Knowledge generation and qualitative research methods: perspectives in the context of development socioanthropology

RODRÍGUEZ BILELLA, PABLO

Federico Caffè Centre Research Reports

Roskilde University

Lugar: Roskilde, Dinamarca; Año: 2006 vol. 2 p. 1 - 21

1396-5085

The study of policy processes has been a field of study which has become increasingly important over the last 20 years in the social sciences. The core notion of ‘policy process’ is that polices are formulated and implemented in concrete social and historical contexts, and that these contexts matter (Mooij and Vos 2003: v). ‘Policy process’ is in contrast to ‘policy as prescription’, which assumes that policies are the result of a rational process of problem identification by an external agent (usually the government or the State) which already knows what is best for its citizens (Mackintosh 1992). While different disciplines have been interested in the study of these processes, in this paper I will pay particular attention to approaches that can be situated in the context of the socio-anthropology of development. This expression is used in order to underline the convergence between anthropology and a certain type of sociology inherited from the Chicago School, often described as "qualitative". A central premise of this approach is that the complex interaction between actors’ ‘projects’ and practices, their intended and unintended outcomes, create both the constraining and enabling framework of social action (Long 2001: 4). Beyond this introduction, the paper is organized in four sections. The first one introduces the topic of policy processes, mainly from the point of view of political science. The second section illustrates different approaches of the socio-anthropology of development, paying particular attention to a broad perspective that can be called methodological interactionism. Within this approach I will situate different research styles or perspectives that I consider helpful for the study of development interventions for poverty alleviation. As qualitative methods have an important place in all these approaches, in the third section I will briefly state the important role that qualitative analysis can have in policy research. The fourth section closes the paper with a brief overview of the advantages of the complementarity of quantitative and qualitative research.