How Can Critique of Critique Create Possibilities for Critical Qualitative Inquiry?

Introduction

This commentary is based on a presentation given at the annual meeting of the Coalition for Critical Qualitative Research at the 19th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry. The focus of the presentation was to address the theme: “What are your conceptualisations of reactions to critique of critiques, and possibilities for, critical qualitative inquiry?” The aim was to prompt the participants to critically reflect on the idea of critique, and critiques of such critique.

The vehicle for the discussion was the dialogue between 2 scholars about a report of research designed to address critiques related to ongoing inequalities in an underserved community. We use this dialogue to illustrate the importance of asking reflexive and unsettling questions about our own critique, and the actions we take because of that critique.

Reflecting on and addressing these types of deliberately unsettling questions enables us to reflexively scrutinize otherwise (and often) taken-for-granted practices we might enact when attempting to address such critiques—such as the research we do or the way we think about what the problem is.

The Example: Two Scholars Struggling With What the Problem Really Is

The presentation began by asking participants to consider the following dialogue that occurred between two scholars related to the comments from reviewers about a paper submitted to a journal for peer review.

Scholar 1 “I am really torn with this one. To be honest, . . . I don’t think the comments provided by reviewers will be enough to improve the paper . . . for instance, it doesn’t seem that the reviewers’ picked up on some important issues. For example, issues such as is this actually an example of trying to make people from these communities ‘fit’ into programs, services, scales, and tools that these researchers think might be good for them? I wish the researchers were a little ‘bolder’ when writing their conclusion and acknowledged that another way to view this study and its results is that using these scales and tools may not be appropriate after all. I think it should have been possible to argue that researchers (and the healthcare system more broadly) should engage with these communities in a way that promotes epistemic justice . . . Overall, I think the methods section could benefit from a more in-depth paragraph/note of reflexivity. I also think that the theoretical underpinnings should be described. I am under the impression that the authors inadvertently or otherwise, drew from a post-positivist approach as it seems that they did this work because they had difficulties using post-positivist instruments to measure [concept of interest] ¹ in previous research with [group of participants from this community]. Therefore, for the researchers the problem was how to get the community to participate in, and embrace tools and concepts designed by others, based on the researchers’ assumption that by doing so the health status of that community could be improved.”

The manuscript scholars 1 and 2 are referring to is a report of research that sought to explore the perspective of an underserved community about how to increase the uptake, and acceptability, of a specific measurement tool in that community. This tool was related to a particular health-related concept that had been shown to impact positively on individuals’ health and well-being. The tool in question was developed in a Western context, and the researchers had attempted to use it in a non-Western community but were met with some resistance. Therefore, the community was invited to participate in this research and was encouraged to input into ways that the measurement tool, and the concept itself, could be made more acceptable to the community, and thereby reduce inequities faced by people in this community.

It was clear from the way the research study was written that the authors/researchers ultimately wanted to ensure that the healthcare system acts with integrity and equity toward participants in this community. The research was attempting to address critiques that the health care system is not always inclusive, nor acting with integrity and equity, towards this community. However, it could be argued, that using such research to address these critiques (e.g., critiques such as not always being inclusive) could, unintentionally, perpetuate such inequities through epistemic injustice.

For example, the researchers “took” the information from the community (i.e., qualitative data), but failed to engage in reciprocity in this researcher-researched relationship. Despite learning that the concept of interest (and therefore the tool designed to measure it) made little sense to the community, the authors did not seem to consider that this might be the problem in this context. Rather the problem was to learn from the community how to increase the acceptance and uptake of both the concept, and thereby the use of the tool to measure it, in that context. As Scholar 2 noted, such certainty (in this case the usefulness of the tool and the need to increase its uptake) can be the problem itself—“the initial premises to which critical is attached.”

The findings and the conclusions that followed would have been different if the authors had taken the opportunity to re-consider the assumptions that they carry with them when enacting the research process. Assumptions such as what the problem is and how to solve it. Promoting such reflexive thinking through problem-questioning rather than problem-solving invites us to be creative and imagine potential alternatives (Bacchi, 2012a, p. 23). As Bacchi (2009, p. 2) has pointed out, such thinking about what the problem is represented to be (WPR) ² is an analytical tool to probe assumptions about what the problem is, which are rarely examined. These assumptions matter as “what one proposes to do about something reveals what one thinks is problematic (needs to change)” (Bacchi, 2009 p. 263, 2012b). The WPR approach forces researchers to consider what particular representations of what the problem is, omit.

For example, what knowledges are ignored or relegated to the margins—such as knowledges about the inappropriateness of a concept itself? Or what voices are still marginalized as even if they are being heard, is it only according to the researchers’ scripts? Scripts such as how to solve the problem of how a measurement tool could be made more acceptable to the community, premised on the certainty that by doing so, inequities faced by people in this community would be reduced.

Critique Becomes Possibility

Promoting such reflexive thinking through problem-questioning rather than problem-solving invites us to be creative and imagine potential alternatives to what questions we ask, critiques we make and “solutions” we propose (Bacchi, 2012a, p. 23). As Maclure points out: “perhaps it is a matter of learning to ask better questions: learning how to tap into the problematic structure of events, so we can be less guided by what we already think we know is important” (2017, p. 56).

