Needed Methodological Emancipation: Qualitative Coding and the Institutionalization of the Master's Voice Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • While qualitative research has been among the more open of academic disciplines, processes for analyzing qualitative data have remained dogmatic. Most qualitative data are coded by breaking it into pieces of information that stand alone or through contextualizing it as researchers see fit. Data analysis thus remains a process of deconstructing participant voices and reconstructing stories through sound bites, creating an acceptable form of fake news to obtain a seat at the research high table. This continues established traditions of denying subalterns, already less agentive in higher education spheres, the ability to speak as the voice of the participant is subjugated to the discourse community of the master. In this paper, we demonstrate how protocols for analyzing qualitative data represent the masters voice as they draw from Euro-Western ways of knowing the world. Possibilities that foreground indigenous and critical epistemologies are presented as alternatives.

published proceedings

  • QUALITATIVE INQUIRY

altmetric score

  • 2

author list (cited authors)

  • Viruru, R., & Rios, A.

citation count

  • 0

complete list of authors

  • Viruru, Radhika||Rios, Ambyr

publication date

  • December 2021