Download QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

HUMAN AFFAIRS 22, 591–602, 2012
DOI: 10.2478/s13374-012-0047-7
QUALITATIVE RESEARCH AND SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE:
SOCIAL SCIENCE IN POST-TOTALITARIAN ACADEMIA
JURAJ PODOBA
Abstract:The paper presents a critical analysis of the current state of qualitative research approaches in
the social sciences and humanities within Slovak academic institutions. The author has been inspired by the
metaphor of academic “barbaricum”. This analytical category is based on a model of the relationship between
core and periphery, which has no clear function or organisational logic. From the scientific point of view, the
core/centre should produce and innovate the theory, whereas the periphery should apply it. In Slovakia—
contrary to the situation in Western academia—, the last two decades have seen a growth in the numbers of
academic institutions dealing with the humanities (and partly with the social sciences), and stagnation in
qualitative social research. The author suggests that if the Slovak social sciences aspire is to becoming part
of the so-called European academic space, then this will certainly not be possible without much stronger and
extensive support for social research based on qualitative approaches and methods.
Key words: qualitative research methods; social science; “academic barbaricum”
Introduction
Any social scientist that has already done qualitative social research in their academic
career is well aware that it is extremely demanding to grasp social reality from this
perspective. This is because we always face the dilemma of finding the right methodological
tools and the research techniques that are best suited to this purpose and that characterise
the sociocultural phenomena under investigation. Another dilemma is what kind of
epistemological outcomes and methodological conceptions should be chosen in order to
interpret the knowledge, information, and data gathered through qualitative research into
social reality. In fact, the more the researcher penetrates the surface of social reality, the more
she comes to realise how complex and ambiguous it is; in addition, it is difficult to gain an
understanding using the methodological tools and theoretical/methodological conceptions
provided by the social sciences.
Qualitative research in social sciences
As Jerome Kirk and Marc L. Miller (1986, 9) state “qualitative research is a particular
tradition in social sciences that fundamentally depends on watching people in their own
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territory and interacting with them in their own language, on their own terms. As identified
mainly with sociology, cultural anthropology and political science, qualitative research
has been seen to be “naturalistic”, “ethnographic” and “participatory.” However, Kirk and
Miller did not address the fact that, in relation to this tradition, the term “qualitative” has
led to a variety of misunderstandings. In the social sciences, quantitative research methods
and researchers have been predominant for a long time. There is no doubt that the particular
research approaches, methods and methodology as well as sources of data significantly
influence the nature of social science testimony on society, or rather on the communities under
investigation. Although nowadays the dividing lines between the particular disciplines within
the social sciences are fluid and have always been artificially constructed to a certain extent,
in terms of the empirical disciplines, it is perhaps most significant that they are primarily
divided along qualitative and quantitative lines, depending on the methods used. Social
scientists who use quantitative methods often have critical, belittling or even disapproving
opinions on qualitative methodology or on the researchers who use qualitative methods.
For instance, research based on qualitative methodology has been criticised for being soft,
subjective, political and speculative, etc. (Halfpenny 1979, 799). A number of quantitatively
oriented textbooks on social science methodology have presented qualitative research as
being a relatively second-rate methodology. Questions have been raised over the validity of
qualitative research, and, accusations of “anecdotalism” have been made in connection with
the reliability of explanations of qualitative research (see Silverman 2005, 21-23).
However, since the 1990s the putative reliability of quantitative research has come into
jeopardy (Silverman 2005, 14). The anthropologisation of the social sciences, and to some
extent the humanities, over the previous three decades is a reality; ethnography and other forms
of qualitative methods have moved from a marginal position towards occupying a much more
central place in many disciplines. Of course, in the case of social and cultural anthropology,
ethnography has always been predominant, but from the 1980s it has also obtained a strong
presence in sociology and social psychology, as well as in applied areas (Hammersley 1992,
11). Generally speaking, the underestimation or even rejection of qualitative methods in
social-scientific research is becoming a thing of the past; ethnographic research methods are
being increasingly used in various kinds of applied research, including business; for instance,
in marketing research, market surveys, consumer behaviour research etc.
