ABSTRACT
With the rise of qualitative inquiry as the dominant paradigm for research in the social sciences, everything about what we understand research to be has changed. In qualitative inquiry, we seek subjectivity over objectivity. We recognize research as a reflexive process. Researchers are embedded within a research context relationally, bodily, cognitively, and emotionally, which influences the conceptualization, processes, and outcomes of the research. Qualitative scholars embrace the complexity of context: meanings are particular, interactive, layered in time, dependent on perspective, and provisional. Research is not value free. Our actions as researchers are inherently political and contribute to the tenor of our world in small, and sometimes large ways.
