Complicating Voice in a Refusal to “Let Participants Speak for Themselves”

Abstract

In this article, the authors respond to the editors’ call to challenge simplistic and mechanistic approaches to qualitative research that preclude dense and multilayered treatment of data. The editors assert that such practices can lead to (over)simplified knowledge claims, something especially risky when participant “voice” is presented as an expression of “experience” devoid of context. The authors approach the methodological project of a simplified voice in qualitative inquiry that attempts to offer an authentic essence or voice that is present, stable, and self-reflective. Aided by Deleuze to conceive a voice without an image, the authors specifically challenge simplistic treatments of voice that beckon voices to “speak for themselves” or that reduce complicated and conflicting voices to analytical “chunks” that can be interpreted free of context and circumstance. The authors conclude with illustrations from their research that demonstrate how they put such complicating practices to work and how they serve to open up previously unthought questions.