What Methods Do: New Materialisms and the Consequences of Qualitative Inquiry

Session Type: Symposium

Abstract

A shift is underway in the more reflexive regions of qualitative methodology scholarship. Referred to variously as “the ontological turn,” “the ethical turn,” or “the new empiricism,” this shift embraces the poststructuralist premise that culture irreducibly mediates human experience, while simultaneously looking for ways to think responsibly about the material consequences of our inquiries. This session compares and contrasts the influence of three theoretical frameworks influencing this movement—feminist materialist philosophy of science, indigenous philosophy and methodological theory, and contemporary revisions of pragmatist philosophy.
Each of these traditions of thought are making distinct—sometimes complimentary, sometimes contradictory—contributions to these exciting new developments. But they have rarely been placed into dialog with one another. This session stages such a dialog.

Sub Unit

• SIG-Qualitative Research

Chair

• Jerry L. Rosiek, University of Oregon

Papers

• Material Enactments of Language in Qualitative Research - Lisa A. Mazzei, University of Oregon

• A Turn to Where We Already Were? Settler Inquiry, Indigenous Philosophy, and the Ontological Turn - Eve Tuck, SUNY - College at New Paltz

• Semiotics and the Future in/of Qualitative Research - Jerry L. Rosiek, University of Oregon

• New Materialist Ontologies of Chance: How Research Methods Theorize Indeterminism - Elizabeth De Freitas, Adelphi University

Discussant

• Maggie Maclure, Manchester Metropolitan University