Applied Interpretive Approaches

In the applied world of the practice disciplines, the recognized limitations of conventional science have stimulated a lively and enthusiastic uptake of many of the qualitative research approaches generated over decades of social science scholarship. However, due to significant differences between the nature and motivation between the more theoretical and more applied fields, many applied scholars have been departing from established method to articulate approaches better suited to the questions of the applied world. This chapter considers the evolving relationship between the methods and their disciplinary origins and current trends in the direction of the applied interpretive qualitative research project. Interpretive description is used as a methodological case in point to illustrate the kinds of departures that applied approaches are taking from their ancestral roots as they begin to advance knowledge development within the practical and contextualized realities of their applied contexts.