Summary

The Landscape of Qualitative Research, Fourth Edition is Volume I of the three-volume paperback editions of The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, Fourth Edition. This contents include full chapters from "Part I: Locating the Field," "Part II: Paradigms and Perspectives in Contention," and "Part VI: the Future of Qualitative Research" from the complete handbook.The Landscape of Qualitative Research, Fourth Edition aims to put the field of qualitative research in context. It offers background on the field, starting with history, then action research and the academy, and the politics and ethics of qualitative research. It then isolates what we regard as the major historical and contemporary paradigms now structuring and influencing qualitative research in the human disciplines. The chapters move from competing paradigms (positivist, postpositivist, constructivist, critical theory) to specific interpretive perspectives, feminisms, racialized discourses, cultural studies, sexualities, and queer theory. It concludes with consideration for the future of qualitative research.