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Editorial 1(1) 20016 Qualitative Inquiry ENG

Profile image of Revista Investigación CualitativaRevista Investigación CualitativaProfile image of Daniel F Johnson MardonesDaniel F Johnson Mardones

Abstract

A multiplicity of theoretical methodologies can be grouped together 'qualitative inquiry' and they are increasingly used in academic fields that investigate issues of personal and social life. Amongst them we find biographic investigation, narrative, cultural studies, discourse analysis and autoethnography. This list is not restricted. Among the many kinds of qualitative research we find a growing differentiation within each. None of them is monolithic. Within each, differences grow, based on different thematic fields, epistemological emphases, methodological options, ethical frames, as well as from their influence on each other. And these subfields claim their independence, a tendency that is repeated inside each sub-field. Many of them (if not all) claim a disciplinary or interdisciplinary identity as well that exceeds the methodological. Those who argue this, understand qualitative inquiry as a moment in the process of production of knowledge regarding a given phenomenon. For many of them, qualitative inquiry can even be what allows them to constitute the phenomenon in the best way possible. Others insist that a mixed approach is necessary in their research. This affects not only the social sciences. We find similar arguments in interdisciplinary spaces that are closer to the Humanities and the so-called applied disciplines. An intriguing case in particular is that of action-inquiry, whose emphasis on transformation and participation would seem to situate it inside qualitative research, though many participants think this is not so. Their position arises from reasons that are theoretic-methodological but also invokes arguments of strategy. Given what has already been said, I am convinced that Investigación Cualitativa must confess and practice an epistemological cosmopolitanism. Consider that qualitative inquiry, like any other academic field, is both an area within the cartography of knowledge and a socio-intellectual community. And of course we should recognize that qualitative research is not one but several socio-intellectual communities. At this point things are not only complex but also complicated. In effect, Investigación Cualitativa is born within one of those communities. I dare to say that it is born with the promise to promote the growth and diversification of the production of knowledge and contact amongst those who cultivate it-and cultivate themselves through it. This is the community that speaks and works in Spanish and Portuguese and meets year after year during the days of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI) under the name of ADISP, A Day in Spanish and Portuguese. This way, the internal distinction and external intersections of the socio-intellectual communities of qualitative inquiry rise in our case from the linguistic specificity as well as national differences. Needless to say, the provocation of writing and engaging in conversation in your own language when it is about qualitative inquiry transforms into an epistemological need, 1 PhD (c) in Curriculum and Instruction, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign. [email protected]

Key takeaways

  • For many of them, qualitative inquiry can even be what allows them to constitute the phenomenon in the best way possible.
  • In this context we can and should ask ourselves: Is qualitative inquiry truly an international academic field?
  • If for example, we look at The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011), a canonical publication in the field, we will see the recognition that the community of qualitative researchers is made up of groups of persons dispersed around the world.
  • Investigación Cualitativa is born from the center of one of these interdisciplinary and transnational communities to offer a pluralist, critical and democratic space in which diversification and methodological and epistemic decolonization are promoted.
  • Latin American voices open the first number of Investigación Cualitativa, telling us about the history of ADISP.

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