Tacit Cultural Knowledge

Abstract

Notwithstanding the expansion of mixed methods, research methods and findings are culturally situated. Unfortunately, studies conducted outside the Global North often embrace canonical methodologies not aimed at understanding tacit concepts. Learning about the needs of South African researchers and participants enlightens taken-for-granted assumptions in Anglo-American mixed methods. Hence, this study explores aspects of tacit cultural knowledge that contextualize mixed methods in South Africa. In-person interviews among South African professors are analyzed narratively. Findings indicate that economically based knowledge facilitates methodologies as political identities. Research questions require contextual sensitivity and methodology requires relational ethics of communicative approaches. Because South African participants identify with non-Western numeric literacies and storytelling knowledge, qualitatively dominant mixed methods allows minimally structured talk. Recommendations include flexible plans and accounting for cultural expression of doubt.