Combining phenomenological and critical methodologies in qualitative research

Interest in qualitative methodologies has grown over recent decades, encouraged by alternative research paradigms in the critical and postmodernist tradition. The array of interpretative frameworks now available to qualitative researchers suggests a potential for pluralist study designs that are not widely employed at present. Drawing on doctoral research in the field of child protection, this paper explores the scope for combining two such frameworks: interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA) and critical discourse analysis (CDA). It is argued from a critical realist perspective that these methodologies pose different but complementary questions about a given research topic. Within an integrated study design, they can provide a dual lens with which to explore qualitative information, which is interpreted both as lived experience and discursive practice. Textual examples are used in order to show how separate sets of findings are generated using IPA and CDA, and how these may usefully inform each other. The paper proceeds to discuss some broader issues about how researchers produce and interpret qualitative information.