Yet according to many social scientists, the status of ethnography in social science
methodology has been seen as ambivalent. On one hand, it has come to be widely accepted
as a legitimate approach to social research. Criticisms that it is unscientific, or at best can
only serve as a preliminary to the “real” (that is quantitative) work of social science, have
declined sharply in many quarters. Martyn Hammersley, citing many other authors, states
that this reflects a shift away from methodological conflict to one of détente, or at least
of peaceful coexistence among the different approaches to social research. On the other
hand, there has been criticism of ethnographic practice from new directions. One reason
for this is that the widespread acceptance of ethnography has led to a considerable internal
diversification of approach (Hammersley 1992, 1). As Hammersley points out (1992, 11-12),
the rationale for ethnography is based on a critique of quantitative research, notably that
involving surveys and experimental research. I am not going to produce an exhaustive list of
the criticism ethnographers have directed at quantitative research; I will refer to only some
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of that mentioned by Hammersley, particularly that which discusses the relationship between
scientific knowledge and social research:
• The structured nature of the data collection process involves the researcher imposing
assumptions about the social world and consequently reduces the chances of discovering
evidence that contradicts those assumptions.
• Making claims about what happens in “natural” settings on the basis of data produced in
settings that have been specially set up by the researcher—whether through experiment
or formal interview—is to engage in a largely implicit and highly questionable form of
generalisation.
• To rely on what people say about what they believe and do, without also observing what
they do, is to neglect the complex relationship between attitudes and behaviour; just
as to rely on observation without also talking with people in order to understand their
perspectives is to risk misinterpreting their action.
• Quantitative analysis reifies social phenomena by treating them as if they were defined
more clearly and distinctly than they are, and by neglecting the processes by which they
develop and change.
Polemic discussions among qualitatively and quantitatively oriented scientists are
naturally a legitimate part of a free and intellectually open academic life. Provided that
they reach an appropriate methodological, ethical as well as intellectual level, they can
undoubtedly contribute to further development of social-scientific research, its methodology
and the reliability of its results, and also to the development of the social sciences in general.1
I argue that the use of qualitative research methods has crucial consequences for the
character and quality of scientific knowledge.2 Over the last two decades at least, however,
the absence, or more precisely avoidance, of a debate on the relationship between quantitative
research and scientific knowledge in an open society without geographical, ideological or
political limits3 has proved to be a very topical problem in the Slovak academic environment,
where the situation that was typical of western social sciences four or five decades ago
1
Similarly, issues such as the differences between “emic” and “ethic” data collection and analysis
(see Barnard 1996, 180-182) or between “subjectivist” and “objectivist” approaches to research and
interpretations of social reality are creating polemic tensions in methodological discussions within
social sciences.
2
The aim of this article is not to underestimate quantitative approaches. The relevance of scientific
research outputs within the social sciences using quantitative methods is a different problem and is
beyond the scope of this text.
3
This, however, does not mean that there are no such limits in open liberal-democratic societies. In the
two decades following the collapse of the totalitarian regimes, it can be stated that the development
of the social sciences in the post-communist countries has been accompanied with the renaissance of
ideological and political approaches. Yet nowadays these limits and (old) new impulses are not directly
imposed by the totalitarian or authoritarian political power. The academic environment is shaped by the
fact that social scientists are corrupted by the ruling political establishment or interest groups and by the
attempts of the scientists themselves to ideologise and politicise the social sciences and the humanities
(which abated during the gradual loosening and subsequent collapse of the communist parties’ control
over the academic institutions) and by less visible methods, metaphorically labelled by Pavel Kolář as
“Kleió’s inconspicuous shackles”. Naturally, one should remind oneself that the differences between
the individual social-scientific disciplines and between the post-socialist countries are significant.
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prevails: the dominance of quantitative approaches. Thus, the change in the perceived position
of qualitative methods mentioned earlier has limited validity in this particular context. The
weak emphasis on qualitative research in the Slovak academic context therefore urges the
question of how relevant the knowledge of the society mediated by the social sciences is,
and what benefit the published scientific outputs might have for scientific knowledge, theory
and methodology in general. It seems that this question is not of much interest: the various
accreditation and evaluation mechanisms, through which the universities and scientific
(research) institutions are put under increasing scrutiny, clearly have a different agenda.
