This article explores metaphors in qualitative analysis. Scientific paradigms are often embedded in metaphors that guide our research and its results. The purpose is to clarify the mix of positions that are taken by researchers as detectives. Three characters from different genres of detective stories are presented. A conclusion from the study is that a traditional researcher-as-detective metaphor (Sherlock Holmes) tends to bring a post-positivist approach also to qualitative research, although the paradigm is less satisfactory when solving research problems addressed in interpretative social research. An alternative detective metaphor, researcher as profiler, is found to be closer to the ontology, epistemology, and methodology of constructivist research approaches. Finally, the question is raised whether Paul Auster’s deconstructed character, Mr. Quinn, might prove to be a fruitful metaphor for postmodern research, placing emphasis on individual action and rejecting theories that place emphasis on the freedom and the ability of individual agents to shape the social world.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
Alasuutari, P. (1989). Erinomaista rakas Watson. Johdatus yhteiskuntatutkimukseen [Excellent, my dear Watson: Introduction to social sciences]. Helsinki, Finland: Hanki ja jää.
2.
Alasuutari, P. (1993). Laadullinen tutkimus [Qualitative research]. Tampere, Finland: Vastapaino.
3.
Alasuutari, P. (1995). Researching culture: Qualitative method and cultural studies. London: Sage Ltd.
4.
Altheide, D., & Johnson, J. (1994). Criteria for assessing interpretative validity in qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 485-499). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
5.
Anderson, B. (1983). Imagined communities. Reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.
6.
Asher, H. (1997). The profiler. London: Vista.
7.
Auster, P. (1988). The New York trilogy. Boston: Faber & Faber.
8.
Bourdieu, P. (1994). Raisons pratiques. Sur la théorie de l’action [Practical reason: On the theory of action]. Paris: Éditions du Seuil.
9.
Brand, A. (1990). The force of reason: An introduction to Habermas’s theory of communicative action. Sydney, Australia: Allen & Unwin.
10.
Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
11.
Burke, K. (1957). The philosophy of literary form: Studies in symbolic action. New York: Vintage Books.
12.
Carey, J. (1997). Communications and economics. In E. S. Munson & C. A. Warren (Eds.), James Carey: A critical reader (pp. 60-75). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
13.
Chandler, R. (1984). The simple art of murder. Toronto, Canada: Ballantyne Books.
14.
Collins, J. (1989). Uncommon cultures: Popular culture and post-modernism. New York: Routledge.
15.
Crang, M. (1998). Cultural geography. London: Routledge.
16.
Denzin, N. (1997). Interpretative ethnography. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
17.
Denzin, N., & Lincoln, Y. (1994). The fifth moment. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 575-586). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
18.
Doyle, C. (1981). The Penguin complete Sherlock Holmes. London: Penguin Books. (Original work published 1927)
19.
Eco, U. (1986). Travels in hyperreality. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
20.
Ermath, M. (1978). Wilhelm Dilthey: The critique of historical reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
21.
Foucault, M. (1972). The archeology of knowledge. London: Tavistock.
22.
Foucault, M. (1980). Questions of geography in power/knowledge. In C. Gordon (Ed.), Selected interviews and other writings 1972-1977 (pp. 63-77). Oxford, UK: The Harvester Press.
23.
Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures: Selected essays. New York: Basic Books.
24.
Gergen, K. (1991). The saturated self: Dilemmas of identity in contemporary life. New York: Basic Books.
25.
Giroux, H. (1992). Border crossings: Cultural workers and the politics of education. New York: Routledge.
26.
Gregory, D. (1994). Geographical imaginations. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
27.
Guba, E., & Lincoln, Y. (1994). Competing paradigms in qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 105-117). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
28.
Hamilton, D. (1994). Traditions, preferences, and posture in applied qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 60-69). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
29.
Hammersley, M., & Atkinson, P. (1983). Ethnography: Principles in practice. London: Tavistock.
30.
Hesse, E. (1980). Revolutions and reconstructions in the philosophy of science. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
31.
Jameson, F. (1992). The geopolitical aesthetic: Cinema and space in the world system. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
32.
Jarvis, B. (1998). Postmodern cartographies: The geographical imagination in contemporary American culture. London: Pluto Press.
33.
Jensen, K. B. (1995). The social semiotics of mass communication. London: Sage.
34.
Kelly, G. (1998). Mystery fiction and modern life. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.
35.
Kincheloe, J., & McLaren, P. (1994). Rethinking critical theory and qualitative research. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 138-157). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
36.
Kirk, J., & Miller, M. (1986). Reliability and validity in qualitative research (Qualitative Research Methods Series 1). Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
37.
Kuhn, T. (1994). Tieteellisten vallankumousten rakenne [The structure of scientific revolutions]. Juva, Finland: Werner Söderström. (Original work published 1969)
38.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1980). Metaphors we live by. Chicago: Chicago University Press.
39.
Latour, B. (1993). We have never been modern. New York: Harvester Wheatsheaf.
40.
Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.
41.
Lévi-Strauss, C. (1966). The savage mind (2nd ed.). Chicago: Chicago University Press.
42.
Luhman, N. (1993). Risk: A sociological theory. Berlin, Germany: Walter de Gruyter.
43.
Mandel, E. (1984). Delightful murder: A social history of the crime story. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
44.
Nader, L. (1993). Paradigm busting and vertical linkage. Contemporary Sociology, 33, 6-7.
45.
Nelson, C., Treicler, P., & Grossberg, L. (Eds.). (1992). Cultural studies. New York: Routledge; Orlando, FL: Harcourt Brace.
46.
Popper, K. (1959). The logic of scientific discovery. New York: Basic Books.
47.
Porter, D. (1981). The pursuit of crime: Art and ideology in detective fiction. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
48.
Porter, T. (1995). Trust in numbers: The pursuit of objectivity in science and public life. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
49.
Reason, P. (1994). Three approaches to participative inquiry. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 324-339). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
50.
Richardson, L. (1994). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 516-529). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
51.
Rosenau, P. M. (1992). Post-modernism and the social sciences. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
52.
Schutz, A. (1967). The phenomenology of social world. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press.
53.
Schwandt, T. (1994). Constructivist, interpretivist approaches to human inquiry. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 118-137). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
54.
Selander, S. (Ed.). (1986). Om kunskapens villkor. En antologi on vetenskapsteori och samhällsvetenskap [The conditions of knowledge: An anthology of theory of social sciences]. Lund, Sweden: Studentlitteratur.
55.
Shapiro, M. (1986). Metaphor in the philosophy of the social sciences. Cultural Critique, 2, 191-214.
56.
Todorov, T. (1984). Mikhail Bakhtin: The dialogical principle: Theory and history of literature (Vol. 13). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
57.
Töttö, P. (1997). Pirullinen Positivismi. Kysymyksiä laadulliselle tutkimukselle [Devilish positivism: Questions to the qualitative research]. Jyväskylä, Finland: Yliopistopaino.
58.
Vidich, A. J., & Lyman, S. M. (1994). Qualitative methods: Their history in sociology and anthropology. In N. Denzin & Y. Lincoln (Eds.), Handbook of qualitative research (pp. 23-60). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
59.
Weinstein, D., & Weinstein, M. A. (1991). Georg Simmel: Sociological flaneur bricoleur. Theory, Culture and Society, 8, 151-168.
