Paragidmatic controversies, contradictions, and emerging confluences

Egon G. Guba & Yvonna S. Lincoln. (2008). In Norman K. Denzin & Yvonna S. Lincoln (Eds.), The landscape of qualitative research (3rd ed.) (pp. 255-286). Thousand Oaks, London, New Delhi, and Singapore: Sage.

The authors developed their definition of the nature of paradigms proposed in 1994 by incorporating John Heron and Peter Reason's (1997) participatory/cooperative paradigm. In this chapter, they focused on issues of axiology, commensurability, action, control, foundations of truth and knowledge, validity, voice, reflexivity, and postmodern textual representation.

It is interesting to note that they changed their perspective on commensurability: in the past, they had argued commensurability between paradigms is not possible, although within each paradigm, mixed methodologies may make good sense. Yet, in this chapter is argued that it would not be impossible to blend some elements from each paradigm. For instance, positivism and postpositivism are clearly commensurable.

Concerning the call to action, the authors noted:
"The mandate for social action, especially action designed and created by and for rearch participants with the aid and cooperation of researchers, can be most sharply delineated between positivist/postpositivist and new paradigm inquirers. (p. 267)

Another controversy around paradigms is centered on control of the study: who initiates? who determines research processes? who determines what to be represented? The authors noted that the issue of control is deeply embedded in the questions of voice, reflexivity, and postmodern textual representation, which are relevant only to new paradigm inquirers. Interestingly, however, the term control is used to foster empowerment, noted the authors:

"[F]or new-paradigm researchers control is a means of fostering emancipation, democracy, and community empowerment, and of redressing power imbalances such that those who were previously marginalized now achieve voice (Mertens, 1998) or "human flourishing" (Heron & Reason, 1997). (p. 268)

Validity is the most controversial term among paradigms. Questions relevant to validity include: are the findings sufficient enough to act upon them?

Voice: In the past, the only appropriate voice was "voice from nowhere" (p. 277). While the voice of informants becomes important, the authors observed that it is critical to participatory research, having a researcher's voice in the text and simultaneously letting participants speak for themselves through various media, such as plays, forums, performance-oriented media... The authors remarked: "Performance texts, in particular, give an emotional immediacy to the voices of researchers and research participants far beyond their own sites and locale" (p. 278). For Rosanna Herz (1997, Introduction: Reflexivity and voice. In (Ed.), Reflexivity and voice), voice is a struggle for representation of the author's self as well as the respondents' selves. She wrote:

Voice has multiple dimensions: First there is the voice of the author. Second, there is the presentation of the voices of ones' respondents within the text. A third dimension appears when the self is the subject of the inquiry. (p. 278).

[Participatory video, these dimensions come into play. How do participants represent their voice when they present their respondents' interviewed voice? Is this argument really relevant ti PV in any case? I explored a bit of this issue in writing reflexivity.]

Reflexivity: The authors defined as reflexivity here reflecting critically on the self as researcher, instrumental to research.

Postmodern textual representations: postmodern and poststructural perspectives brought forth criticism around conventional texts: their reductionist representation of human reality and contribution to historical oppression. As a counter-text, new forms of texts flourish to break boundaries and moving the center to the margin. One of the examples is "messy texts" (Marcus & Fischer, 1986), which breaks the binary between science and literature. The authors noted that "Representation may be arguably the most open-ended for the controversies surrounding phenomenological research today" (p. 280).

In concluding, the authors remain as constructivists. They think it is highly unlikely and even less than useful that positivist and new paradigm forms of inquiry resolve their differences because of the assumption that there is no single truth. Thus, they wrote:

"We stand at the threshold of a history marked by multivocality, contested meanings, paradigmatic controversies, and new texual forms" (p. 281).