Social sciences and humanities in post-totalitarian context
The social sciences in the post-communist countries can be described using a number
of metaphors. For instance, they can be compared to a train consisting of three parts. In the
front part of the train there are the followers of a more radical epistemology, in the back sit
the traditionalists who wish to see the early departure of new theories, whilst the passengers
who are interested in the new trends but are not sure how far they are going to travel are in
the middle. This metaphor could certainly be applied to western social sciences as well.
The main difference, however, is found in the fact that the transportation conditions in the
East are substantially worse (Kolář 2004, 224). This certainly proves to be productive when
discussing the current position of qualitative methods in social-scientific research in Slovakia
at the beginning of the 21st century.4 Although it might not appear to be so unanimous, the
undisputed differences between the individual social-scientific disciplines may perhaps be
seen more in terms of several trains moving in parallel in the same direction and under the
same transportation conditions, but certainly not at the same speed and the passengers are
more precisely divided up into groups and compartments.5 However, from the perspective of
the qualitative methods used, dividing up the post-normalisation social-scientific passengers
into followers of radical epistemology at one end of the spectrum and traditionalists at
the other does not completely fit. In fact, attitudes towards qualitative methods is not a
In this article, my intention is to name the problems stemming from the dominant, prevailing
trends and conditions. I also believe that it is not necessary to repeatedly emphasise the existence
of differences among the individual disciplines. Each scientific generation, even when academia
was controlled by the totalitarian regime, contains individuals whose professional activities and
epistemological as well as human attitudes were not in line with the behaviour of the academic
mainstream at that time. In this case the exception proves the rule. Currently, the differences are most
obvious in the increasing number of “radical epistemology followers,” who have limited opportunities
to penalise those academics who are reluctant to “stay in line” with the post-totalitarian mainstream
and their marginalisation within the academic environment in softer ways than was the case even in
the recent past. During the last decade at least, even in the Slovak academic environment of the social
sciences (again, in some sub-disciplines) there are certain indications that schools of science are being
created and that attempts are being made to institutionalise alternatives to the prevailing mainstream,
which is or should be (or wants to be) fully compatible with European academia or even aspires to
belong to the academic avant-garde. However, these methodological trends and behavioural models
remain marginal. The same applies to the qualitative research methods used.
5
Pavel Kolář in fact uses this metaphor to give an example of “Eastern European historiography,” i.e.
one discipline only.
4
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key methodological issue which could be used to clearly categorise particular scholars
into the groups that Kolář highlighted in his metaphor. The reason for this is that in using
qualitative methods several groups of “passengers” merge with each other, and this is
true whether we follow the metaphor of one train divided into three parts or several trains
travelling at different speeds with a greater variety of passengers. The interconnection
between innovative and rigid epistemology relates more to the way in which the qualitative
research is conducted. And, of course, part of the social sciences and humanities deliberately
does not use qualitative methods. Furthermore, some (authoritarian) representatives of
epistemological and methodological inflexibility still operate according to the principles
of positivist science of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when qualitative methods
or, more precisely, certain uses, were considered to be unavoidably commonplace.6 The
issue of the use of qualitative research methods and their predominantly marginal position
within scientific research in Slovakia is certainly connected with the societal position of the
social sciences and humanities following the fall of the totalitarian regimes and the changes
occurring within the profession and disciplines. It relates to how the social sciences were
being formed, transformed or untransformed institutionally, methodologically or thematically
during the period after the Velvet Revolution.
The explanation behind this phenomenon is undoubtedly the key to understanding the
current position qualitative methods have in social-scientific research in Slovakia. Analysing
it, however, goes far beyond this article. I personally believe that the objective analysis of
this phenomenon does not lie in the hands of one author alone. It may simply be achieved by
the systematic work of a methodically and methodologically coordinated multidisciplinary
research team.
The last two decades have seen a growth in the number of academic institutions
specialising in the humanities. If we consider the number of universities and scientific
research institutions, the post-1920s academic infrastructure, the number of published
scientific journals and proceedings of papers, and the number of professional scholars
working in the broader field of social sciences and humanities, Slovakia should be one of
the “social-scientific powers.” However, a critical qualitative analysis of scientific research
findings and scientific outputs of a number of academic institutions with a social-scientific
orientation indicates otherwise.
