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qualitative approaches tend to share some
common understandings aboutontologyand
epistemology: social worlds are dynamic and
not fully stable or predictable; social life is pro-
duced through human (and non-human)
agency; there are multiple social worlds, with
distinctive and sometimes competing social
meanings, competencies and practices; it is
important to understand social life as it is ex-
perienced; knowledge is situated and partial
(seesituated knowledge); theory is to be
developed through empirical research rather
than tested empirically; thesubjectivityof the
researcher and researched is a factor in every
stage of the research process; the production of
knowledge is an inter-subjective, relational pro-
cess between researcher and researched; and
the researcher has ethical and social
responsibilities to the researched (Limb and
Dwyer, 2001). Smith argues that the choice of
qualitative methods goes beyond these issues of
ontology and epistemology, and is fundamen-
tally a political decision: ‘We choose these
methods... as a way of challenging the way
the world is structured, the way that knowledges
are made, from the top down ... We are ...
adopting a strategy that aims to place non-
dominant, neglected knowledges at the heart of the
research agenda’’ (2001, p. 25; original em-
phasis). One part of this strategy involves mak-
ing space for these other knowledges by
demonstrating the constructed nature of
dominant ones. Withinscience studies,for
instance, ethnographies of the production of
scientific facts trace a myriad of small transla-
tions from ‘the field’ to the laboratory
(e.g. Latour, 1999a: see alsofieldwork). Crit-
ical GIS makes explicit the genealogy and limi-
tations of the data on which GIS maps are
based. Another strand of this strategy involves
subjecting dominant institutions to ethno-
graphic study to show them to be more impro-
vised and less powerful than supposed;
Mountz’s (2003) ethnography of the Canadian
state is one example.
The debates about power, positionality,re-
flexivityand ethics are complex, and what
has been called a crisis ofrepresentation
began in the mid-1980s. Crang (2003) notes
that such debates have progressed beyond the
simplistic dichotomies between ‘insiders’ and
‘outsiders’ typical of earlier discussions to
more nuanced considerations of ‘betweenness’
or working ‘alongside’ research participants.
Concerns nonetheless linger that qualitative
researchers – like all researchers – unwittingly
rely uponclass, colonial and/or racial privil-
ege to gain access to informants and otherinformation, and to produce knowledge that
benefits mainly themselves. For instance,
Chari characterizes ethnography as ‘a process
of alienation, through which, for instance, eth-
nographers poach on working-class narratives
for very different ends: like getting a job or
tenure’ (2003, p. 171). Such criticisms have
provoked qualitative researchers to rethink
their research encounters, to experiment with
new ways of producing and judging knowledge
and truth, and to consider a broader range of
knowledges as useful and relevant. Reflecting
upon their work in Pakistan, Butz and Besio
(2004) consider the concept of autoethnogra-
phy as one means of repositioning research
subjects as active transculturally knowing sub-
jects rather than ‘native informants’. Autoeth-
nography attends to the ways in which
research subjects actively produce and repre-
sent themselves within the terms of dominant
discourse, and complicates the boundary be-
tween authentic truth and manipulated (and
manipulative) self-presentation or perform-
ance. Butz and Besio describe how they have
organized their research to support their
research participants’ own projects of self-
representation, thereby ‘multiplying the com-
municative resources available to them’
(Smith, S.J., 2001b, p. 27). Nagar has entered
into another kind of collaborative research en-
deavour with eight development workers in
Uttar Pradesh, India. Calling themselves the
Sangtin Writers Collective, they have co-
authored a book in which seven grassroots
workers write intimately and autobiographi-
cally about their lives. This book, first pub-
lished in India in Hindi in 2004, and more
recently in the United States in English
(2006), has created controversy in India be-
cause of its detailed critique of the politics of
the non-governmental organization for which
these women worked, and has become a cata-
lyst for organizing among other grassroots
workers. There are now many examples of
collaborations in participatory action re-
search(Pain, 2004), which tends to be differ-
ent from, and indeed can be at odds with, the
goals ofapplied geography(the latter is often
more closely aligned with the priorities and
perspectives of the state). More broadly,
Smith argues that ‘Qualitative research is a
mode of interference. If this interference is
‘‘wrong’’, such approaches should be discon-
tinued; theymustbe unethical. If it is ‘‘right’’,
a lot more documentation and debate are
needed on where this interference is going,
whose interest it advances, what form it takes
and why it is important’ (2001, p. 27).Gregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_Q Final Proof page 604 31.3.2009 7:14pm Compositor Name: ARajuQUALITATIVE METHODS