390 RE-RECOGNIZING INTERPRETIVE METHODOLOGIES
ened by the juggernaut of globalization. Interpretive social science is not only marginalized; it is
actively threatened by proponents of “one best way” of conducting scientific research who seek
to spread those models of higher education (including graduate training) from the United States
to Europe and the rest of the world (e.g., Dowding 2001). A loss of diversity among approaches
to knowledge and the devaluation of local knowledge threaten our collective capacity to under-
stand and encourage the myriad ways in which human beings can flourish.^20
In the halls of higher education it is common to hear the claim that the politics of academia are
so trivial because the stakes are so low. We argue, instead, that the politics of academia—understood
as the politics of knowledge making—are not trivial by any means. On the contrary, how we
conceive of scientific knowledge and who gets to claim its authoritative mantle matters a great
deal. If knowledge is power, then methodological pluralism disperses that power, whereas “one
best way” concentrates it. Re-embracing interpretive approaches as a legitimately scientific un-
dertaking, then, strengthens both the human sciences and democracy.
Lest these themes seem utopian, we note that interpretive scholars recognize that engaging the
politics of knowledge is neither easy nor without pitfalls. Researchers’ positionality, the cogni-
tive-emotional dimensions of research identity, the human need to make a living, the impact of
interests on research judgments (as treated in the sociology of knowledge literature)—all the
factors ignored under positivist understandings of objectivity^21 —mean that interpretive research,
like the human condition, is complex. The “labyrinth,” however, is not as dark as it once was
because, as evident from many chapters in this book, interpretive scholars are innovative in their
pursuit of new paths. Schaffer’s use of ordinary language philosophy (chapter 7), Brandwein’s
combining of science studies with frame analysis (chapter 12), Oren’s deeply historical analysis
of social scientific concepts (chapter 11), Jackson’s valuing of both sides of the double herme-
neutic (chapter 14)—all these and more demonstrate the creativity of interpretively theorizing
about sense making, knowledge claims, and research trustworthiness. Interpretive methodologies
promise to engage the complex societies of the twenty-first century with a variegated and creative
human sciences agenda.A RE-TURN TO HUMANISMThe painting by René Magritte that graces the cover of this book illustrates the way in which
representations of the world construct our knowledge of it. The title of the canvas, La condition
humaine, draws our attention to the innate, and inescapable humanism of interpretation. That
includes interpretive methods—the researcher meets people as people; he can’t hide behind ab-
stractions or numbers or surveys. Dorinne Kondo, for example, a Japanese-American doing field
research in Japan on “the Japanese identity,” is met with responses ranging from amazement to
anger when she misuses the language or stumbles over everyday knowledge: “How could some-
one who looked Japanese not be Japanese?” (1990, 12).^22 Surveys instantiate the privilege of
distance: They seek to protect us from all of the very human responses that may arise in being
studied by others and in studying them. Meaning-focused interpretive research does not allow
such antiseptic distance.
Our contention in this book has been that interpretive methods are useful precisely for the sorts
of research questions that center on meanings underlying social, political, and other actions, and
especially in circumstances where there is likely to be a discrepancy between word (attitudes, or
espoused theories) and deed (acts). Such an approach requires, among other things, challenging
the presumption that useful, legitimate knowledge is held only by those with the technical-rational
expertise of university-based training. It is not uncommon, for example, to find textbook descrip-