Guba, Yvonna Lincoln, Robert Srake, and Elliot Eisner. By the end
of rhe 1970s several qualitative journals were in place, from Urban Life
(now [ournal of Contemporary Ethnography) ro Qualitative Sociology,
Symbolic lnteraction, and Studies in Symbolic lnteraction.
Crisis of Representation
A profound rupture occurred in the mid-1980s. What we call the fourth
mornent, or the crisis of representarion, appeared wirh Anthrapology as
Cultural Critique (Marcus & Fischer, 1986), The Anthropology o] Experi-
ence (Turner & Bruner, 1986), Writing Culture (Clifford & Marcus, 1986),
Warks and Lives (Geertz, 1988), and The Predicament of Culture (Clifford,
1988). These works made research and wriring more reflexive, and called
into question the issues of gender, class, and race. They aniculated rhe
consequences of Geertz's "blurred gemes" imerpretation of the field in the
early 19805.
New models of truth and method were soughe (Rosaldo, 1989). The
erosion of classic norms in anthropology (objectivism, cornplicity with
colonialism, social life structured by fixed rituals and customs, ethnogra-
phies as monurnents to a culture) was complete (Rosaldo, 1989, pp. 44-45).
Critical and feminist episremologies and episremologies of color now
compete for attention in rhis arena. Issues such as validity, reliabiliry, and
objectivity, which had been secrled in earlier phases, are once more prob-
lematic. Inrerpretive rheories, 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. Sroller observes:
"When I began to write anrhropological texts, I followed the conventions
19
 THE LANDSCAPE OF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
of my training. I 'gathered data,' and once the 'data' were arranged in neat
piles, I 'wrote them up.' In one case I reduced Songhay insults to a series
of neat logical formulas" (p. 227). Sroller became dissarisfied with this form
of wriring, in part because he leamed "evervone had lied to me and ... the
data I had so painstakingly collected were worthless. I leamed a lesson:
Inforrnants routinely lie to their anrhropalogists" (Stoller & Olkes, 1987,
p. 229). This discovery led to a second, that he had, in following the
conventions of ethnographic realism, edited himself out of his texto This
led Stoller to produce a different rype of text, a memoir, in which he became
a central character in rhe story he toldo This story, an account of his
experiences in the Sanghay world, became an analysis of the clash berween
his world and the world of Songhay sorcery. Thus did Stoller 's journey
represent an attempr to confront rhe crisis of representation in rhe fourrh
moment.
Clough (1992) elaborares this crisis and criricizes rhose who would
argue rhat new forms af writing represem a way out af it:
While many sociologists now cornmenring on the criticism of ethnography
view writing as "downright central to the ethnographic enterprise" [Van
Maanen, 1988, p. xi], the problems of wr iting are still viewed as differem
from the problems of merhod or fieldwork irself. Thus the solution usually
offered is experiments in writing, that is, a self-consciousness about wrrnng.
(p. 136)
However, it is this insistence on the difference between writing
fieldwork that rnust be analyzed.
In writing, the field-worker makes a claim to moral and scienrific
authoriry, These claims allow the realist and the experimental erhnographlc
text to function as sources of validation for an empirical science. They
show that is that rhe world of real lived experience can still be captured,
if on\y in th'e writer's mernoirs, fictional experimentations, or drarnatic
reaclings. These works have the danger of directing artennon away fro~
the ways in which the rext constructs sexually situared JI1dlvl~uals JI1a fIeI"
of social difference. They also perpetuare "cmpirical science s hegemony
(Clough, 1992, p. 8), for these new wriring technologies af the subject
become the site "for the production of knowledge/power .. '. [aligned 1
with ... the capital!state axis" (Aronowirz, 1988, p. 300, quored JI1Clough,
] 992, p. 8). Such experiments come up 2.gainst, and then back away from,
20
Introduction
rhe difference between empirical science anel social criticisrn. Too often
rhey fail to engage fully a new polirics of textualiry that would "refuse the
ideritity of empirical science" (Clough, 1992, p. 135). This new social
criricism "would intervene in rhe relationship of information economics,
nation-state politics, and technologies of mass communicarion, especially
in terms af the empirical sciences" (Clough, 1992, p. 16). This, of course,
is rhe terrain occupied by cultural srudies.
