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A gap in ways of investigating
Chapter One – An introduction to the study - Page 20
In considering this gap, it is useful to consider ways in which the wide and growing
range of qualitative approaches to investigation have been arrayed in relation to each
other.
In what appears an elegant approach to this task, Kamberelis and Dimitriadis cast
qualitative research as an interdisciplinary meta-discourse, and offer an array of the
components that ground and inform that meta-discourse (2005, p. 28) (see Figure 1.2,
on Page 21 below). They base their array on a notion borrowed from Bakhtin (1981),
which they report that Bakhtin in turn apparently borrowed from Einstein, that of
chronotopes. Kamberelis and Dimitriades define chronotopes of qualitative enquiry as
indexing, “durable historic realities that constitute what is common, natural, and
expected by collectives of social scientists who conduct particular kinds of qualitative
research” (2005, p. 25).
What is important about this array is that it creates a background for locating
methodologies, and allows the possibility that a particular methodology can be located
in the overlap of chronotopes, effectively potentially representing more than one
indexation. An example here would be Grounded Theory, which could be seen as
consistent with both Chronotope I, Objectivism and Representation and Chronotope II,
Reading and Interpretation. In the light of this understanding, the critical questions
about a particular methodological approach focus less on the ‘brand’ of the approach
and more on the details that make it particular.
Furthermore, the array provides a framework against which to consider ‘novel’
approaches to investigation.