Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods
About the Book Series
Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods
Edited by:
Dvora Yanow, Wageningen University, The Netherlands
Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, University of Utah, US
The Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods comprises a collection of slim volumes, each devoted to different issues in interpretive methodology and its associated methods. The topics covered establish the methodological grounding for interpretive approaches in ways that distinguish interpretive methods from quantitative and qualitative methods in the positivist tradition. The series now engages four types of concerns: 1) methodological issues, looking at key concepts and processes; 2) approaches and methods, looking at how interpretive methodologies are manifested in different forms of research; 3) disciplinary and subfield areas, demonstrating how interpretive methods figure in different fields across the social sciences; and 4) revisiting, and sometimes rediscovering, earlier works that might be seen as forerunners of interpretive research.
International Advisory Board
Michael Agar, University of Maryland, College Park, Ethkno-works LLC, Santa Fe, NM (†)
Mark Bevir, University of California, Berkeley
April Biccum, Australian National University
Pamela Brandwein, University of Michigan
Nadia E. Brown, Georgetown University
Nick Cheesman, Australian National University
Katherine Cramer, University of Wisconsin, Madison
Jennifer Dodge, University at Albany, SUNY
Vincent Dubois, University of Strasbourg
Aarie Glas, Northern Illinois University
Lene Hansen, University of Copenhagen
Robin Harper, York College, City University of New York
Victoria Hattam, The New School
Emily Hauptmann, Western Michigan University
David Howarth, University of Essex
Patrick Thaddeus Jackson, American University
Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, Whitman College (emeritus)
Jan Kubik, Rutgers University
Joseph Lowndes, Hunter College
Timothy W. Luke, Virginia Tech
Cecelia Lynch, University of California, Irvine
Navdeep Mathur, India Institute of Management, Ahmedabad
Julie Novkov, University at Albany, SUNY
Ido Oren, University of Florida
Kimala Price, San Diego State University
Frederic C. Schaffer, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Edward Schatz, University of Toronto
James C. Scott, Yale University (†)
Samer Shehata, University of Oklahoma
Anastasia Shesterinina, University of York
Nicholas Rush Smith, City University of New York
Joe Soss, University of Minnesota
Denise M. Walsh, University of Virginia
Lisa Wedeen, University of Chicago
Sarah Marie Wiebe, University of Victoria
Jutta Weldes, Bristol University
Cai Wilkinson, Deakin University
(†) Deceased.
What Does the American Presidency Mean?: The Need for Interpretation in Presidency Studies
1st Edition
By Richard Holtzman
June 26, 2025
What Does the American Presidency Mean? The Need for Interpretation in Presidency Studies makes a compelling case for how interpretivism contributes to our understanding of the American presidency. This brief book is accessible and inviting, regardless of a reader’s background in presidency studies...
Understanding American Legislatures: The Need for Interpretive-Qualitative Research
1st Edition
By James M. Curry
June 05, 2025
In this passionately argued book, James M. Curry introduces legislative scholars to the value and importance of interpretive research. His field guide for getting started on using an interpretive approach is designed so that the reader can understand a new methodological approach, not just new ...
Researching Street-level Bureaucracy: Bringing Out the Interpretive Dimensions
1st Edition
By Mike Rowe
December 30, 2024
Police officers, social workers, teachers, and many other street-level bureaucrats exercise discretion in dealing with clients. In so doing, they make policy as it is experienced at the frontline. Instead of puzzling at repeated public policy implementation failures and wondering why street-level ...
Among Wolves: Ethnography and the Immersive Study of Power
1st Edition
By Timothy Pachirat
November 17, 2017
Summoned by an anonymous Prosecutor, ten contemporary ethnographers gather in an aging barn to hold a trial of Alice Goffman’s controversial ethnography, On the Run. But before the trial can get underway, a one-eyed wolfdog arrives with a mysterious liquid potion capable of rendering the ...
Interviewing in Social Science Research: A Relational Approach
1st Edition
By Lee Ann Fujii
July 27, 2017
What is interviewing and when is this method useful? What does it mean to select rather than sample interviewees? Once the researcher has found people to interview, how does she build a working relationship with her interviewees? What should the dynamics of talking and listening in interviews be? ...
Elucidating Social Science Concepts: An Interpretivist Guide
1st Edition
By Frederic Charles Schaffer
August 06, 2015
Concepts have always been foundational to the social science enterprise. This book is a guide to working with them. Against the positivist project of concept "reconstruction"—the formulation of a technical, purportedly neutral vocabulary for measuring, comparing, and generalizing—Schaffer adopts an...
Analyzing Social Narratives
1st Edition
By Shaul Shenhav
May 05, 2015
Interpreting human stories, whether those told by individuals, groups, organizations, nations, or even civilizations, opens a wide scope of research options for understanding how people construct, shape, and reshape their perceptions, identities, and beliefs. Such narrative research is a rapidly ...
Interpreting International Politics
1st Edition
By Cecelia Lynch
December 18, 2013
Interpreting International Politics addresses each of the major, "traditional" subfields in International Relations: International Law and Organization, International Security, and International Political Economy. But how are interpretivist methods and concerns brought to bear on these topics? In ...
Interpretive Research Design: Concepts and Processes
1st Edition
By Peregrine Schwartz-Shea, Dvora Yanow
December 13, 2011
Research design is fundamental to all scientific endeavors, at all levels and in all institutional settings. In many social science disciplines, however, scholars working in an interpretive-qualitative tradition get little guidance on this aspect of research from the positivist-centered training ...