The idea of learning to ask better questions and being less guided by what we already think we know causes us to reflect that maybe we need to look more at ourselves and the critiques we make and in so doing introduce uncertainty and slippage into our thinking about them. This is an uncertainty and slippage both about existing critique and actions taken about, and premised on, that critique. Thinking this way, we can view such slippage as “a productive act, one that creates movement and vibrations with new possibilities for becoming differently” (Guyotte & Kuntz, 2018, p. 256). Such slippage can create possibilities for expanding the connections of, and assumptions about habituated ways of being and knowing (including the critiques we make and the way we think about acting on those critiques), embracing discomfort, becoming more fluid than fixed, allowing researchers to shift paradigms, resisting simplistic considerations, and becoming more open than determined (see Guyotte & Kuntz, 2018).

Therefore, it seems plausible to consider that in the example this discussion draws on, employing slippage could have enabled the researchers to shift their perceptions about the tool. In turn, this could have enabled them to take their research and the contributions that followed to a different place—a place in which the inquiry works for social justice, discarding/refusing concepts and tools that do not align with the ways of being and knowing of the community researched. As Gilbert and Pasque point out:

(b)eing a culturally responsive researcher means questioning assumptions of knowing, being, and understanding truth. …Dig deeply into understanding being in partnership. Recognize and honor that co-researchers, especially those in minoritized populations, tend not to be centered…Constantly question: what/who has the power? at every point (Gilbert & Pasque, 2022, p. 98–99).

In the example highlighted here, reflecting on who has the power could have pushed the authors to conduct research “led by” or “done with,” the community of interest, rather than conducting research “in the community of interest” (i.e., the researchers giving power away at best, or sharing power at the least). The process through which giving power away and/or sharing power occurs could be a focus of (critical) inquiry in and of itself. In this way, thinking with slippage and culturally responsive lenses prompts us to imagine a shift where the non-dominant culture is placed at the center, doing justice to its significance and exploring creative ways to take non-Western ways of being and knowing to mainstream Western healthcare settings.

Uncertainty Becomes Creativity

The dialogue between the two scholars reflects their ambivalence, and uncertainty and unease when trying to decide about the merits of the research being reviewed. Scholar 1 described this as being torn. However, this lack of certainty is not necessarily a bad/negative thing. For St Pierre reminds us:

It is in the experimental moment of not knowing what to do next because we are not driven by method and methodology that we might push through the grooves of the given and the self-evident toward the new and different in our work and lives (2015, p. 92).

Such grooves of the given include the initial premises on to which critical is attached. This includes the assumptions we make about what the problem is, how and why some subjects are problematized while others are not—assumptions which themselves may be what the problem is. These assumptions matter for as we pointed out previously “what one proposes to do about something reveals what one thinks is problematic (needs to change)” (Bacchi, 2009, p. 263, 2012b).

The idea of being stuck in the grooves of the given may go some way to understanding why so much of our critique seems to wend back to the status quo in some form or other. The result being the production of a “critical” form of stable conservatism (Foster et al., 2015, p. 900) reflected in the way that what the problem is, and how to address it, is presented. For example, the problem is to increase uptake of the tool in the community to reduce social and health inequalities, rather than the problem being that tools might not be the way to go about achieving the desired goal of social justice and equity in health outcomes in this community. This maintains the status quo in terms of the use of tools, and what types of tools.

The Importance of Learning to Ask Better Questions of Our Critique/Discussion

Inspired by Foucault (1988), in this commentary, we have sought to employ a spirit of critique in which we deliberately seek “to destabilize aspects of the present that we find ourselves in, to challenge what otherwise might become the obvious, the ordinary, the normal and taken for granted, and the seemingly inevitable” (Cheek, 2008, p. 981). This includes critique of critique giving rise to the possibility of normalizing strategies such as participation or consultation in order to enhance the uptake of predetermined strategies or tools. Or giving rise to a stabilization of what the problem actually is. As Bacchi reminds us, “in effect governing takes place through problematizations, emphasizing the importance of subjecting them to critical scrutiny and pointing to the possible deleterious effects they set in operation” (Bacchi, 2012b, p. 7). Within this context, Bacchi prompts us to consider who is likely to be harmed and who is likely to benefit from the problem representation in question, what is likely to stay the same and what is likely to change as a consequence of the way in which the problem has been represented, as well as to whom the responsibility is attributed to and who is to “blame.” Hence to critique our critique, we need to shift the focus of our questions and problematize the questions we ask in the first place.

Ending Our Commentary But Just Beginning the Discussion

We end this small commentary, but at the same time open up a much larger discussion, by reminding ourselves of the importance of viewing and re-viewing “mainstream research practices as generally, although often unwittingly, implicated in the reproduction of systems of class, race, and gender oppression” (Kincheloe & McLaren, 2011, p. 300). Consequently, we need to keep critique of the critique (including our own) to the fore lest, with the best intentions, we become part of the problem.