Reembodying Qualitative Inquiry

Although there are four large categories of research data, qualitative researchers have tended to emphasize interview data. Naive views of the interview, disembodied views of participant observation, and a virtual neglect of the material world have led to qualitative work that is not as full-bodied as it should be. Survey and qualitative researchers often share the realist's assumption that interview responses index some external reality of facts and feelings, respectively. The Western cultural tendency to separate body from mind, and to elevate the mental over the corporeal, has trivialized the extent to which the body is the obvious point of departure for any process of knowing, especially participant observation. This cultural tendency, as well as a weakness for mistaking words for things and for viewing material objects as neutral and mute, contribute to the neglect of the material world.