82 MEANING AND METHODOLOGY
fuzzy set researcher, Ragin says, by contrast with conventional variables analysis, needs “a good
base of substantive knowledge” of the subject matter “and a solid grasp of its theoretical rel-
evance”—why it “matters and how it should be assessed” (2000a 7). This is precisely what an
interpretive researcher is after.
Yet I suspect that interpretive perspectives will continue to be denigrated and/or denied stand-
ing as science.^44 Unlike “reliability,” “validity,” and the like, neither rigor nor objectivity shows
up, typically, in methods statements, whether in books or in research articles. Rare is the author
who, in writing, makes such explicit argumentation as “What makes this research objective is my
use of.. .” and rarer still the one who argues, “The research reported here is rigorous because... .”
Yet those claims continue to be made by implication, through the rhetorical use of various elements
of a research report: its structure (for example, the inclusion of a methods section), the delineation
of particular methods, and discussions of the validity, reliability, generalizability, and so forth of
the findings. Implicit in these statements are claims for the rigorousness—this chapter’s third
epigraph could as well have included this—and objectivity of the research. Although not argued
for in methods statements, in their (perceived) absence rigor and objectivity are invoked by re-
viewers (of journal submissions, grant proposals, etc.), typically to undermine a piece of work
that is seen as not adhering to some protocol. Seemingly anticipating such an attack, interpretive
(or qualitative) researchers at times themselves mention the “subjectivity” of their findings, either
with respect to views reported by “informants” or, less commonly, with respect to the researcher’s
own subjectivity, perhaps hoping to head it off.
Yet definitional-philosophical-procedural explication—all this interpretive rhetoric—has
not held sway against methodological positivism’s charges. The subject has been discussed at
length, in different fields of thought, for over a century; and still, interpretive research is cas-
tigated for—in the accusers’ eyes—not being rigorous or objective. That a substantive defense
has not been successful suggests that its rhetorical character is what is compelling the debate
and that a rhetorical analysis is what is required. What is at stake—what is the locus of fear—
that enables these terms to retain their rhetorical power in the face of so much explication?
And why would interpretive researchers want to lay claim to those terms (even in equivalent
terms holding meanings closer to their own modes of research)? An answer may lie in the
relationship posited between rigor in its unvarying, stepwise sense and objectivity’s meaning
of physical-cognitive distance.
The implicit logic of the charge is that without clearly articulated hypotheses and measur-
able variables, interpretive research falls short of the rigor and objectivity expected of (social)
science, calling into question its truth-, proof-, and/or knowledge-claims because the character
of its evidence cannot be properly assessed and the research is not recognizable as scientific.
Adhering to explicit, codified, public (known) procedures is presumed to generate knowledge
claims that can be regenerated by any researcher following the same procedures. This is what
creates “objective” knowledge: It is not the product-property of any single researcher—that
would render it “subjective” knowledge, of or pertaining to the researcher-subject. The pur-
pose of “rigorous” method-steps is to contain researchers’ behavior; the persistent power of the
rhetorical attack—“This research is neither rigorous nor objective”—comes to “punish” trans-
gressors seeking to escape those controls.^45 That the punishment has practical implications,
depriving researchers of the means to livelihood (e.g., shutting down avenues of research, clos-
ing down possibilities of employment) and of their academic-scientific identity (degrees, posi-
tions, publications, and promotions) is what makes the rhetoric so powerful, including in
motivating interpretive scholars to seek to reclaim the terms by defining and explicating away
their problems.^46