Millie Creighton( 1977 ) already cited book is largely a confession that the actual eth-
nographic experience often deviates from what is strictly proposed.
However, although Martin’s work is mentioned, her own intention-
ally exaggerated label of Garbage Can Model seems to be used to re-
fute, rather than to recognize, other ways of going about research.
DeMunck and Sobo ( 1998 , 14 ) continue, “But in reacting against the
immaculate structure of the classical linear model, the garbage-can
model may have swung too far to the antistructural extreme.”
What is also troubling is that this “garbage-can model of research,
used for an explicit emphasis by Martin, seems to be applied to other
ethnographic researchers who have argued for less strictly defined re-
search-model objectives, hypotheses, and data-gathering techniques.
For example, Becker ( 1986 ), a qualitative researcher in education,
is cited discussing why his group’s research did not fit the conven-
tional expectations of linear research, and proposes that research is,
and should be, an ongoing, interactive, and shared process of devel-
opment between researchers and subjects. In suggesting that Becker
and Martin hold “a similar view of research” the very label of “gar-
bage can model” (not used by Becker) seems extended to other in-
terpretations of research in a way that tends to devalue them or de-
legitimize them.
Maxwell’s ( 1996 ) interactive model is also discussed in these texts.
Maxwell suggests that we need a compromise between classical lin-
ear models of research and those at the other extreme. DeMunck and
Sobo ( 1998 , 14 ) recognize that “Maxwell’s model allows for interac-
tive feedback between the different parts of a research design while
still maintaining a research structure.” They acknowledge that “the
choice and use of methods are embedded in and interact with other
major components of a research design” (deMunck and Sobo 1998 ,
15 ). In the end, they nonetheless privilege a structured research for-
mat based on “scientific methods” (deMunck and Sobo 1998 , 15 ).
The emphasis is on keeping the ethnographer and informants “on
topic” (deMunck and Sobo 1998 , 122 ) and on track, in the pursuit
of a strictly specified research agenda.
Where do these models, and particularly an insistence on scientific
approaches, leave us as researchers? After more than twenty years of