Evidently, this statement is rooted in the broader political and social context of qualitative
research, mainly in society’s interest in “knowledge of oneself.” To be more accurate, it
stems from the interest of the (political, economic, cultural) elites in identifying social
problems and searching for scientifically justified tools that might resolve them. In a broader
academic context (related to this society-wide (dis)interest), it is the inertia of interpretative
From the perspective of the relationship between qualitative research and scientific knowledge, as
indicated in the title of this article, it is not only the use of qualitative methods as such that is important;
the way they are used is equally important. A classic qualitative method of empirical data gathering,
i.e. ethnographic field research, is an example of a different use of one method. As far as the quality
and depth of scientific knowledge are concerned, it is important to ascertain whether the method
involves an ethnographic report or ethnographic trip, in the tradition of Central and Eastern European
ethnography (národopis in Slovak) connected with so-called salvage research, or long-term field work
based on participant observation.
6
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schemes, which “free of ideological rhetoric (from the totalitarian period) survived political
turbulences and also found a cosy home in the new conditions” (Kolář 2004, 230). As
suggested earlier, this generally valid statement by Kolář has or can have very specific
formulations within particular social-scientific disciplines, depending on the non-identical
character of their interpretational schemes as well as on the differing levels of inertia.
Fundamental political and social change in support of institutional change and enabling
the elimination of ideological dictates, and an increasing number of academic positions
should theoretically lead to intellectual diversity, a growing methodological openness,
dynamism in methodological development and to a methodological plurality, as well as to the
decentralisation of research and education. However, there are also trends that have a negative
impact. The continual underfunding of science and research logically hinders significantly
greater use of qualitative research methods, mainly in relation to more expensive research
projects that require long-term and repeated field work, the regular use of a higher number
of focus groups, building up research laboratories and field research stations, networking of
researchers on a multidisciplinary basis going beyond rigid institutional infrastructure etc.
The negative impact of the chronic underfunding of scientific research is exacerbated by the
nature of grant schemes and the evaluation of scientific production of individual scholars as
well as academic institutions.
As has often been stated in discussions on the development of the social sciences after
the fall of the iron curtain, Marxism-Leninism may have been the only methodological
approach allowed in the social sciences and humanities, but with some exceptions it was false
Marxism, where some classic authors were simply cited pro forma. This thin ideological veil
in fact hid mere empirical description, based on obsolete methodological concepts and was in
sharp contrast with the Marxism applied in the context of the scientific research freedom and
independence found in western universities (see for example Hann, Sárkány, Skalník 2005,
Kolář 2004, and others).
For many disciplines in several post-communist countries, the collapse of MarxismLeninism did not mean the end of ideology; it was simply replaced by a new ideology
– mostly nationalism, but not exclusively.7 However, in general, there is still a plurality
of theories and methods, or even a methodological openness enabled by the absence of
“grandes théories” and their guarantors in an academic social field of the post-socialist
countries—those with natural authority in the academic environment. De-ideologisation and
the unexpectedly gained freedom in research and thinking in disciplines, where free thinking
and individual action had been considered strange throughout the whole 20th century, have
proved to be a problem in many academic communities. As Pavel Kolář states (2004, 226)
“as a result of the fall of the old ideological structures there was a real need for a new
orientation in theory and methodology, and the need to extricate it from the “ideological
vacuum” emerged.” A return to the factual, atheoretical humanities and to a philosophically
7
In the context of the newly gained freedom there was only a modernising of older concepts from the
19th century whose golden age was the environment created by so-called socialist science. For instance,
during the political changes, ethnographic romanticism idealising countrymen (peasants, highlanders)
was in the context of so-called urban ethnology transformed into “urban romanticism”. Popular
throughout the 1990s, it survives successfully even nowadays.
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naïve search for an objective scientific “truth” seems to be the most common reaction to this
state. The palpable fear of an ideological vacuum is accompanied by an opposition to theory
that is sometimes hidden and sometimes very openly demonstrated and often by a new wave
of instrumentation of the social sciences and humanities. However, this is a consequence of
new forms of ideologisation; the fear that theory is inevitably accompanied by a desire for
ideologies (see ibid., 226-228).
