Something worth doing otherwise: Reframing method as living practice in qualitative research

Abstract

In our field, the conception of method has become increasingly black-boxed, thereby giving prevalence to the technical and procedural nature of method, obscuring its theoretical, value-laden and embodied character. This essay aims to reconnect method with the doing of research, by making us receptive to what is lost when method becomes too formalistic and ‘hardens’. Thus doing, it fleshes out three core tensions constitutive to qualitative research (epistemology vs. methodology; planned vs. situated action; novelty vs. conformity) and emphasizes the processual, performative and embodied facets of method. In the light of this, we propose a non-exhaustive set of ‘practical’ possibilities to qualitative researchers who may be interested in reframing their conception and practice of method. This essay invites qualitative scholars to reconsider what they take method to be and perhaps, dare we say, fall in love again with method as the core of our practice as researchers.