Two (Very) Different Worlds

Abstract

This article brackets assumptions embedded in the framing of this special issue on “problematizing methodological simplicity in qualitative research” in a effort to understand why policymakers put pressure on all types of researchers, including those who use qualitative methods, to provide relatively simple, even somewhat mechanistic portrayals of social life. The article employs an auto-ethnographic approach to demonstrate that simplified thinking is a virtual prerequisite for making policy. The article also demonstrates that qualitative researchers normally have a diametrically opposed view of simplification, but that this view is not necessarily shared by other academics. These other academics, consequently, are likely to have a greater impact on policymakers. The article concludes with an account of how the article’s author, who was attracted to qualitative methods because they promised to accommodate the complexity of social life, has attempted to influence policymakers and the policymaking process without completing losing his methodological soul.