Richardson, in Volume 3, Chapter 12, and Clandinin and Connelly,
Volume 3, Chapter 6, develop the above argumenrs, viewing writing as a
method of inquiry that moves rhrough successive stages of self-reflection.
As a series of wrirings, the field-worker's texts tlow from rhe field experi-
ence, rhrough inrerrnediate works, to later work, and finally to rhe research
text that is rhe public presenrarion of rhe erhnographic and narrarive
experience. Thus do fieldwork and wriring blur into one anorher. There
is, in the final analysis, no difference berween wriring and fieldwork. These
two perspecrives inform each orher rhroughour every chapter in rhis
volume. In rhese ways the crisis of representation moves qualitative re-
search in new, critical directions.
A Double Crisis
The ethnographer's authoriry remains under assault today. A double
crisis of represenration and legirirnation confronrs qualitative researchers
in the social sciences. Embedded in the discourses of poststructuralism and
and postmodernism (Vidich & Lyrnan, Volume 1, Chapter 2; Richardson,
Volume 3, Chapter 12), rhese rwo crises are coded in mulriple terms,
variously called and associared wirh the interpretiue, linguistic, and rhetori-
cal turns in social theory, This linguistic turn makes problematic two key
assumptions of qualitative research. The first is that qualitative researchers
can direcdy capture lived experience. Such experience, it is now argued, is
created in the social text written by the researcher. This is rhe repre-
senrariõnal crisis. Ir confronrs the inescapable problem of representation,
but does so within a framework that makes rhe direct link betwe en
experience and text problernatic.
The second assumption makes rhe traditional cri teria for evaluating and
interpreting qualitative research problematic. This is rhe legitimation
crisis. It invalves a serious rethinking of such terms as validity, gener-
alizability, and reliability, terms already rerheorized in postpositivisr,
21
 lHE LANDSCAPE DF QUALllAllVE RESEARCH
constructionist-naturalistic (Lincoln & Cuba, 1985, p. 36), feminist (Fonow
& Cook, 1991, pp. 1-13; Smith, 1992), and interpretive (Atkinson, 1990;
Harnmersley, 1992; Larher, 1993) discourses. This crisis asks, How are
qualitative studies to be evaluated in the posrsrructural moment? Clearly
these tWO crises blur together, for any representation must now legitimate
itself in terrns of some set of cri teria that allows the author (and the reader)
to make connections between the text and the world written about.
The Fifth Moment
The fifth rnoment is the present, defined and shaped by the dual crises
described above. Theories are now read in narrative terrns, as "rales of rhe
field" (Van Maanen, 1988). Preoccupations with rhe representarion of the
"other" remain. New epistemologies from previously silenced groups
emerge to offer solutions to this problem. The concept of the aloof
researcher has been abandoned. More action-, activist-oriented research is
on rhe horizon, as are more social criticism and social critique. The search
for .grand narratives will be replaced by more local, small-scale theories
fitted to specific problems and specific situations (Lincoln, 1993).