The fear of theory and (alleged) repeated attachment to positivistic description should
therefore lead, through a serious interest in the empirical, to the development and expansion
of qualitative research methods. This is, however, a naïve preconception. Generally speaking,
the resistance to theories is at the same time accompanied by resignation over in-depth
qualitative research. We should not forget the broader epistemological context that existed
when the directive model of political leadership in academic institutions came to an end
in the East. The late 1980s and the first half of the 1990s saw the culmination of so-called
post-modernism in the social sciences, arts and humanities, which while successful, has
yet to come to an end. Its ascendancy, at least in anthropology, has been accompanied by
resignation over the appropriateness and objectivity of scientific research, over the resistance
to theories and their replacement with shallowness, research subjectivism, essay and fiction.
Post-modern approaches has also been popular among some social scientists in the postsocialist countries and this has led not only to resistance towards scientific theory and a
resigned acceptance of the principles regulating qualitative research, but in some cases also
to a change in the character of these “contaminated” disciplines. This has been the trend in
the last two decades, which in the case of Slovak post-ethnography I have labelled as “escape
from ethnology” or “resignation over ethnology” (see Podoba 2003, 2007a, 2007b). In this
context it is important to note that the evaluating mechanisms and grant schemes used in
Slovak academic institutions have accepted this fact and have guaranteed it institutionally.
As is generally known, in the traditionalist totalitarian and authoritarian political
and social systems, the social sciences were eliminated, and their softer versions were
only tolerated somewhere at the edge of academic life. The situation in Slovak academic
institutions during the period of real socialism was not much different. The so-called
social sciences constituted the disciplines which are known in the Anglo-Saxon academic
environment as “the arts and humanities.” 8 “The social sciences”, mainly qualitative
sociology, social anthropology and social psychology were represented only by a few
individuals surviving in the regime-tolerated disciplines (i.e. Marxist-Leninist sociology,
ethnography and psychology). The main task of the day in the aftermath of the political
changes at the end of the 1980s and beginning of the 1990s should have been the attempt to
introduce these three key qualitative social sciences into the Slovak academic institutional
context as well. Institutional support for qualitative social research would consequently have
been inevitable. Looking back over the last two decades it can be stated that the situation has
been more or less the opposite. 9
Psychology was an exception.
Psychology seems to be an exception again. The last two decades are connected with the
implementation of qualitative research methods. Being an outsider I do not dare to estimate how
successful it has been.
8
9
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Qualitative social research in an “academic barbaricum”
As Marc Bloch pinpointed, the number and variety of historic testimonies is almost
infinite. Everything a person says or writes, everything he or she produces or touches can
and must provide a testimony about him/herself (Bloch 2011, 71). This is supposedly true
for the historical sciences working with a limited number of historical documents and
focusing on historical events which will never be repeated again in the same way. Yet from
the perspective of the social sciences, which focus on contemporary life, the social reality
under study is practically impossible to grasp. Therefore, the question as to “what to study”
and “how to study it” must always be part of the theoretical-methodological discussion and
“an apple of discord” among social scientists. There is also a methodological dimension to
the problem of “scientific truth” as well as to the position of those scientists in the academic
social space who dub themselves the lifelong guardians of a single scientific truth.
Pierre Bourdieu speaks of three approaches to the perception of social reality: that of
the native, the interested traveller, and the anthropologist who carries out the fieldwork
(Bourdieu 1977). Naturally, the anthropologist may become interested in the traveller’s
perspective (at least during the initial fieldwork phase) and his interest in the native’s point
of view is obviously part of his ethnographic research. The anthropological perception of
the social reality and particularly its interpretation is completely different from the two
previous ones. More precisely, they should be different, provided that the anthropologist is a
knowledgeable social scientist.
The current analysis of abilities to record, understand and follow the interpretation
of the social reality of post-socialist social-scientific research suggests that the third
perspective is extremely rare in the Slovak social-scientific context. The little qualitative
research conducted within the social sciences and within this the poor showing of longterm ethnographic research, marginalises even the first two standpoints, which are more
like memoirs and journalism/essay writing. The problem is that only a small percentage of
the social scientists working in academia take Bourdieu’s stance into consideration. In the
context of the current discussion on qualitative methods, the following question arises: what
does the scientific knowledge (of social reality) look like from this point of view in social
sciences in Slovakia?
