Textual genres and the question of representation

For over thirty years qualitative research has proliferated and flourished. During the past ten years there have been a number of attempts to characterize and defend the nature of the field and the various paradigms within it (for example, Atkinson and Delamont, 2006; St Pierre and Roulston, 2006; Cairns, 2010). In this chapter I take the approach that the strength of the field of qualitative research is that it is based on 'difference'. A proliferation of methods of data collection and analysis has generated ongoing and rigorous debate. The debates concern the relationship between the subjects of our investigations- the people, including ourselves, whose lives we investigate - and the ways that we undertake the investigations. This includes an essential relationship to the means through which we represent the knowledge produced through our research in public and scholarly dissemination.