This is a book I return to time and time again as much through checking out sources of references as in appreciating the many theoretical viewpoints of writers, their individual approaches to methodology and concerns with the ways in which qualitative research is viewed. As the title indicates this is a handbook bringing together under one roof a collection of writings about qualitative research within the social science domain. The editors have written the Preface, Part 1 and the Epilogue, including the contribution of an article each: “Institutional review boards and methodological conservatism: the challenge to and from phenomenological paradigms” by Y. Lincoln and “Emancipatory discourses and the ethics and politics of interpretation” by N. Denzin. The Introduction includes Defining the field and Competing definitions of qualitative research, where the editors explain the rationale for the handbook, as moving through multiple perspectives such as those from interpretivist outlooks to the policies of representation, textual analyses of literary and cultural forms, ethnography to new critical analysis and the utopian politics of possibility. The sociological and educational perspectives of qualitative research are clearly expounded by Denzin and Lincoln (p. 2) as “a field of inquiry in its own right” being a “complex, interconnected family of terms, concepts and assumptions” associated with “methods connected to cultural and interpretive studies”. However, the authors (pp. 3‐8) do not go further to explain what they mean by the eight historical moments of North American traditions: the traditional (1900‐1950); the modernist/golden age (1950‐1970); blurred genres (1970‐1986); the crisis of representation (1986‐1990); the postmodern (1990‐1995); postexperimental inquiry (1995‐2000), the methodologically contested present (2000‐2004); and the fractured future (from 2005).
The handbook looks impressive with its collection of 44 papers, an epilogue and 55 contributors. It is organised in six major parts:
Part I: Locating the Field.
Part II: Paradigms and Perspectives in Contention.
Part III: Strategies of Inquiry.
Part IV: Methods of Collecting and Analyzing Empirical Materials.
Part V: The Art and Practices of Interpretation, Evaluation and Presentation.
Part VI: The Future of Qualitative Research.
The collection provides much substance for thought with linkages to past and present studies in their respective fields. Inevitably with the presence of many contributors there are varying degrees of disparity between those whose narratives are straightforward and others whose sentences require unravelling. The following provides some examples: “In contrast to utilitarian experimentalism, the substantive conceptions of the good that drive the problems reflect the conceptions of the community rather than the expertise of researchers or funding agencies” (p. 151) or “Increasingly, we came to understand empowerment not only as a lifeworld process of cultural, social, and personal development and transformation, but also as implying that protagonists experienced themselves as working both in and against system structures and functions to produce effects intended to be read in changed systems structures and functioning” (p. 593). There are others, however, who are much better at explanations, e.g. in clarification of the Russell Bishop's view of how the Kaoupapa Ma¯ori created conditions for self‐determination. These were used as evaluative research criteria: “five bases of power (initiation, benefits, representation, legitimation and accountability) creating empowering knowledge and allowing indigenous persons to free themselves” (p. 35).
The changing nature of the broad fields of qualitative inquiry presents modern challenges for any writer so there is a need for reference to other qualitative texts in specific procedures concerning types of qualitative methods, in particular, the applications of qualitative research using new technologies and computing software or the potential of the ubiquitous internet. Nevertheless, the handbook offers an important source of insights from those who share their ideas and experiences of qualitative research whether or not we seek to follow through the various authors' modes of inquiry or build knowledge. In this respect, academics and practitioners should find this handbook of interest.
