ABSTRACT
In the social sciences there is only interpretation. Nothing speaks for itself. Confronted with a mountain of impressions, documents, and fi eldnotes, the qualitative researcher faces the diffi cult and challenging task of making sense of what has been learned. I call making sense of what has been learned the art of interpretation. This is also described as moving from the fi eld, to the text, to the reader. The practice of this art allows the fi eldworker-as-bricoleur (Levi-Strauss l966 [l962]: l7) to translate what has been learned into a body of textual work that communicates these understandings to the reader.
