ABSTRACT
This chapter exemplifies how validity is being used to change the terms of the legitimation of knowledge beyond discrete methods and toward the social uses of the knowledge. In the contemporary moment, the crisis of legitimation occurring across knowledge systems is registered in a cacophony of post-positivism, non-foundationalism, kinds of realism and post-realism, warranted assertability, logics of inquiry, construct validity, carefully controlled inference, objectivism, situational validity, and Cronbachian insights regarding the decay of generalizations. As a result, discourse practices of validity in qualitative research exemplify a proliferation of available framings in terms of the legitimation of knowledge, particularly the power and political dimensions of the issue of demarcation. In the contemporary moment, the crisis of legitimation occurring across knowledge systems is registered in a cacophony of post-positivism, non-foundationalism, kinds of realism and post-realism, warranted assertability, logics of inquiry, construct validity, carefully controlled inference, objectivism, situational validity, and Cronbachian insights regarding the decay of generalizations.
