Epistemological Oppression and the Road to Awakening

Abstract

Increasingly, it is becoming evident that qualitative research methodologies have much to contribute to producing health knowledge. Notwithstanding such advances, some would say the "paradigm war" continues, privileging postpositivist epistemologies. Our own experiences working within a post-positivist-dominated health research arena inspired the implementation of an "Epistemological Boot Camp" qualitative research training series. The central goal of the boot camp was to query the hypothesis that we are still in a paradigmatic "war zone" while imagining productive ways to both survive and thrive in the current climate. Moving forward, our hope is that our boot camp methodology can inspire other scholars to develop creative local initiatives that provide a platform to work toward recognizing the unique contributions of qualitative health research.

A “Thick” Conception of Children’s Voices: A Hermeneutical Framework for Childhood Research

“…This can impede the participation of persons with cognitive and communication differences who may still have strong participation interests and capacities. In short, children can encounter various forms of "epistemological oppression" (Burns et al, 2018) toward the recognition of their voices as morally meaningful.…”

Thinking through and designing qualitative research studies: a focused mapping review of 30 years of qualitative research in sport psychology

“…Other opportunities for training and discussion may occur through workshops (e.g. Burns, Macdonald, & Carnevale, 2018;, by becoming involved with qualitative research centres or institutes, or by attending conferences such as the International Conference on Qualitative Research in Sport and Exercise. Through these approaches, we encourage researchers to consider and appreciate the variety of ways in which knowledge can be generated and contribute to understanding people's experiences in sport.…”

How Twitter is changing the meaning of scholarly impact and engagement: Implications for qualitative social work research

“…A letter to the BMJ editor, signed by over 75 researchers, went viral (Greenhalgh et al, 2016) and eventually led to the BMJ changing their policy to include more qualitative studies. The basis for rejecting the manuscript on "number of downloads" as well as the rapid mobilization efforts on Twitter from international researchers raised questions regarding how social media was changing the meaning of scholarly impact and engagement in general and for qualitative researchers in particular (Burns et al, 2018).…”

“…The social media platform can also be useful for recruiting and engaging with hard-to-reach research populations (Wilkerson et al, 2014), sourcing information quickly (Pulman, 2009), networking with fellow scholars (Weller et al, 2014), obtaining collegial support (Turner, 2014), measuring research impact (e.g. counting number of article shares and downloads) (Burns et al, 2018), and rapidly mobilizing scholars around controversial issues (Burns et al, 2018;Clark and Thompson, 2016;Greenhalgh et al, 2016).…”

“…Recently, social work researchers have used Twitter to conduct qualitative thematic analysis with social media data (Caplan and Purser, 2017), to amplify marginalized voices in participatory research (Sitter and Curnew, 2016), and creatively engaging marginalized youth (Chan and Holosko, 2017). While some scholars have begun to highlight tensions of using social media in social work research and practice (Boddy and Dominelli, 2017;Burns et al, 2018;Jackson, 2016;Sitter and Curnew, 2016;Turner et al, 2016;Westwood, 2014) there has been little focus from a qualitative perspective. Drawing on the example of Twitter, this article redresses this gap by exploring how social media is changing the way research is conducted and promoted in relation to (1) measuring scholarly impact via altmetrics; (2) engaging with research participants; (3) networking and making collegial connections; and (4) advocating for social issues in the public realm.…”