Book Review: Qualitative Inquiry and the Conservative Challenge

Book Review: Qualitative Inquiry and the Conservative Challenge. Edited by Norman K. Denzin and Michael D. Giardina.

“Why did science stray from the path of truth? I think it is because we ceased educating the men of science with a knowledge of religion - a knowledge, that is, of genuine truth, genuine reason, and the relationship of man to creation, and his Creator.” (www.BlogsforBush.com)

Is there politics in method? Can we say something useful about our choices of methods in science and what we want our research to be? This book is an attempt to do just that, essentially to fight for the right to do research in ways its authors regards to be - if not per se always the truest or the always best - doubtlessly ways that are needed. This is in other words probably one of the most frustrated and angry method books you will ever read. The text is ablaze with frustration — frustration over never gaining the status that quantitative science enjoys; frustration over lousy use of numbers in the name of science; frustration over governments that are restricting science through administration, in the name of quality control. The title also promises a discussion of the connection between this restricting of science on the one hand, and conservative politics on the other, however this is more or less left to the reader to figure out. We are reminded of the co-existence of a government that to very little degree accepts other truths than its own. We are also thoroughly introduced to an administration that accepts very little other science than randomized experimental designs or similar kinds of lab-like tests. But the logic of the connection, the mechanism, is not offered explicitly. That would probably also have been contradictory, when the point made is to defend qualitative inquiry against the pressure for production of absolute and robust facts. This again shows how difficult and important this book is; a qualitative inquirer would have to worry that this could turn into an attempt to “guard the castle” (Ryan and Hood, ibid). Part 1 consists of seven articles that in seven different ways emphasise two things: 1. Governments in US, UK and Australia are narrowing down science to a narrow spectrum of testing procedures 2. Qualitative methods are essential to science, in a number of different ways and reasons. We are case-wise introduced to the world of abbreviations that is activated in attempts to control what kind of science should be classified good science and funded thereafter. The American ‘Scientifically Based Research’ (SBR) and its derivate guidelines SIE (‘Scientific Inquiry in Education’), The British ‘Research Assessment Exercise’ (RAE) and the Australian ‘Research Quality Framework’ (RQF), all of which are shown as more or less based on the assumption that since medical research is successful, and randomized experimental designs are used and appreciated in medical science, this should be the blueprint for all good research. Many administrative regulations and institutions that the authors introduce us to, are activated to make sure this happens.

The justification for this harsh demand is encountered in different ways. House (ibid.) names it methodological fundamentalism, and compares basic definitions of fundamentalism with a belief in One true science (and One true conservative ideology). Lather (ibid.) offers alternative discourses of knowing to that of evidence-based research, and argues for their use. Morse (ibid) notes that “The compendium of signs and symptoms […] was dependant on observations and descriptions. This continues, particularly in the identification of new diseases,[…]. New medical procedures are documented using case study design, […]. But pointing out such obvious inconsistencies is not enough. This basic research (and I use the term deliberately) is not adequate for our critics – they need to see the numbers!” (p. 85), and follows by using ideas from qualitative method to suggest expanded types of evidence. And so on. In short, this part could, for a different audience, be titled: “Eat Shit. Why and How. A Guide to Overcoming SBR-Fanatics.”

Parts 2 and 3 might therefore be somewhat puzzling, because here we find some quite critical accounts of mainstream qualitative inquiry as well. Part 2, “Decolonizing Methodologies”, is on Otherness in science, and how science has been, and often still is, a colonizing instrument of western male culture. Part 3 “Contesting Regulation”, is both in its poetical form and its content – a consistent reluctance to accept formalization and framework as anything more than just that, and therefore potentially (and likely) representative of (white male) power – an homage to non-regulated academic thought as a road to emancipation and justice.

These are critical over mainstream (malestream – whitestream) qualitative inquiry. When other, more natural-science-like forms of inquiry are not an issue, one may suggest this is because they are so far from the position taken in the debate that they are a useless opponent. Inside qualitative inquiry this language exists, and therefore this critique can also serve as testimony of the strength and the scope of wavelengths in science – not SBR, SIE, RQF and so on, but the scientific community as a whole. Furthermore, they are implicit arguments in themselves. Not all standardized and evidence-based research is necessarily colonialist; it may be quite the opposite, as Ted Porter notes in Trust in Numbers (1995). Not everybody will agree that centrally regulated research is per se repressive. Still, there may often be reason to suspect it, and these chapters give wise input on what that means and why and how it should be avoided.

It is quite a coincidence that the last book review here in EASST review (July 07) was of Lehoux’ “The problem of health technology”, a book that attempts to ”develop an alternative conceptualization of health technology as it is used in industrial health care systems,” and asks: “[H]ow and when do we know that a given innovation is better?” Lehoux’s answer: Through explicitness, articulation, transparency and objectivity. These are the kinds of words that Giardina and Denzin want their readers to contest. What is explicit, what is objective and what does it mean to be transparent? This question is not answered, but is refreshingly left for the reader consider.