ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book discusses the differences and debates in qualitative and quantitative approaches and the epistemological issues involved in research methodologies in general. It focuses on research methods, and examines methods of conflict analysis and evaluation of development programmes. The book describes certain epistemological issues critical to the understanding of diversity in research methods in social sciences. It shows how conditions of governance under colonialism led to ethnography’s interest in other cultures. The book analyses the question of diversity in research, particularly in the discipline of economics. It explores theories of conflict analysis in social sciences, measuring development, and evaluation of public development programmes. The book provides different aspects of primary survey to collect information regarding socio-economic features of a group of individuals on which official sources of information either are insufficient or shed no light.
