THE FOURTH HISTORICAL MOMENT IN SOCIAL RESEARCH ‘THE CRISIS OF REPRESENTATION’: A CHAPTER REVIEW

Abstract

The historical moments of qualitative research reflect socially constructed quasi-historic conventions that remain crosscut and overlapping till the present. This progressive narrative is well represented and assessed in a historical overview by Denzin & Lincoln (2018) in their book “The Sage handbook of qualitative research” in the introduction “The discipline and practice of qualitative research”. Through a chapter review, this article particularly discusses the fourth moment of Quantitative research coined as “The crisis of representation”, which is believed to be the crossroads where social scientists remain entangled between the science and humanity perspective while conducting social research in order to forward social realities. This period of confusion simultaneously forwarded the multi-paradigm (positivism, postpositivism, and interpretivism), all of which have unique characteristics that are suitable for specific research. Thus, this paper sheds light on the overview of the crisis of representation and further explains the types of crises that occurred during this historical moment, including the crisis of representation, the crisis of legitimation, and a crisis of praxis. It is expected that apart from extending current literature this paper would support social scientists for selecting appropriate methods and paradigms as well as to justify their selection.