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Reflexive Methodology: New Vistas for Qualitative Research MATS ALVESSON and KAJ SKOLDBERG. London: Sage, 2000. 336 pp. L19.99. ISBN 0803977077
The authors claim the text as an attempt at the `intellectualization of method' (p. 1) in qualitative research. In describing the need for the `intellectualization of method' the authors argue that `what primarily determines [the value of qualitative research] is the awareness of the various interpretive dimensions at several different levels, and the ability to handle these reflexively'. They go on to make the statement that for them `good qualitative research is not a technical project it is an intellectual one' (p. 288).The authors see their text as an attempt to correct for too great an emphasis on certainty and rule driven empirical research. Their project is to `raise the level of qualitative method by incorporating ideas and results from the philosophy of science' (p. vii). They go on to argue that such a move is 'a crucial and continuous ingredient in empirically based social science' (P. vii).
The `intellectualization of method' which is central to the reflexivity of which Alvesson and Skoldberg write, is a function of four levels of interpretation. Indeed it is a so-called `quadruple hermeneutics' (see Giddens, 1976 on double hermeneutics) which forms the basis of what Alvesson and Skoldberg want to advance as their reflexive methodology (see Table 1 below).
In keeping with a project of this level of ambition the authors sound a number of cautions. Given their stance that qualitative research is not nearly `qualitative enough' (p. 2) the authors realize that in calling for a change toward reflection and reflexivity there are dangers. Perhaps the most critical of these dangers is of debilitation such that `by problematizing research, we may come to overrate its difficulties ... and perhaps even to asking ourselves whether empirical social science has any reasonable function at all' (p. 12).
I think it may be worth saying at this point that the writer of this review has a strong feeling of empathy for such a view. That perhaps any qualitative researcher (or perhaps any researcher) ought to be familiar with such feelings: such that as good researchers we should be surprised if we have not, on occasion, doubted our research. Alvesson and Skoldberg...