The use of qualitative methods can make a substantial contribution to our understanding of the construct of resilience. In particular, qualitative research addresses two specific shortcomings noted by resilience researchers: arbitrariness in the selection of outcome variables, and the challenge accounting for the sociocultural context in which resilience occurs. Qualitative research can help to resolve these dilemmas in five ways. Qualitative methods: are well suited to the discovery of the unnamed protective processes relevant to the lived experience of research participants; provide thick description of phenomenon in very specific contexts; elicit and add power to minority ‘voices’ which account for unique localized definitions of positive outcomes; promote tolerance for these localized constructions by avoiding generalization but facilitating transferability of results; and, require researchers to account for their biased standpoints. Reference to exemplars of resilience research will be used to make an argument for the complementarity of research paradigms.
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