My Foray Into Qualitative Analytical Methods

I have been reading several methodology texts on qualitative analysis, and am amazed at how there is no discussion of the underlying assumptions in qualitative analysis itself. For instance, the notion of “social justice” (the ultimate aim of much of qualitative analysis) itself is never really discussed as a cultural concept. Instead, it is almost taken as an “absolute value” rather than a relative one – which is no small thing in a methodology that exists to deconstruct values, ideas, and cultural practices. Social justice – the idea of individuals caring about and working hard for the equality and independence of other people they do not personally know or are not personally related to – is an inherently Judeo-Christian concept. Even the definition of justice itself that is used in qualitative studies – that individual people, views, choices, and lifestyles are equally valid and worth equal weight in society’s treatment of them – that is a Judeo-Christian notion of justice.

In Confucian societies, for instance, justice is defined quite differently, and pursuing justice for strangers is not a positive value, and in some ways, even a negative activity. If you pursue justice for strangers at the expense of your immediate or extended family, if you do so in a way that causes other negative emotions or events such as heartache, shame, or parental disgrace, then social justice is not a good thing. It’s not just Confucian societies that are different. Under Islam, “justice” is often defined in a radically different manner, emphasis on the word radical. In Hindu society, justice is caste-dependent. So it strikes me as terribly odd that a distinctly cultural and Christian notion of justice is the unquestioned basis of a type of study that seeks to root out cultural and religious – among other things – narratives and influences.

If anyone out there as a more academic background in qualitative analytical methods – specifically phenomenology and critical theory – or more knowledge of this, I’d love to hear more about why the cultural notions of the ambitions of the qualitative study itself are not questioned. I am not trying to suggest here that social justice is a bad thing; I actually think it is quite good and personally don’t have a problem with the idea that one version of social justice is better than another because I have seen the other versions of justice in practice, have lived in those societies, and know it ain’t pretty.

But for a discipline devoted to the idea that rigid definitions, practices, and power dynamics are inherently oppressive and unjust, it seems strange to me that the heavily Judeo-Christian value system that informs the goals of qualitative analysis isn’t questioned and/or defended, or at the very least, the irony implicit in its use somehow acknowledged.