Qualitative Inquiry Under Fire

: Toward a new paradigm dialogue. Denzin, N. K. (2009). Walnut Creek, CA: Left coast press.

1. Introduction (13-24)
Denzin defined the current regime of qualitative research as conservative evidence based or scientifically based research (SBR). He finds this trend in a nostalgia toward positivism and sees it as a continuation of the paradigm wars of the 1980s, being implemented as part of a conservative political backlash. "American postpositivists in the 1990s and the in the first decade of the new century were aligned with SBR movements that were gaining force under conservative political regimes..."(p. 21)
Denzin stated that "Mixed methods are direct descendants of classical experimentalism and the triangulation movement of the 1970s" (p. 17, Denzin 1989 "The research act: a theoretical introduction to sociological methods") The advent of the mixed-methods movement called for the paradigm wars of the 1980s, asking whether methods and perspectives could be combined and compatible. Morse(2003) warns that ad-hoc mixing of methods would threat validity; others deconstruct validity; Hesse-Biber and Leavy (2008) emphasized emerging methods that blur the boundaries between QUAL and QUAN methods and seeks to reveal subjugated knowledge underpinning everyday life. Amid the blurring boundariesDenzin noted an emerging confluence that focuses on the value of multivocal texts, as Guba and Lincoln (2005) suggested, which emphasizes a shared commitment to social justice and human rights. Within this context, Denzin write: "It is time to take stack, time, time to be reflexively self-critical" (p. 21)

2. Interpretive research after 9/11/01 (25-38)
Denzin argued that the conservative backlash after 9/11 attempted to regulate interpretive inquiry by enforcing bio-medical and evidence-based methods. Thus, he called for a radical change in critical interpretive inquiry.

4. The Elephant in the living room or extending the conversation about the politics of evidence (57-82)
Denzin describes the evidence-based model of research in qualitative inquiry as an elephant sitting in a living room. The evidence-based research movement and emerging standards and guidelines for conducting qualitative inquiry is at the brink of an global tendency.
Denzin pointed out three basic positions on the issue of evaluative criteria: foundational, quasifoundational, and nonfoundational. Foundational argues for a shared set of criteria, QUAL or QUAN, such as validity, credibility, transferability, confirmability, warrantibility, tranparency); Quasifoundational concerns about criteria for qualitative research, such as reflexivity, theoretical grounding, iconic; nonfoundationalists "stress the importance of understanding versus prediction. They conceptualize inquiry within a moral frame, implementing an ethic rooted in the concepts of care, love, and kindness" (p. 61).

For Denzin, "Inquiry is always political and moral" (p. 82). Likewise, "Objectivity and evidence are political and ethical terms" (p. 82). He stresses that ways of knowing are always partial, moral, and political.

5. The art of interpretation: The stories we tell one another (85-114)