Table Of ContentROUTLEDGE SERIES ON INTERPRETIVE METHODS
INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH DESIGN
Concepts and Processes
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow
INTERPRETIVE RESEARCH
DESIGN
Research design is fundamental to all scientific endeavors, at all levels and in
all institutional settings. In many social science disciplines, however, scholars
working in an interpretive–qualitative tradition get little guidance on this aspect
of research from the positivist-centered training they receive. This book is an
authoritative examination of the concepts and processes underlying the design
of an interpretive research project. Such an approach to design starts with the
recognition that researchers are inevitably embedded in the intersubjective social
processes of the worlds they study.
In focusing on researchers’ theoretical, ontological, epistemological, and
methods choices in designing research projects, Schwartz-Shea and Yanow set
the stage for other volumes in the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods. They
also engage some very practical issues, such as ethics reviews and the structure of
research proposals. This concise guide explores where research questions come
from, criteria for evaluating research designs, how interpretive researchers engage
with “world-making,” context, systematicity and flexibility, reflexivity and
positionality, and such contemporary issues as data archiving and the researcher’s
body in the field.
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea is Professor of Political Science at the University of
Utah. Dvora Yanow is Visiting Professor in the Faculty of Social and Behavioral
Sciences at the University of Amsterdam and in the Communication Sciences
Department, Faculty of Social Sciences, at Wageningen University. Together
they are co-editors of Interpretation and Method: Empirical Research Methods and
the Interpretive Turn, and they created and run the “Methods Café” at both the
American and Western Political Science Associations’ annual meetings.
Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods
Edited by:
Dvora Yanow, University of Amsterdam and Wageningen University
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, University of Utah
The Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods comprises a collection of slim volumes,
each devoted to different issues in interpretive methodology and its associated
methods. The topics covered will establish the methodological grounding for
interpretive approaches in ways that distinguish interpretive methods from
quantitative and qualitative methods in the positivist tradition. The series as a
whole engages three types of concerns: (1) methodological issues, looking at key
concepts and processes; (2) approaches and methods, looking at how interpretive
methodologies are manifested in different forms of research; and (3) disciplinary
and subfield areas, demonstrating how interpretive methods figure in different
fields across the social sciences.
Approachable yet authoritative, the volumes are especially useful for graduate
students looking for sources that lay out the reasoning and terminology of
interpretive methodologies. Academic and independent researchers writing
research plans for grant applications or sabbaticals can use these volumes to support
the systematic procedural character and rigorous argumentation of interpretive
research. Instructors teaching research methods courses will find the books
valuable in providing an explanation of the differences between interpretive
research methods and those of “traditional” positivist research. These may also
be useful volumes for journal editors and reviewers of manuscripts who are not
familiar with these differences.
Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow
Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide
Frederic Charles Schaffer
Interpreting International Politics
Cecelia Lynch
Postcolonial Theory and Analysis in Political Studies
Kevin Bruyneel
Ethnography and Interpretation
Timothy Pachirat
Analyzing Social Narratives
Shaul R. Shenhav
International Advisory Board
Mark Bevir Patrick Thaddeus Jackson
University of California, Berkeley American University
Pamela Brandwein Timothy Kaufman-Osborn
University of Michigan Whitman College
Kevin Bruyneel Bernhard Kittel
Babson College Oldenburg University
Douglas C. Dow Jan Kubik
University of Texas, Dallas Rutgers University
Vincent Dubois Beate Littig
University of Strasbourg Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna
Raymond Duvall Joseph Lowndes
University of Minnesota University of Oregon
Martha S. Feldman Timothy W. Luke
University of California, Irvine Virginia Tech
Lene Hansen Cecelia Lynch
University of Copenhagen University of California, Irvine
Victoria Hattam Navdeep Mathur
New School India Institute of Management
Emily Hauptmann Julie Novkov
Western Michigan University State University of New York at Albany
Markus Haverland Ido Oren
Erasmus University, Rotterdam University of Florida
David Howarth Ellen Pader
University of Essex University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Frederic Charles Schaffer Joe Soss
University of Massachusetts, Amherst University of Wisconsin, Madison
Edward Schatz Camilla Stivers
University of Toronto Cleveland State University
Ronald Schmidt, Sr. John Van Maanen
California State University, Long Beach MIT
James C. Scott Katherine Cramer Walsh
Yale University University of Wisconsin, Madison
Samer Shehata Lisa Wedeen
Georgetown University University of Chicago
Diane Singerman Jutta E. Weldes
American University Bristol University
INTERPRETIVE
RESEARCH DESIGN
Concepts and Processes
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and
Dvora Yanow
First published 2012
by Routledge
711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Simultaneously published in the UK
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2012 Taylor & Francis
The right of Peregrine Schwartz-Shea and Dvora Yanow to be identified as
authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced
or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means,
now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording,
or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in
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Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Schwartz-Shea, Peregrine, 1955–
Interpretive research design : concepts and processes / Peregrine Schwartz-Shea
and Dvora Yanow.
p. cm.—(Routledge series on interpretive methods)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Science—Methodology. 2. Experimental design. I. Yanow, Dvora. II. Title.
Q175.S4144 2011
001.4'34—dc23
2011033462
ISBN: 978–0–415–87807–4 (hbk)
ISBN: 978–0–415–87808–1 (pbk)
ISBN: 978–0–203–85490–7 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Swales & Willis Ltd, Exeter, Devon
Printed and bound in the United States of America on acid-free paper by
Walsworth Publishing Company, Marceline, MO.
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to Howard Becker, Bud Duvall, Murray Edelman, Richard
Fenno, Clifford Geertz, Egon Guba, Yvonna Lincoln, Lloyd Rudolph, Susanne
Rudolph, Jim Scott, to name but a few, and others in many fields who have
walked these paths before us; to our colleagues and students who walk them with
us now, leading us to new ways of seeing, knowing, and thinking about these
matters; and to the leaders of those directorates within the US National Science
Foundation which have begun to grapple with some of these issues, in the hope
that they, along with their counterparts in other states’ funding organizations, will
pave new paths in the near future.
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xii
Acknowledgments xiii
Introduction 1
A Sketch of the Book 9
1 Wherefore Research Designs? 15
Research Design: Why Is It Necessary? 18
An Outline of a Research Proposal, Including the
Research Design 19
2 Ways of Knowing: Research Questions and Logics
of Inquiry 24
Where Do Research Questions Come From? The Role
of Prior Knowledge 25
Where Do Research Questions Come From? Abductive
Ways of Knowing 26
Where Do Research Questions Come From? The Role
of Theory and the “Literature Review” 34
Do Concepts “Emerge from the Field”? More on Theory
and Theorizing 38
Where Do Research Questions Come From? Ontological and
Epistemological Presuppositions in Interpretive Research 40