Reading History
We draw four conclusions from this brief history, noting that ir is, like
ali histories, somewhat arbitrary First, each of the earlier historical mo-
ments is still operating in the present, eirher as legacy or as a set of practices
that researchers still follow or argue against. The multiple, and fractured,
hisrories of qualitative research now make it possible for any given r e-
searcher to attach a project to a eanonical text from any of the above-
described historical mornents. Multiple criteria of evaluation now compere
for attention in this field. Second, an ernbarrassment of choices now
charaeterizes the field of qualitative research. There have never been so
many paradigms, strategies of inquiry, or merhods of analysis to draw upon
and utilize. Third, we are in a moment of discovery and rediscovery, as new
wavs of looking, interpreting, arguing, and wriring are debated and dis-
cu:sed. Founh, the qualirative research act can no longer bc viewed from
within a neutra], or objective, positivist perspecrive. Class, race, gender,
and erhniciry shape rhe proeess of inquiry, making researeh a mulrícultural
processo Ir is to rhis topic th at we next turno
22
Introduction
• Qualitative Research as Process
Three inrerconnected, generie activities define the qualitative researeh
processo They go by a variety of d.ifferent labels, including theory, method
and analysis, arid ontology, epistemology, and methodology. Behind. these
terrns srands the personal biography of the gendered researcher, who
speaks from a particular c1ass, racial, cultural, and ethnic community
perspecrive. The gendered, multiculrurally situated researcher approaches
the world wirh a ser of ideas, a framework (theory, onrology) that specifies
a set of questions (epistemology) that are then examined (methodology,
analysis) in specific ways. Thar is, empirical materiais bearing on the
question are collecred and then analyzed and written about. Every re-
searcher speaks from wirhin a disrinct interpretive comrnunity, which
configures, in its special way, the multicultural, gendered components of
the research acr,
Behind all of these phases of interpretive work stands the biographically
situated researcher. This individual enters the research process from inside
an inrerprerive cornrnuniry that incorporates its own historical research
traditions into a distincr point of view. This perspective leads the researcher
to adopr particular views of the "other " who is studied, At the same rime,
the politics and the ethics of research musr also be considered, for these
concerns permeate every phase of the research processo
• The Other as Research Subject
From its turn-of-the-cenrury birth in modern, interpretive form, qualitative
research has been haunted by a double-faced ghost. On the one hand,
qualitative researchers have assumed rhat qualified, competent observers
can with objectivity, clarity, and precision report on their own observations
of the social world, including the experiences of others. 5econd, re-
searchers have held to a belief in a real subject, or real individual, who is
present in rhe world and able, in some form, to report on his or her
experienees. 50 armed, researchers could blend their observations with rhe
observations provided by subjeers through interviews and life story, per-
sonal experienee, case study, and other doeuments.
These rwo beliefs have led qualitative researehers aeross disciplines to
seek a rnethod that would allow thern to reeord their own observarions
23
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH lturoduction

accurately while still uncovering the meanings their subjects bring to their TABLE 1.1 Thc RCSC:1fCh Process
Jife experiences. This rnethod would rely upon the subjecrive verbal and
written expressions of meaning given by the iridividuals studied, these Phase 1: The Researcher 25 a '.!clticultural Subject
expressions being windows into the inner life of rhe person. Since Di!they history and researcn iraditions
conceptions cf se.t and lhe olher
(1900/1976), rhis search for a method has led to a perennial focus in the
ethics and ~cl;iics Df research
human disciplines on qualitative, inrerpretive merhods.
Phase 2: Theorelical Paracignis and Perspeelives
Recently, this position and its beliefs have come under attack. Poststruc-
positivism. pcstccsitvisrn
turalisrs and postmodernists have contributed to the undersranding that
construclivism
rhere is no clear window into the inner life of an individual. Any gaze is feminism(s)
always filrered through the lenses of language, gender, social class, race, ethnic rnoosts
and ethnicity. There are no objective observatians, anly abservatians MafXIst moaels
sociaIly situated in the worlds of rhe observer and the abserved. Subjects, cultural studies models
or individuais, are seldom able to give fuIl explanations af their actions or Phase 3: Research Strateçies
intentions; ali they can offer are accounts, or stories, abour what rhey did study design
and why. No single methad can grasp the subtle variations in ongaing case study
human experience. As a consequence, as argued above, qualitarive re- ethnography. participant observation
searchers deploy a wide range of interconnecred interpretive rnethods, phenomenology, e hnomethodology
grounded theory
always seeking better ways to make more undersrandable the worlds of
biographical method
experience that have been studied.
historical method
Table 1.1 depicts the relationships we see among the five phases that
action and applied research
define the research processo Behind all but one of these phases stands the
clinical researcn
biographically situated researcher. These five levels of activity, or practice, Phase 4: Methods of Collection and Analysis
work their way through the biography of the researcher. interviewing
observing
Phase 1: The Researcher artifacts, documents, and reeards
visual methods
Our remarks above indicare the depth and cornplexity of the tradirional personal experrence methods
and applied qualitarive research perspectives into which a socially situated data management methods
researcher enrers, These rraditions locare the researcher in history, both computer-assisted analysis
textual analysis
guiding and constraining wark that will be dane in any specific study. This
Phase 5: The Art of Interpretation and Presentation
field has been characterized constantly by diversiry and conflict, and these,
criteria for judging adequacy
David Hamilton argues in Volume 1, Chapter 3, are its rnost enduring
the art and politics of interpretation
traditions. As a carrier of this complex and contradictory history, rhe writing as interpretation
researcher must also confront the ethics and politics of research. The age policyanalysis
of value-free inquiry for the human disciplines is over, and researchers now evaluation traditions
srruggle to develop situational and transsiruational erhics that apply to any applied research
gi ven research act.