The answer is undoubtedly complicated. The purpose of this essay is not to provide a
comprehensive and balanced analysis, which would require much more space and time,
but rather to reflect on the current state of the social sciences, which may lead to further
discussions. I could write at length on the way in which these disciplines represent their
subject of investigation—the individual and society—in scientific texts and how it is
represented in public discourse, in relation to basic research, which is in fact the application
of the prevailing methodology and methods. This is partly a reflection on how the academic
community operates within the social sciences and humanities. However, I will not analyse
this issue in detail as it extends far beyond this text. In my opinion, there is not one but
several answers. The difference in the way the subject is presented is caused by:
• Differences between the disciplines and between the various social sciences, of both an
institutional and epistemological origin.
• Differences in applying methodologies and methods, relating to the extent to which
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particular disciplines have been ideologised, to questions concerning the morals of
academic life and scientific research ethics etc.
• The clear fact that several disciplines within the “arts and humanities” do not show any
interest in having knowledge of social reality (for various reasons).
The explanation is found in the evaluation mechanisms and goals and criteria of the
assessment of scientific work mentioned already, which seem to be a general problem
in academia, not only in Slovakia. In the following sections I will briefly touch on the
methodological dimension of this problem. When analysing the issue of the qualitative
methods used in contemporary social-scientific research, the metaphor of “barbaricum,”
is inspiring. It was used by Jozef Bátora and Nik Hynek (2009) in their analysis of the
academic institutions dealing with international relations in Slovakia. The analytical category
of “barbaricum” is based on a model of the relationship between centre and periphery.
Barbaricum has no clear function or organisational logic. From the scientific point of view,
the centre should produce and innovate theory, whereas the periphery should apply it.
However, they believe that research conducted within Slovak academic institutions (dealing
with international relations) has neither consistently produced any new theories, nor applied
the theories produced in the centres of academic life.
In describing international relations research in Slovakia, the authors used the metaphor
of “Potemkin villages”. In analysing the “post-November 1989” situation regarding
qualitative research in Slovakia, I prefer to use the metaphor of “rebuilding the façades.” The
disciplines and institutions adjusted extrinsically to the European/world model, changing the
names of disciplines and institutions and sprouting new ones. Taking further the analysis
by Bátora and Hynek on the productiveness of the epistemological and methodological
tension at the border of notions such as centre-periphery-barbaricum, I suggest that the boom
in social science institutions during the transformation period did not generally lead to a
higher quality of scientific research and its outputs. As far as the use of qualitative methods
is concerned, the number of studies applying these methods certainly does not exceed the
number from twenty years ago, when the institutions were much more modestly equipped.
On the contrary, the trend is heading in the other direction. Of course, one could find several
examples contradicting this statement. However, such exceptions have always existed (see
footnote 4 in particular) and do not question the validity of these statements.
Assessing the quality of scientific outputs seems to be more complicated, as a gulf
is opening up in the quality of scientific research in the social sciences and humanities.
Methodological freedom and the fact that many Slovak scientists work abroad has had a
positive impact on the quality of the methodology of some scientific publications from the
past. The main trend is, however, different. I suggest that the quantity and the quality of longterm qualitative research is on the decrease, as is the quality of scientific outputs based on
what is alleged to be qualitative methodology. Interestingly enough, this phenomenon also
occurs within disciplines which have “historically” leaned towards qualitative approaches
or ethnography, even in the form of resignation over qualitative research. I propose to
label this the paradox of qualitative disciplines. The discipline I work in is a good
example: the rebuilding of the façades led to the discipline being renamed as “ethnology”
or “anthropology” instead of ethnography (národopis). At the same time, this process has
been accompanied with a feeling of “resignation over ethnology”—although this is certainly
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not the case for every scholar working in institutions with this name10 (see Podoba 2003,
2007). From the perspective of qualitative research methods and methodology discussed in
this paper, this means resignation towards long-term field work, a breach of fundamental
principles and rules of field research or of a general canonisation of the standards, principles
and rules relating to qualitative research, including a grateful use of the “oral history of one’s
own life.” Thus, the analytical standpoint presented by Bátora and Hynek undoubtedly also
applies here.
