WP-43-2011: A generic conceptual model for conducting realist qualitative research: examples from migration studies

In this paper I propose a generic conceptual model for conducting qualitative research within the meta-theoretical premises of critical realism. I also make an effort to demonstrate the advantages of such a framework using examples from migration studies. Qualitative methods are predominately linked with meta-theoretical commitments related mainly to interpretivism, social constructionism, post-structuralism and post-modernism. Influenced by ‘cultural/linguistic turn’, qualitative research has followed a path towards discursive reductionism and relativism. I contend that this path circumscribes the inherent strengths of qualitative methods and limits their explanatory power. Recently however, there have been calls for other ‘turns’ which are more or less compatible with a critical realist alternative to strong social constructionism, post-structuralism and post-modernism – namely ontological, practice, complexity and materiality ‘turns’.

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