24 25
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH Introduction

Phase 2: Interpretive Paradigms TABLE 1.2 Interpretive Paradigms

AlI qualitative researchers are philosophers in that "universal sense in Paradigm/Theary Cri/eria Farm aí Theary Type ot Narra/ian
which ali human beings ... are guided by highly abstract principies" PositivisV inlernal, external validity logical-deduclive, scientific report
(Bateson, 1972, p. 320). These principIes combine beliefs about onrology postposifivist scierüüc, grounded
(What kind of being is the human being? What is the nature of reality?), Constructivisl trustworthiness, credibility, subslanlive-formal interpretive case
transferability, confirmability studies, elhnographic
epistemology (What is rhe relationship between the inquirer and the
fiction
known?), and methodology (How do we know the world, ar gain knowl- Feminist Afrocentric, lived experience. critical, standpoint essays, stories.
edgeofit?) (seeGuba, 1990,p.18;Lincoln&Guba, 1985,pp.14-15;see dialogue, caring, accountab.lüy. experimental wriling
aIso Guba & Lincoln, Volume 1, Chapter 6). These beliefs shape how the race, class, gender, reflexivit,l.
praxis, emotion, concrete
qualitative researcher sees the world and acts in ir. The researcher is "bound
grounding
within a net of epistemological and onrological premises which-regardless Ethnic Afrocenlric, lived experience. standpoinl, critical. essays, fables, dramas
of ultimare truth ar falsity-become panially self-validating" (Bareson, dialogue. caring, accounlability, historical
1972, p. 314). race, class, gender
This net that contains the researcher's epistemological, ontological, and Marxisl emancipatory theory, falsifiable, critical, historical, historical, economic,
dialoglcal, race, class, cencer economic sociocultural analysis
methodological premises may be termed a paradigrn (Cuba, 1990, p. 17),
Cultural siuoies cultural practices, praxis. social social criticism cultural theory as
ar interpretive framework, a "basic set of beliefs that guides action" (Cuba, texts, subjectivilies criticism
1990, p. 17). Ali research is interprerive, guided by a ser of beliefs and
feelings about the world and how ir should be understood and studied.
Some of these beliefs may be taken for granred, only assumed; orhers are tive or theorerical staternent assumes in rhe paradigrn." Each paradigm is
highly problernatic and conrroversial. However, each inrerprerive para- explored in considerable detail in Volume 1, Part lI, by Guba and Lincoln
digm makes particular demands on the researcher, including the quesnons (Chapter 6), Schwandt (Chapter 7), Kincheloe and McLaren (Chapter 8),
that are asked and the interpretations that are brought to them. Olesen (Chaprer 9), Stanfield (Chapter 10), and Fiske (Chapter 11). The
At the most general level, four major interpretive paradigms structure positivist and postpositivist paradigms have been discussed above. Tbey
qualitative research: positivist and postpositivist, constructivist-interpre- work from within a realist and critical realist ontology and objective
tive, critical (Marxist, emancipatory), and feminist-poststructural. These epistemologies, and rely upon experimental, quasi-experimental, survey,
four abstract paradigms become more complicated at the leveI of concrere and rigorously defined qualitarive methodologies. In Volume 3, Chapter 7,
specific interpretive communities. At this level it is possible to idenrify not Huberman and MiJes develop elements of rhis paradigm.
