What Is (Your) Methodology? Making Sense of Methodology’s Multiplicity in Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

Qualitative research is multiply multiple. Because of this, researchers must navigate many possibilities in designing, doing, and defending a qualitative study. While these navigations can be challenging for all qualitative inquirers, they may be especially so for graduate students. Guided by the difficult necessities in answering the doubled questions “What is (your) methodology?”, I offer two concepts as resources for these navigations: numerousness and multiplicity . Because I am particularly interested in variations in what we understand methodology itself to be, I focus on multiplicity. Accordingly, after theorizing the term with Deleuze and Guattari, I demonstrate that methodology is a multiplicity by highlighting two patterns of difference within the literature: methodology as design (influence) and methodology as being and/or becoming . Ultimately, I argue that methodology’s varieties are valuable and emphasize the importance of developing ways to navigate them on purpose.