The Globalization of Qualitative Research: Challenging Anglo-American Domination and Local Hegemonic Discourse

Abstract

Over the past decades, scholarly interest has led to publications on the practices and development of qualitative research (QR) in countries outside of the Anglo-American core. Much of the writing is descriptive, providing an overview of the QR path and development in a particular country. Recently, qualitative researchers in the periphery have begun to articulate a collective professional identity in relation to the Anglo-American core by questioning both the dominance of the Anglo-American core and the current divide between QR in the core and the periphery. To date, insufficient effort has been made to develop this collective professional identity in order to overcome Anglo-American domination in the periphery and to indigenize QR. In this article, I propose a globally-informed, locally-situated analytical framework as a means of developing a globalized QR (GQR). I argue that qualitative scholars in the periphery must simultaneously confront Anglo-American domination and local hegemonic discourses. I discuss what scholars in the core and periphery can do to lead to a shift in the current division of labor that sees scholarship in the core producing theory and methods while those in the periphery consume and reproduce it. More attention needs to be paid to the indigenization of QR in the periphery.

URN: http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1201216