only the constructivist, but also multiple versions of feminist (Afrocenmc The constructivist paradigm assumes a relativisr ontology (there are
and poststructural)" as well as specific erhnic, Marxist, and cultural studies mulriple realities), a subjectivist epistemology (knower and subject create
paradigms. These perspectives, ar paradigms, are examined in Part II of undersrandings), and a naruralistic (in rhe natural world) set of merhodo-
Volume 1. logical procedures. Findings are usually presented in terms of the criteria
The paradigms examined in Volume 1, Part II, work against _and of grounded tbeory (see Strauss & Corbin, Volume 2, Chapter 7). Terms
alongside (and some wirhin) the posirivist and postposirivlst models.l hey such as credibility, transferability, dependability, and confirmability replace
ali work within relativist ontologics (rnultiple consrrucred realmes), mter- the usual posirivist cri teria of internal and externa] validity, reliability, and
prerive epistemologies (the knower and known interact and shape one objectivity.
another), and intcrpretive, naturalistic merhods. .' Feminist, ethnic, Marxist, and cultural studies models privilege a mate-
Table 1.2 presenrs these paradigms and rheir assumptions, including rialist-realist omology; that is, th e real world rnakes a material difference
rheir crireria for evaluating research, and rhe rypical Ior m that an mterpr e- in terrns of race, c1ass,and gender. Subjectivist epistemologies and naturalistic

26 27
 THE LANDSCAPE OF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH
Introduction

rnethodologies (usually ethnographies) are also employed. Ernpirical ma-

including documerits and archives. A research design also specifies how the
teriaIs and theorerical argurnents are evaluared in terms of their emancipa-
invesrigator will address the rwo critical issues of represenration and
tory implications. Criteria from gender and racial cornmunities (e.g.,
legitimation.
African American) may be applied (ernorionality and feeling, caring, per-
A strategy of inquiry comprises a bundle of skills, assumptions, and
sonal accountability, dialogue).
practices that researchers employ as they move from their paradigm to the
Poststructural ferninist theories emphasize problems with the social text,
empirical world. Strategies of inquiry put paradigms of interpretation inro
its logic, and its inability ever to represent fully the world of lived
morion. Ar the same time, srraregies of inquiry connect rhe researcher ro
experience. Positivist and postpositivisr crireria of evaluation are replaced
specific merhods of collecting and analyzing empirical rnarerials. For
by orhers, including the reflexive, multivoiced text that is grounded in the
example, rhe case study rnethod relies on interviewing, observing, and
experiences of oppressed peoples.
document analysis. Research strategies implernent and anchor paradigms
The cultural studies paradigm is multifocused, with rnany different
in specific empirical sites, or in specific methodological practices, such as
strands drawing from Marxism, feminism, and the postrnodern sensibiliry.
making a case an object of study. These straregies include the case study,
There is a rension between humanisric cultural studies srressing lived
phenomenological and ethnornethodological techniques, as well as the use
experiences and more structural cultural studies projects srressing rhe
of grounded theory, the biographical, historical, action, and clinical meth-
structural and material deterrninants (race, class, gender) of experience.
ods. Each of these strategies is connected to a complex literature; each has
The cultural studies paradigm uses rnethods srrategically, that is, as re-
a separare hisrory, exernplary works, and preferred ways for putting rhe
sources for understanding and for producing resisrances to local struc-
strategy into rnotion.
tures of domination. Cultural studies scholars may do close textual
readings and discourse analysis of cultural texts as well as local ethnogra-
phies, open-ended interviewing, and parricipant observation. The focus is
Phase 4: Methods of Callecting
and Analyzing Ernpirical Materiais
on how race, class, and gender are produced and enacted in historicallv
specific situations, '
The researcher has several merhods for coIlecting empirical materiais,"
Paradigm and history in hand, focused on a concrete empirical problem
ranging from the interview ro direcr observation, to rhe analysis of artifacts,
to examine, the researcher now moves to the next stage of the research
documents, and cultural records, to the use of visual materials or personal
process, namely, working with a specific strategy of inquiry.
experience. The researcher may also use a variety of different methods of
reading and analyzing interviews or cultural texts, including content,
Phase 3: Strategies of Inquiry
narrarive, and serniotic strategies. Faced with large amounts of qualirarive
and Interpretive Paradigms
materiaIs, the investigator seeks ways of managing and interprering these
documents, and here data management methods and cornputer-assisred
Table 1.1 presents some of the major srrategies of inquiry a researcher
models of analysis may be of use.
