Voice in qualitative inquiry: Challenging conventional, interpretive, and critical conceptions in qualitative research

Voice in Qualitative Inquiry is a critical response to conventional, interpretive, and critical conceptions of voice in qualitative inquiry. A select group of contributors focus collectively on the question, "What does it mean to work the limits of voice?" from theoretical, methodological, and interpretative positions, and the result is an innovative challenge to traditional notions of voice.

The thought-provoking book will shift qualitative inquiry away from uproblematically engaging in practices and interpretations that limit what "counts" as voice and therefore data. The loss and betrayal of comfort and authority when qualitative researchers work the limits of voice will lead to new disruptions and irruptions in making meaning from data and, in turn, will add inventive and critical dialogue to the conversation about voice in qualitative inquiry. Toward this end, the book will specifically address the following objectives:

• To promote an examination of how voice functions to communicate in qualitative research
• To expose the excesses and instabilities of voice in qualitative research
• To present theoretical, methodological, and interpretative implications that result in a problematizing of voice
• To provide working examples of how qualitative methodologists are engaging the multiple layers of voice and meaning
• To deconstruct the epistemological limits of voice that circumscribe our view of the world and the ways in which we make meaning as researchers

This compelling collection will challenge those who conduct qualitative inquiry to think differently about how they collect, analyze, and represent meaning using the voices of others, as well as their own.

Lisa A. Mazzei, Ph.D. is Research Fellow

at Manchester Metropolitan University, UK

Alecia Youngblood Jackson, Ph.D.is Assistant Professor

at Appalachian State University, US

List of contributors

Patti Lather, The Ohio State University

Michael Marker, University of British Columbus

Erica McWilliam, Karen Dooley, Felicity McArdle and Jennifer Pei-Ling Tan, Queensland University of Technology

Roland Mitchell, Louisiana State University

Maggie MacLure, Manchester Metropolitan University

Linda Martín Alcoff, Syracuse University

Lubna Nazir Chaudhry, State University of New York

Becky M. Atkinson and Jerry Rosiek, University of Alabama and University of Oregon respectively

Bronwyn Davies, University of Western Sydney

Elizabeth Adams St. Pierre, University of Georgia