[Re]visiting old Friends

I have been grateful for the opportunity to re-consider, re-flect, re-view, and re-vise my own ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology for the past couple of years at UTK (beginning with a look at “osophies and ologies” in intro. to qual). Grbich (2007) provided me with another wonderful excuse to look at the underlying assumptions inherent in all research traditions.

After reading chapter 1, I pulled out Guba and Lincoln’s (2005) own re-visioning of research paradigms in their chapter in the third edition of the Handbook of Qualitative Research. I was particularly attracted to the section where the authors discuss “Catholic questions directed to a Methodist audience” (p. 202) as this analogy speaks to all of the dimensions of personhood for me. It:

give[s] a sense of how paradigms, or overarching philosophies – or theologies – are incommensurable, and how questions in one framework make little, if any, sense in another. (p. 202-203)

This has been a frustrating road for me and I believe the answer might lie in the addition of theological considerations. You see, I believe there exists a “real” reality, “’out there,’ apart from the flawed human apprehension of it” (Guba & Lincoln, 2005, p. 203). In my research, then, I feel compelled to understand whatever portion of that “real” is accessible to me as a flawed human.

This idea appears to contrast with my constructivist views on the partial, relative and subjective views of social science. Guba and Lincoln describe their constructivist views on objectivity:

We are persuaded that objectivity is a chimera: a mythological creature that never existed, save in the imaginations of those who believe that knowing can be separated from the knower. (p. 208)

While I do not believe objectivity an illusion, I agree with constructivist assertions that human views on “truth” can only be partial, partisan, particularistic, and problematic (Eisenberg & Goodall, 1997). I find that Goodall (2000) elaborated well on this constructivist posture when he explained:

What counts as the truth depends on where you are standing when you observe or participate in it, what you believe about it in the first place, and what you want to do with it – or who is paying you to do something with it – once you name it. (p. 12)

Thankfully, Grbich helps to reconcile my pulls in seemingly opposite directions when she discusses the combining of approaches in research in Chapter 2. I believe that my postures as thinker, seeker of “truth,” and qualitative researcher requires extensive reflexivity and bracketing in my writing. Creswell (2003) helps me to speak to others about my position when he describes pragmatism and pragmatic knowledge claims:

Instead of methods being important, the problem is most important, and researchers use all approaches to understand the problem. (p. 11)

This posture does not represent a “I can’t make up my mind” posture as some may impose on us, but a conscious resolving of the tensions between the grand narrative that I believe exists in an inaccessible way for me and that portion of it that is accessible to me at this time, in this space, with this knowledge, and with these participants.

It is my hope that I will continue to afford myself opportunities to grow, learn, reflect, and change positions. I find it one of the most frustratingly satisfying experiences of my adult life! In the meantime, I will operate today on the position that I believe a capital T “Truth” exists apart from my ability to comprehend it, that I must bring subjectivities together to get to as many prismatic views of the crystal (where did this metaphor of the crystal come from?) as I can, and approach truth as Creswell (2003) defines it for the pragmatist:

Truth is not based in a strict dualism between the mind and a reality completely independent of the mind. Thus, in mixed methods research, investigators use both quantitative and qualitative data because they work to provide the best understanding of a research problem. (p. 12)

Perhaps my curiosity is too great or my knowledge is too small, but I am most interested in examining research problems from this perspective.