may use. Phase 3 begins with research design, which, broadly conceived,
involves a clear focus on the research quesrion, the purposes of the study,
Phase 5: The Art ot Interpretation
"what information rnost appropriareJy will answer specific research ques-
tions, and which strategies are most effective for obtaining ir" (LeCom pte
Qualitative research is endlessly creative and interprerive. The re-
& Preissle, 1993, p. 30). A research design describcs a flexible ser of
searcher does not just leave rhe field wirh mountains of empirical materiaIs
guidelines that connects rheoretical paradigms to strategies of inquiry and
and then easily write up his or her findings. Qualitarive interpretarions are
methods for coIlecting empirical material. A research design situares re-
consrructed. The researcher firsr creates a field rext consisring of field notes
searchers in rhe ernpirical world and connects thcrn to specific sites,
and docurrients frorn the field, what Roger Sanjek (1990, p. 386) calls
persons, groups, institutions, and bodies of relevant inrerpretive material,
"indexing" and David Plarh (1990, p. 374) calls "filework." The writer-as-
28
29
 THE LANDSCAPE DF QUALlTATIVE RESEARCH Inrroduction

interpreter moves from this text to a research text: notes and interpreta- Thus we come full circle. The chaprers m rhese volumes take the
tions based on the field rext, This texr is then re-created as a working researcher through every phase of the research act. The contriburors
interpretive document that contains the writers initial atternpts to make examine the relevant hisrories, controversies, and current pracrices assoei-
sense out of what he or she has learned. Finally, the wrirer produces rhe ated with each paradigrn, srraregy, and merhod. They also offer projections
public text that comes to the reader. This final rale of the field may assume for the future-where specific paradigms, strategies, or methods will be 10
several forms: confessional, realisr, impressionisric, critica], formal, [iter- years from now.
ary, analytic, grounded theory, and so on (se e Van Maanen, 1988). In reading rhe chaprers that follow, ir is importam to remember that the
The interpretive practice of making sense of one's findings is both artful field of qualitative research is defined by a series of rensions, contradictions,
and politica!. Multiple criteria for evaluating qualitative research now and hesitarions, This tension works back and forrh between the broad,
exist, and those we emphasize stress the siruated, relational, and textual doubting posrmodern sensibiliry and the more cerrain, more traditional
structures of rhe erhnographic experience. There is no single inrerpretive positivist, posrposirivist, and naturalistic conceptions of this projecto Ali of
truth. As we argued earlier, there are multiple inrerprerive comrnunities, the chaprers that follow are caughr in and articulate this tension,
each having its own cri teria for evaluating an inrerprerarion.
Program evaluation is a major site of qualitarive research, and qualitative
researchers can influence social policy in importam ways. David Hamilton,
Notes
in Volume 1, Chaprer 3, traces rhe rich hisrory of applied qualitative
research in the social sciences. This is the critical site where theory, rnethod, 1. Qualitarive research has separare and disringuished hisrories in educarion, social
praxis, or action, and policy all come togerher. Qualitative researchers can work, communicarions, psychology hisrorv, organizarional studies, medical science, anthro-
isolare target populations, show the irnrnediate effects of certain programs pology, and sociolagy.
2. Definitions of some of these rerms are in arder here. Positiuisrn asserts that objecrive
on such groups, and isolate the constraints rhat operate against policy
accounrs of rhe world can be given. Postpositivism holds thar only partially objecrive
changes in such serrings. Action-orienred and c1inically oriented qualitative
accounts of rhe world can be produced, because ali methods are flawed. Structuralism assem
researchers can also create spaces for those who are studied (the other) to rhar any system is made up of a ser of oppositional caregories embedded in language.
