Praxis stories: Experiencing interpretive policy research

Abstract

This paper is a reflective and experiential piece on practising interpretive policy research — a meaning focus sed approach to studying politics. Much effort in recent years has gone into defining and defending interpretive methods against positivist approaches in political science. Yet surprisingly little is known about how researchers actually ‘interpret’ the political world, and what issues they face in practice. This paper follows the journey of an interpretive project and reflects on a series of methodological issues it posed. The discussion reveals that interpretive methods can be demanding on researchers: they needto immerse themselves in policy practice, engage iteratively, embrace uncertainty, and work with multiple interpretations. To encourage learning and improve the practice of interpretive research in political science, this paper calls on scholars to be more reflexive about what they do by sharing their research experiences.