Doing Interpretive Research: Learning and Teaching Imagination in Social Research

Interpretivism has an intuitive appeal to many social researchers, but they often feel ill-equipped to do it. Other social researchers tend to believe that interpretivism is a specialized niche with little relevance to their research practice. What has been lost is the awareness that interpretation is an explanatory logic and form of inquiry that is at the root of all social science research, including quantitative research.

In this volume, the authors guide social researchers and instructors in better understanding and improving the experience of doing interpretive research. They explore the centrality of experience in learning and teaching interpretive research, paying special attention to the role of emotions in the learning process, and the way that negative emotions, such as doubt and anxiety, can impart learning.

The authors provide a novel approach to methods teaching by offering a set of heuristics, open-ended strategies of inquiry and discovery for improving the practice of social research. Uniquely, they demonstrate how emotions can be leveraged in the learning process to uncover surprising new insights about social reality and unlock researchers' imagination. They reveal how social researchers, engaged or interested in interpretivism in learning, can turn their research into an enjoyable, productive, and imaginative experience.

Koen P. R. Bartels, Associate Professor in Public Administration and Policy, Department of Public Administration and Policy, University of Birmingham,Hendrik Wagenaar, Fellow, Institute for Advanced Studies, Vienna, Austria and Adjunct Professor, Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance, University of Canberra

Koen Bartels is Associate Professor in the Department of Public Administration and Policy at the University of Birmingham. His interdisciplinary research on relationships between citizens and government spans across public policy, urban studies, and public administration. He is author of Communicative Capacity (The Policy Press, 2015) and editor of Action Research in Policy Analysis (Routledge, 2018). He is a leading international scholar in public encounters, social innovation, action research, and interpretive policy analysis.

Hendrik Wagenaar is fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Vienna, and adjunct professor at the Center for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance at the University of Canberra. He publishes in the areas of participatory democracy, interpretive/deliberative policy analysis, commons, and practice theory. He is author of Meaning in Action: Interpretation and Dialogue in Policy Analysis (Routledge, 2011), and editor of Deliberative Policy Analysis (Cambridge, 2003, with M. Hajer). His current research centres on practice theory, the commons, and economic democracy. His latest book (with B. Prainsack) is The Pandemic Within: Policy Making for a Better World (Policy Press, 2021).