speak. The evaluator becomes the conduit for making such voices heard. Semiotics is the science of signs or sign sysrems-a srructuralist project. According to
Greene, in Volume 3, Chapter 13, and Risr, in Volume 3, Chapter 14, poststructuraltsrn, language is an unsrable sysrem of referenrs, rhus ir is impossible ever to
develop these topics. capture complerely the meaning of an action, text, ar inrenrion. Postmodernism is a
conrernporary sensibiliry, developing since World War 11, thar privileges no single authoriry,
method, or paradigm. Hermeneutics is an approach to rhe analysis of texts that stresses how
prior undersrandings and prejudices shape rhe inrerprerive processo Phenomenology is a
• The Fifth Moment: complex systern of ideas associared wirh rhe works of Husserl, Heidegger, Sartre, Merleau-
What Gomes Next? Ponty, and Alfred Schutz. Cultural studies is a complex, interdisciplinary field that merges
crirical rheory, feminism, and posrsrrucruralism.
3. According to Weinstein and Weinsrein (1991), "The meaning of bricoleur in French
Marcus, in Volume 1, Chaprer 12, argues that we are already in the post
popular speech is 'someone who works wirh his (or her) hands and uses devious means
"POSt" period-e-post-postsrructuralism, posr-postmodernism. Whar this
compared to rhose of rhe craftsman.' ... rhe bricoleur is pracrical and gers rhe job done"
means for interpretive, erhnographic pracrices is still not clear, but ir is (p. 161). These aurhors provide a hisrory of rhis rerm, connecring ir to the works of rhe
certain that things will never be the same. \ve are ll1 a new age where messy, German sociologisr and social thcorisr Gcarg Simmel and, by implicarion, Baudelaire.
uncertain, multivoiced texts, cultural criricism, and new experimental 4. Here ir is relevanr to make a disrinction berween rcchniques thar are used across

works will becorne more common, as will more reflexive forms of field- disciplines and merhods thar are used wirhin disciplines. Ethnornethodologists, for cxample,
employ rheir approach as a merhod, whereas orhers selecrively borrow rhar merhod as a
work, analysis, and intertextual repr esenrarion. Thc subjecr of ou r final
technique for rheir own applicarions. Harry Wolcorr (personal communicarion, J993)
essa)' in this volume is this "fifth moment." Ir is rrue rhar, as the poct said, suggcsts rhis disrinction. Ir is also relevant to make disrincrions among topic, rnerhod, and
thc center canriot bold. We can reflecr on what should be ar a new conter. resouree. Methods can be srudied as rop ics af inquiry-for insrance, how a case srudy gers

30 31
 THE LANDSCAPE OF QUAlITATIVE RESEARCH
Introduction

done. In this ironic, ethnomethodological sense, method is both a resource and a topic of
Clough, P. T. (1992). The endts) of ethnography: From realism to social criticism. Newburv
inquirv Park, CA: Sage. .
5. Indeed, any atrernpr to give an essenrial definition of qualitative research requires
Denzin, N. K. (1970). The research act. Chicago: Aldine.
a qualitarive analysis of the circumstances thar produce such a definition.
Denzin, N. K. (1978). The research act (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
6. In this sense ali research is qualirarive, because "rhe observer is at the center of the
Denzin, N. K. (1989a). Interpretiue interactionism. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
research process" (Vidich & Lyman, Volume 1, Chaprer 2).
Denzin, N. K. (1989b). The researcb act (3rd ed.). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.
7. See Lincoln and Guba (1985) for an extension and elaboration of this tradition in
Dilthey, W. L. (1976). Selected u/ritings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Original
the mid-1980s.
8. Olesen (Volume 1, Chapter 9) idenrifies three strands of feminisr research: main- work published 1900)

stream empirical, standpoint and cultural studies, and poststructural, postmodern, placing Fielding, N. G., & Fielding,]. L. (1986). Linking data. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Afrocentric and other models of color under the cultural studies and postmodern categories. Filstead, W. J. (Ed.), (1970). Qualitative methodology. Chicago: Markham.
9. These, of course, are our interpretations of rhese paradigms and interpretive sryles, Flick, U. (1992). Triangulation revisired: Strategy of validarion or alternative? [ournal for
10. Empirical materiais is the preferred term for what are traditionally described as data. the Theory of Social Behauiour, 22, 175 -198.
Fonow, M. M., & Cook, J. A. (1991). Back to the future: A look at the second wave of
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