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Reconceptualizing Qualitative Research
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Reconceptualizing Qualitative Research
Methodologies without Methodology



April 2015 | 256 pages | SAGE Publications, Inc

Calling for qualitative research that is complex, situational, theoretically situated, and yet productive, Reconceptualizing Qualitative Research discusses the multiplicities and uncertainty embedded in different methodological configurations and entanglements that blur the boundaries between doing research, theorizing, thinking, and reflecting. Writing in a clear, conversational style, author Mirka Koro-Ljungberg urges readers to think about qualitative research differently, often in creative ways, and to continuously question existing grand narratives and dogmas.


 
About the Author
 
Random yet Necessary Appreciation Notes
 
The (Un)Structure of This Book
 
1: A Proxy for a Foreword
 
2: Methodological Language Creates "Realities": Labels and Language Matter
Why Do Labels Matter?

 
Different Uses of Labels

 
Qualitative Researchers’ Romance With the Meaning

 
Labels Create, Act, Provoke, and Do Other Things

 
Using Labels of Reflexivity and Triangulation

 
Possibilities of Linguistic Creativity and Innovation in Research: Living With Words Without Stable Meaning

 
Reading List of Life

 
 
3. Data-Wants and Data Entanglements: Data Matter
Data Directionality

 
The Dilemma of Data-Wants

 
Data's Past

 
Data Object

 
Interlude: Knowledge Context

 
Analytical Interactions in the Existing Literature

 
What Might Data Want?

 
The Paradox of Wanting/Interacting

 
Reading List of Life

 
Irruption 1: Introducing Undirectionality and Uncertainty Through Images

 
 
4. Fluid Methodological Spaces: Methodologies Matter
What Do Linear Methodologies Do?

 
What Might Happen in Fluid Methodological Spaces?

 
Conceptualizing Fluid and Incorporeal Methodological Spaces

 
Connecting With Massumi and Deleuze

 
Connecting With Baudrillard

 
Connecting With Mol and Law

 
Annemarie Mol's Fluid Methodology

 
Another Conceptualization Beyond Mol's Methodological Singularity

 
The Unexpected Lives of Methodologies Without Methodology

 
Reading List of Life

 
 
5. Afterword: This Project (and Other Projects Alike) May Be "Failing" Productively
Irruption 2: Performance, Philosophy, and Not-Knowing

 
 
6. Methodological Responsibility Outside Duty: Responsibility Matters
Why Does Responsibility Matter?

 
The Role of Research Responsibility in Forming Public Policy

 
Return to Responsibility

 
Imaging Responsibility as Resisting Closure and Holding a Space for the Other

 
Imaging Responsibility as Responding to Urgency

 
Imaging Responsibility as Rupturing Tradition, Authority, and Order

 
Researchers’ Responsibilities To Come

 
Reading List of Life

 
 
7. Teaching and Learning the Unteachable: Pedagogies Matter
Teaching Through the Teachable Past and Transferable Experiences

 
Dilemma 1: Qualitative Research Occurs “Here” or “There”

 
Dilemma 2: Qualitative Research Methods as Luxury or Necessity

 
Dilemma 3: Qualitative Research Methods May Be Personally Favored but Socially Marginalized

 
Learning With(out) Teachable Teaching

 
Teaching With the Past: Some Ghost Stories

 
Curriculum Events and Erasure of a Ghost Curriculum

 
A Series of Unthinkable and Unknowable Classroom Events

 
Beginning Again and Again: New Projects, New Methodologies

 
Reading List of Life

 
 
8. Productive Paradoxes in Participant-Driven Research: Communities and Audiences Matter
Body Maps as Tools for Reflection on PDR

 
PDR Exemplars from Student Researchers

 
Working Together With the National Association on Mental Illness (NAMI): A Community-Based Classroom Project

 
Voice, Diversity, and Literacy Leadership With Young Children at Risk: Learning From and With Child-Care Workers

 
Another Understanding of PDR: Where To Go From Here

 
Reading List of Life

 
Irruption 3: Living Uncertainty

 
 
References
 
Index

Because of [the author’s] deep theoretical knowledge combined with years of working with young scholars and students, she articulates what we all struggle with as qualitative research. You will find yourself nodding your head with the points she is making and furiously taking notes. This is a book that will be well-worn and loved when you finish it.

Cassie Quigley, Clemson University

This book is a thinking text for new and seasoned qualitative researchers. Readers who engage ‘Methodologies without Methodology’ (because this text refuses to be passively read) will be provoked, moved, and challenged to rethink the processes and purposes of qualitative research and compelled to risk engaging in a more creative and exciting inquiry that resists conformity.

Jennifer R. Wolgemuth, University of South Florida

This book provides a thoughtful articulation of qualitative inquiry from a post-perspective. Readers are invited to deconstruct qualitative inquiry in provocative yet productive ways. I would highly recommend this text for novice or seasoned scholars that desire an alternative to more traditional qualitative research texts and approaches.

Jori N. Hall, University of Georgia

This book discusses the squishy-ness of qualitative research in a way that most books do not. It provides ample philosophical grounding and encourages the reader to think critically.

Ruth Ban, Barry University
Key features

KEY FEATURES:

  • Creative methodologies that demonstrate theoretical and practical interrelatedness encourage readers to contemplate alternative ways of thinking about data and the qualitative research process. 
  • Concrete examples show students how they can carry out research that avoids the trap of methodological reductionism. 
  • Discussion of important elements of qualitative research that are often taken for granted open up a wide range of concepts, such as data and the stability of methodology, and help scholars learn to think outside the box.
  • The book shows the relationship between methods and theories, helping readers understand the differences as well as the importance of their connection.
  • Images and diagrams throughout the text are used to clarify very complex concepts.
  • To disrupt the linear logic and topical flow often associated with traditional scientific reporting, the author has created “irruptions,” images sporadically placed throughout the text that serve as a form of interruption and change of textual and linguistic pace.

Sample Materials & Chapters

Chapter 2

Chapter 4


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