Disciplining qualitative research

Qualitative research exists in a time of global uncertainty. Around the world, governments are attempting to regulate scientific inquiry by defining what counts as ‘good’ science. These regulatory activities raise fundamental, philosophical epistemological, political and pedagogical issues for scholarship and freedom of speech in the academy. This essay contests this methodological fundamentalism, and interrogates the politics of re‐emergent scientism, the place of qualitative research in mixed‐methods experimentalism, and the pragmatic criticisms of anti‐foundationalism. Furthermore, it outlines three models of scientifically based research (SBR), and discusses how each is operative within the current historical conjuncture. In the process, it advocates for a qualitative research paradigm that is committed to social justice and the promise of radical, progressive democracy.