Psychology, the posts, and qualitative research

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article, we consider the debates in the field of psychology about the “posts” around two broad issues—that of “incommensurability” between qualitative research and post-qualitative inquiry, and tensions regarding method and methodology. We are largely in agreement that these systems of thought are so fundamentally different that they cannot be reconciled, as they arise from differing ontological and epistemological foundations of qualitative and post-qualitative inquiry, but we offer some clarifications regarding our views. In relation to methods and methodology, we provide some examples of different conceptions of methods and methodology, primarily by examining writers who are sympathetic to critical posthumanism. While in some cases, methods and methodology are eschewed, in other cases, methods but not methodology are eschewed, while yet in others, a focus on the research process is what produces the knowledge. The paper concludes by considering the contributions that psychology has offered posthumanism.