Abstract
In this article I argue that in their current genealogical and philosophical configuration, qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) practices – and a wider regime of knowledge, ethical, moral, legal, technological, political and economic practices with which they are entangled – embed and enact representational assumptions in which the realities being investigated – time, change and continuity; the past, present and future – are taken as ontologically given and independent of these QLR (and wider) practices. My approach is to conceptualize QLR practices along nonrepresentational lines, through a philosophical framework that is able to materialize the constitutive effects of QLR (and wider) practices on the objects of study and knowledges produced. For this, I turn to Karen Barad’s posthumanist performative metaphysics – ‘agential realism’ – a framework that embodies and enacts a non-classical ontology in which entities are seen as constituted through material-discursive practices. On this account, QLR (and wider) practices are understood as an ineliminable and constitutive part of the realities they help bring into being.
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 321-336 |
Number of pages | 16 |
Journal | International Journal of Social Research Methodology |
Volume | 18 |
Issue number | 3 |
Early online date | 1 Apr 2015 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 2015 |
Keywords
- ontology
- representation
- Barad
- posthumanism
- performativity
- agential realism
- diffraction
- qualitative longitudinal research practices
- revisiting practices