I further argue that there is a conflict between the (declared) theory and methodology/
method. This conflict is represented by the “Potemkin villages” or façade rebuilding
metaphor, often manifested for example in conference presentations and scientific
publications through the citing of numerous popular paradigmatic authors from the
qualitative social sciences (depending on who is currently in fashion: regardless of whether
it is Claude Lévy-Strauss, Clifford Geertz, Pierre Bourdieu or Dan Sperber, or a popular
feminist author or somebody else). However, the fashion followers and those that favour
popular citations from the academic barbaricum casually ignore the fact that experts in the
social sciences have built up their scientific work on the basis of the life-long qualitative
research they themselves have conducted, or that carried out by their colleagues, students
and followers. At the declarative level, it would appear that the dominant theories are taking
over, that the scientific opinions and epistemological attitudes (currently in fashion) of
paradigmatic Western authors are manifest. At the methodological level, stagnation and
disinterest in qualitative research prevail. 11
Roman Holec points out that “societal expectations and financial flows push historians
into projects with bombastic names, solving fundamental milestones and processes, key
issues, crucial events, focusing on the most important figures, but in fact they are simply
presenting old products as something new. Historians accept this game as it is easy and
enables them to “survive” (see Holec, s. a. 4). The situation in the social sciences is similar,
if not identical.
As Martin Kanovský (2011, 7) has recently stated “monographs based on precise
ethnographic material are an eccentric exception in our environment. Long-term field work,
which is the only basis for these monographs—in comparison to field trips which take a
few days or several weeks—, is the exception.” There are also other reasons for this: the
enormous pressure on the quantitative production of scientific outputs leads to the fact
that many researchers, often against their own will, are forced to publish a large number
of articles presenting only partial results, and that are published mainly in the proceedings
of papers. The plague of proceedings and state-of-the-art papers published quickly in local
10
Young academics who completed their theses during the last decade, some of whom have had the
opportunity of working at prestigious foreign universities or have even managed to obtain their degrees
there, should be looked at differently. The gulf in quality amongst younger researchers is even greater
than that experienced by older scientists.
11
Evidently, this is part of habitus recycling, a characteristic feature of academic life in recent decades.
This is more or less a new version of the phenomenon of alleged or false Marxism, which resulted in
the absence of Marxism and Marxists in an academic environment where Marxism-Leninism was the
only methodology officially allowed and obsolete epistemology and methodology were preserved in the
long term.
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journals, which hardly differ from the preliminary research reports in terms of their quality,
have practically ended the tradition of ethnographic monographs.” Similarly, Miroslav
Michela warns that the constant pressure to increase production quantity may mean that the
number of publications increasing symbolic capital is more of an end in itself and will not
contribute to the academic debate. In Slovakia, just like in its neighbouring post-communist
countries, the way that science is managed and assessed is leading to an “overproduction
of unfinished pieces of work,” as a Czech colleague described this state to Michela in a
discussion. In Slovakia there is a link between this and plagiarism, as well as to the continual
recycling of facts and arguments that have already been repeatedly published and publicly
presented (Michela 2011, 636).
Concluding remarks
As suggested in the introductory section of this article, the increasing acceptance of
qualitative research methodology also produces new questions and problems as well as
new polemics among groups of researchers with different opinions. This is mainly the case
with “quantitatively” and “qualitatively” oriented scientists, but is more often found inside
the community of social scientists that prefers qualitative methodology. In spite of these
polemics, I believe that if the Slovak social sciences wish to be ambitiously incorporated into
the so-called European academic space, this will certainly not be possible without far greater
and strong-willed support for social research based on qualitative approaches and methods. 12
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Institute of Ethnology SAV
Klemensova 19,
81364 Bratislava,
Slovakia
E-mail: [email protected]
Faculty of Social and Economic Sciences,
Comenius University,
Mlynské Luhy 4,
Bratislava,
Slovakia
E-mail: [email protected]
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