Issues in Post-Qualitative Inquiry: The Methodology Trap and Possibilities Out

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Post-Qualitative Inquiry Practices for Beginners

Abstract

Objectives or purposes: The purpose of this paper is to describe a current issue in qualitative inquiry, one in which qualitative researchers have difficulty jettisoning methodology in order to make the post qualitative turn. At a 2018 AERA session as part of the Qualitative Research SIG entitled “Rescuing? Method in (Post)Qualitative Research,” scholars made practical arguments that it is difficult to conduct research without method, demonstrating how post qual work could be conducted without eschewing methodology. This paper will continue the conversation brought about by the 2018 session, making the argument that central to post qualitative approach is the notion that methodology provides a structure that is incommensurate with poststructural philosophy. Recent scholarship around post qualitative inquiry has focused on how it is a response to qualitative research and the scientifically based research movement (St.Pierre, 2018). However, rather than discussing what post qual resists, this paper opens up the conversation to what types of practices could be. In short, the objective of this paper is to lay the groundwork for addressing current issues and questions related to post qual in order to provide necessary context for the other papers in this session.

Perspectives or theoretical frameworks: Post qualitative inquiry

Mode of inquiry: Methodological/theoretical

Data sources, evidence, warrants: This paper draws on scholarship (i.e., publications and conference presentations) from both advocates and detractors of post qualitative inquiry in order to provide a brief history and context for this session.

Results, significance:
This paper is significant because it provides a brief overview of some of the current issues as it relates to methods and its role in (post) qualitative inquiry. I will broadly define what this session refers to as post qual “practices” and how it differs from research methods. Pedagogically speaking, theory and practice are often closely aligned in education. This paper addresses the theory/practice binary, arguing that practices can be theoretical and, in turn, theories can be practical. Because methodology has been so deeply ensconced within the design of qualitative inquiry, scholars interested in doing something different often have difficulty thinking outside of current research paradigms (e.g., Arndt & Tesar, 2019; Murris & Bozalek, 2019). This paper addresses some of these concerns in order to make the argument that systemic expectations of scholarly rigor can be upheld, even in the absence of methodology (e.g., Cannon, 2018; Jackson, 2016). Through this introduction, I discuss the problem with the reliance on methods--particularly within work that claims to be using a post qualitative “methodology”--in order to create opportunities for the papers in this session to present potentialities to think outside of the traditional, humanist research paradigm.

Author

• William Fassbender, University of Georgia