What makes a great ethnography? Writing and the issue of quality in interpretive research.

Pfadenhauer, Michaela; Eisewicht, Paul

Abstract

In this chapter, we discuss the question of quality in interpretive social research. What makes great interpretive, and especially ethnographic, research is subject to an ongoing international debate on “quality criteria,” which we are critiquing because it seeks to codify rules for a genre of research that is essentially non-standardized—arguably one of its biggest strengths. We demonstrate the problem by examining several proposals for quality standards that have been made in the ongoing debate and conclude that even some recent suggestions not closely modeled on quantitative research are unsuitable. Moreover, using life-world analytic ethnography as an example, we argue that writing is key to understanding quality in interpretive research. Good interpretive writing must not only explicate the results of one's research but also make transparent that one's research practice adheres to principles guiding the broader interpretive paradigm as well as one's specific theoretical framing.