The state of qualitative inquiry: A contested science

Abstract

Certainly for artists of all stripes, the unknown, the idea or the form or the tale that has not yet arrived, is what must be found. It is the job of artists to open doors and invite prophesies, the unknown, the unfamiliar; it's where their work comes from, although its arrival signals the beginning of the long disciplined process of making it their own. Scientists too, as J. Robert Oppenheimer once remarked, ‘live always at the “edge of mystery"—the boundary of the unknown.’ But they transform the unknown into the known, haul it in like fishermen; artists get you out in that dark sea. (Solnit, 2005, p. 5)

Notes

Guest Editors/Corresponding authors: Elizabeth Adams St.Pierre, PhD, Professor, Language & Literacy Education Department, The University of Georgia, 125 Aderhold Hall, Athens, GA 30602, USA. Email: [email protected]. Kathryn Roulston, PhD, Associate Professor, Qualitative Research Program, The University of Georgia, 324 Rivers Crossing, Athens, GA 30602, USA. Email: [email protected]