Situating Grounded Theory and Situational Analysis in Interpretive Qualitative Inquiry

This chapter engages the common question, ‘How do grounded theory and situational analysis fit into the contemporary research methods scene?’ ¹ Reviewing the development of qualitative inquiry since World War II, this chapter first details the modernist phase c1950–1970 including the 1960s constructionist turn. Created in 1967, grounded theory constituted the first “manifesto” in the long qualitative renaissance, posing many challenges to positivist orthodoxies. I next elaborate the era of ‘turns’ in qualitative inquiry c1970–2000, including narrative, postmodern, poststructural, etc., along with feminist, critical and other critiques integral to the interpretive turn. The Handbook of Qualitative Inquiry was another manifesto in the long qualitative renaissance, highlighting the uneven reception of the poststructural/interpretive turn in qualitative inquiry. All these developments led to the tremendous growth of qualitative methods as transdisciplinary, the wide array of approaches practiced today, and their increasing transnationalization. ²