Toward Methodological Emancipation in Applied Health Research

Bibliographic Data

ID4681376
AuthorsSally Thorne (0000-0002-1156-9425, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada,, corresponding author)
Year2011
Volume21
Issue4
Pages443-453
Publication date2011-04-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueQualitative Health Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1049-7323 • E-ISSN: 1552-7557
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1049732310392595
PMID21164035
OpenAlexW2123140484
LanguageEN
Citations received39
References cited47

In this article, I trace the historical groundings of what have become methodological conventions in the use of qualitative approaches to answer questions arising from the applied health disciplines and advocate an alternative logic more strategically grounded in the epistemological orientations of the professional health disciplines. I argue for an increasing emphasis on the modification of conventional qualitative approaches to the particular knowledge demands of the applied practice domain, challenging the merits of what may have become unwarranted attachment to theorizing. Reorienting our methodological toolkits toward the questions arising within an evidence-dominated policy agenda, I encourage my applied health disciplinary colleagues to make themselves useful to that larger project by illuminating that which quantitative research renders invisible, problematizing the assumptions on which it generates conclusions, and filling in the gaps in knowledge needed to make decisions on behalf of people and populations

Discipline · Emancipation · Engineering ethics · Epistemology · Political science · Politics · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Engineering · Health Policy Implementation Science · Law · Primary Care and Health Outcomes · Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

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