Book:The Landscape of qualitative research

Title:

The Landscape of qualitative research

Reference:

Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). The landscape of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, [2008].

My Summary

A research paradigm is an interpretative framework that is informed by a set of beliefs about the world and how the world should be studied. Denzin and Lincoln (2008), addressed the major dimensions of a research paradigm including ethics (axiology), epistemology, ontology, and methodology. 

1) Ethics asks, “How will I be as a moral person in the world?” 

2) Epistemology asks “How do I know the world?” What is the relationship between the inquirer and the known?” 

Epistemology is a branch of philosophy that studies the nature of relationships that exist between inquirers and the inquired, and how the relationship between the researcher and research participant(s) is understood (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008). 

3) Ontology is concerned with the nature of reality and the nature of the human being in the world social reality—“how things really are” and “how things really work” (Denzin and Lincoln, 2008, pp 245). 

4) Methodology focuses on the best means for acquireing knowledge about the world

Finally, a methodology is often explained as an artefact or overall guiding principle on how the researcher gains knowledge of the world and the method includes tools and techniques used to accomplish this (Crotty, 1998; Sauders et al, 2009, Guba and Lincoln, 1998)

IMPORTANT DIRECT QUOTATION

Phase 2: Interpretive Paradigms

All qualitative researchers are philosophers in that “universal sense in which all human beings….. are guided by highly abstract principles (Bateson, 1972, p.320). These principles combine beliefs about ontology (What kid of being is the human being? What is the nature of reality?), epistemology (What is the relationship between the inquirer and the known?). and methodology (How do we know the world, or gain knowledge of it) (see Guba and Lincoln, Chapter 8, this volume). These beliefs shape how the qualitative researcher sees the world and acts in it. The researcher is “bound within a net of epistemological and ontological premises which-regardless of ultimate truth or falsity-become partially self-validating” (Bateson, 1972, p. 314)

The net that contains the researcher’s epistemological, ontological, and methodological premises may be termed a paradigm, or an interpretive framework, a “basic set of beliefs that guides action” (Guba, 1990, p.17). All research is interpretive; it is guided by the researcher’s beliefs and feelings about the world and how it should be understood and studied. Some beliefs may be taken for granted, invisible, only assumed, whereas others are highly problematic and controversial. Each interpretive paradigm makes particular demands on the researcher, including the questions the researcher asks and the interpretations he or she brings to them. P.31

At the most general level, four major interpretive paradigms structure qualitative research: positivist and postpositivst, constructivist-interpretive, critical (Marxist, emancipatory, and feminist-poststructural. P.31

Interpretive Paradigm

Paradigm/Theory	Criteria	Form of theory	Type of narration
Positivst/Postpositivist	Internal, external validity	Logical-deductive, grounded	Scientific report
Constructivist	Trustworthiness, credibility, transferability, confirmability	Substantive-formal	Interpretive, case studies, ethnographic fiction
feminist	Afrocentric, lived experience, dialogue, caring, accountability, race, class, gender, reflexivity, praxis, emotion, concrete, grounding	Critical, standpoint	Essay, stories, experimental writing
Ethnic	Afrocentric, lived experience, dialogue, caring, accountability, race, class, gender	Standpoint, critical, historical	Essays, fables, dramas
Marxist	Emancipatory theory, falsifiability dialogical, race, class, gender	Critical, historical, economic	Historical, economic, sociocultural analyses
Cultural studies	Cultural practices, praxis, social texts, subjectivities	Social criticism	Cultural theory as criticism
Queer theory	Reflexivity, deconstruction	Social criticism, historical analysis	Theory as criticism, autobiography

 p.32

We defined a paradigm as a basic set of beliefs that guide action. Paradigms deal with first principles, or ultimates. They are human constructions. The define the worldview of the researcher-as-interpretive-bricoleur. These beliefs can never be established in terms of their ultimate truthfulness. Perspectives, in contrast, are not as solidified, nor as well unified, as paradigms, although a perspective may share many elements with a paradigm-for example, a common set of methodological assumptions or a particular epistemology.

A paradigm encompassed four terms: ethics (axiology), epistemology, ontology, and methodology. Ethics asks, “How will I be as a moral person in the world?” Epistemology asks “How do I know the world?” What is the relationship between the inquirer and the known?” Every epistemology, as Christians (Chapter 6, this volume) indicates, implies an ethical-moral stance toward the world and the self of the researcher. Ontology raises basic questions about the nature of reality and the nature of the human being in the world. Methodology focuses on the best means for acquireing knowledge about the world

p. 245

The Research Process

Phase 1: The researcher as a multicultural subject

History and research traditions

Conceptions of self and the Others

The ethics and politics of research

Phase 2: Theoretical Paradigms and Perspectives

Positivism, postpositivism

Interpretivism, constructivism, hermeneutics

Feminism (s)

Racialized discourses

Critical theory and Marxist models

Cultural studies models

Queer theory

Phase 3: Research strategies

Design

Case study

Ethnography, participant observation, performance etehnography

Phenemenology, ethnomethodology

Grounded theory

Life history, testimonio

Historical method

Action and applied research

Clinical research

Phase 4: Methods of collection and analysis

Interviewing

Observing

Artifacts, documents, and records

Visual methods

Authoethnography

Data management methods

Computer-assisted analysis

Textual analysis

Focus groups

Applied ethnography

Phase 5: The Art, Practices, and Politics of Interpretation and Evaluation
Criteria for judging adequacy

Practices and politics of interpretation
Writing as interpretation

Policy analysis

Evaluation traditions

Applied research

p. 30

OTHER READINGS:

[1] Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). The landscape of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, [2008].

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[1] Kuhn, T. S. (1970). The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (Unabridged)., The University of Chicago: The United of Indonesia

[2] Denzin, N. K., & Lincoln, Y. S. (2008). The landscape of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Calif. : Sage Publications, [2008].

[3] Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. Sage.

[4] Guba, E.G and Lincoln, Y.S. 2008 Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences in Denzin, N.K. & Lincoln, Y.S The Landscape of qualitative research. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage Publications

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