ABSTRACT
A rather large group of individuals has taken a set of methods, devised an alternative paradigm/model/metaphysics for looking at the world, primarily utilizing those selfsame methods; set about building new methods and fleshing out the repertoire; constantly adapted to changing social contexts (such as the advent of the Internet and the Web); integrated all of the best late 20th-century thinking about representation, texts, and Western authority; moved quite deliberately to make space for the margin(s) at the center(s); criticized ourselves incessantly in the interests of dealing with the field’s problems, its issues, and its relationships with those whom we would study; built designs to encourage democratic practice and agency out in the fields; systematically thought through major answers to the questions that frame scientific inquiry (Lather, 2006); and set about healing the Enlightenment rift between art and science, between mind and body, between reason and spirituality, between logic and emotion, and between technical rationality and human invention. It is a rather great sweep of events, this past 25 years, and as I’ve tried to demonstrate, it is not over yet.
