The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research[1]

Citation

Fryer, D. (2006), "The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research[1]", Qualitative Research in Organizations and Management, Vol. 1 No. 1, pp. 57-59. https://doi.org/10.1108/17465640610666642

Against what criteria should one evaluate a Handbook of Qualitative Research[1]? Let us take our first cue from Norman Denzin and Yvonna Lincoln, the Editors of this Qualitative Handbook who, rather surprisingly, start their Preface to the book by drawing attention to quantitative aspects of the handbook: pointing out that this is the third edition; two‐thirds of the authors are new contributors; 16 chapters are totally new, etc. To continue this line, this handbook consists of over 1,200 pages of densely packed prose[2]; organized into six parts[3]. These six parts are explicated in 44 chapters written by more than 50 authors. The back cover blurb, presumably the responsibility of the publishers, adds that the handbook contains “14 totally new topics not touched on in previous editions” and that “over half of the 45 chapters are written by authors new to the handbook”. One almost expects the blurb to continue this quantitative eulogy by pointing out the handbook constitutes great value for money. After all, at a mere £85, the purchaser pays less than seven pence per page for this book!

The handbook's sheer size and its diversity of authors mean that it contains a vast range of contributors writing on an extraordinarily diverse range of aspects of qualitative research. In reading this book I discovered many exciting accounts of innovative scholarship which were new to me in many areas of qualitative research. Amongst the issues dealt with in especially fascinating detail are arts based enquiry, autoethnography, investigative poetry and testimonial narrative. The subject index, which it takes the authors 33 pages to present, is literally an A‐Z of qualitative research which covers legions of interesting and important topics from “abductive logic” to “zombie research” and the author index (another 32 pages) runs from Aakus to Zyzanski. The handbook's huge size means that material might be there but be hard to find: after all, every issue contained cannot be referred to in the index or the index would be as long as the text. I could not find reference to, or discussion of Haug's (1987) “memory work” Lykes' et al. (2003) work using “photo‐voice” or the British Council of Disabled People's (2006) recommendations on “emancipatory disability research” to name but three landmarks for me in the qualitative research landscape but I cannot be totally certain they are not in the handbook somewhere.

Of course, unless one is simply looking for a doorstop, it is inappropriate to evaluate any book, but especially a qualitative book, against mere quantitative criteria so although this seems to be regarded as a marketing strength, let us move on to assessing the handbook against more qualitative criteria.

What sort of account of qualitative research do the editors construct in this handbook? In the Preface (p. x), in an exemplary act of transparency, the editors disclose a section of “our letter inviting authors to contribute to this volume”. In it they wrote:

How do we move the current generation of critical, interpretive thought and inquiry beyond rage to progressive political action, to theory and method that connect politics, pedagogy, and ethics to action in the world? We want the third edition to carry qualitative inquiry well into the next century. We want the new edition to advance a democratic project committed to social justice in an age of uncertainty.

The editors then explicitly state: “the agenda of this third edition, to show how scholars can use the discourses of qualitative research to help create and imagine a free democratic society” and at the end of the Preface they assure the reader that the qualitative research tradition has a “central place in a radical democratic project” (xviii). Although the editors write critically that “George W. Bush's presidential administration has narrowly defined governmental regimes of truth” (xi) and of “the methodological backlash associated with ‘Bush science’” (20), democracy seems uncritically positioned by all parties as the unquestioned ultimate hallmark of social justice.

Amongst the very many interesting individual contributions, one chapter in particular deserves particular attention in this regard for its pivotal role in the whole handbook. Linda Tuhiwai Smith's chapter, “On tricky ground: researching the native in the age of uncertainty” (Chapter 4) is an interesting and important chapter in its own right but its presence in the book, more importantly, represents the phenomenal impact of her work on qualitative researchers in a few short years. Smith's book, Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples was published only in 1999 but it has had, in a mere seven years, a gigantic impact on the field of qualitative research and, accordingly, Smith's work is a pervasive force throughout much of the handbook. Denzin and Lincoln open the handbook with an Introduction (Chapter 1) by citing Smith's assertion that “the term ‘research’ is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism… The word is probably one of the dirtiest words in the indigenous world's vocabulary” (Smith, 1999, p. 1 cited in Denzin and Lincoln, 2005, p. 1). Her work is cited in many places throughout the handbook and apart from the two editors and Foucault, is one of the most cited authors within the handbook.

Glad though I am to see the prominence given to Smith's ideas in the handbook, I am not convinced they have been taken to heart. Smith has powerfully drawn attention to the complicity of research, including qualitative research, in the practices and procedures of oppression of indigenous people through colonialism and the expansion of empire. However, although Smith's (2005, p. 86) focus is specifically, and for good reason, on indigenous communities as “examples of groups that have been historically vulnerable to research in many ways” these are only sub‐groups of the wider number of “communities in the margins of society” and, moreover, indigenous communities have, according to Smith (2005, p. 86), been more successful in being “able to resist as a group and to attempt to reshape and engage in research around their own interests” than most other marginal communities. Smith (1999, p. 1) rightly wrote, from her own “vantage point” that research “is inextricably linked to European imperialism and colonialism” but, from our own vantage point, we might add that scientific research, including qualitative research, is inextricably linked to international economic, political and ideological exploitation and subjugation within the “free” (i.e. free from constraint for employers) market. Qualitative researchers from the dominant north and west have tended to gravitate towards the poor, the marginal, the dispossessed and the powerless in their own societies and colluded with their regulation and disempowerment by representing and constructing them in ways which suit the interests of the status quo, groups moreover whose capacity to resist appears to have been even more thoroughly undermined than indigenous communities.

In this context, the question arises as to what role is played by a Handbook of Qualitative Research, such as this, even with a proclaimed commitment to critical reflexivity and social justice? Does a handbook like this, which proclaims itself (back cover blurb) as “an absolutely essential text for any scholar interested in the art, science and practice of qualitative research, as well as a critical resource for all academic and public libraries” which “represents the state of the art for the theory and practice of qualitative inquiry” which “moves qualitative research boldly into the 21st century” and is “far‐reaching and comprehensive, despite its critical aspirations, provide the means and legitimacy for ‘qualitative research’ to represent and regulate a variety of communities on the margins of society and thus to become ‘one of the dirtiest words’ in their vocabularies too?”

Notes

The reader can access a table of contents, sample chapters and resources by visiting www.sagepub.co.uk/book.aspx?pid=106791&sc=1

The editors also take the trouble to point out (page xvii) that the book was 2,000 pages in manuscript form.

“Locating the field”; “Paradigms and perspectives in contention”; “Strategies of enquiry”; “Methods of collecting and analyzing empirical materials”; “The art and practices of interpretation, evaluation and presentation”; “The future of qualitative research”.