Published in Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2011
Liamputtong,
P (2010) Performing Qualitative
Cross-Cultural Research. Cambridge University Press
and
Matsumoto, D & Van de Vijver,
F (eds.) (2010) Cross-Cultural Research
Methods. Cambridge University Press
Reviewed by Carl Ratner (Distinguished
Visiting Professor, Imam University, Saudi Arabia www.sonic.net/~cr2 )
Qualitative
methodology is vital for cultural psychology - broadly defined as the relation
between psychology and culture - because it can apprehend the fullness of
culture that
is embodied in
cultural and psychological phenomena. Simplified, standardized, fragmented,
overt, superficial measures used by positivists cannot accomplish this. This
difference is revealed in two books, respectively: Pranee
Liamputtong (2010) Performing Qualitative
Cross-Cultural Research. and David Matsumoto & F. Van de Vijver (2010) Cross-Cultural Research Methods.
Liamputtong (p. 5) summarizes an ethnographic study
of mental disturbance in a Hmong woman, Mia, that captures the cultural basis
and quality of the symptom. Mai became disturbed after giving birth to a baby
under anesthetic in an Australian hospital. She became anxious and physically
incapacitated because she believed that while she was unconscious, one of her
souls, which takes care of her well-being, left her body. Because she was moved
from the operating room to the recovery room, she believed her soul was left in
the operating room and could not find her body. Devoid of her protective soul,
she became ill. She had disturbing dreams of wandering incessantly to distant,
unknown places. This, she believed, reflected the experience of her lost, wandering soul. In order to
regain her health, Mai believed she must undergo a soul-calling ceremony to
summon back her lost soul. She had to do this in the operating room where her
soul was waiting. Liamputtong arranged for the
ceremony to be performed by a shaman and afterwards her symptoms dissipated.
This case study
elicited and respected the cultural belief system that generated and informed
Maiís symptoms. This cultural factor is shown to be an organic constituent
of the symptom. The cultural belief system was the operating mechanism of her
thought process; it generated her mental and physical distress. The cultural
belief generated a specific form of anxiety (soul loss) that was alleviated in
a certain way. An Americanís anxiety over job loss is a different kind of
anxiety driven by a different operating mechanism, which could not be
alleviated in the same way. The organic relationship between the cultural
factor and the psychological symptom are rendered visible by the ethnographic
methodology that was culturally informed.
Positivistic
cross-cultural psychology follows an opposite tack. Bond & Van de Vijver explain (in Matsumoto & Van de Vijver, pp. 75-100) that cultural factors are nebulous and
must be replaced as explanations of psychology by more definite, proximal
ìmoderator variables.î For instance, a relationship between socioeconomic
status and fertility does not specify the causation process. Consequently, Bond
& Van der Vijver search
for a more specific moderating variable. They suggest ìold-age securityî:
people have more children because they need them to provide security in old age
(p. 80). Poverty may generate old age insecurity, however it is this the latter
that motivates fertility. The focus
thus shifts from structural poverty to the psychological variable - the subjective feeling or premonition of
old age insecurity. Old-age security is a general psychological variable that
has its own properties. These are interpolated between poverty and fertility.
This brings into being the study of the relationship between the properties old
age security and fertility. The abstract moderating variable that mediates
between culture and psychology is easily unhinged from its distal cause
(poverty) and treated as a thing unto itself that can be manipulated through
all sorts of procedures. In particular, it can be manipulated through psychological
means to mitigate the perception or
the feeling of old age insecurity.
This is a gravy train for psychologists.
In this scenario,
culture - poverty - is merely a trigger of the real, explanatory construct of
fertility, namely old age security. As a trigger of old age insecurity, poverty
is divested of its concrete character. Analogously, the trigger on a gun
functions in a general capacity to ignite the bullet regardless of the
triggerís specific size and shape; none of these are relevant to understanding
the bulletís ignition or trajectory. Likewise, regarding poverty as a mere
trigger that simply affects the level or
degree of old age insecurity, renders its specific features irrelevant.
Whether poverty is generated by harsh natural conditions, and shared by all
members of society who assist each other in solidarity, or is generated by
exploitation from a ruling class which leaves individuals fending for
themselves, is irrelevant to poverty as an abstraction and to its effects on
old age insecurity and fertility. Abstract poverty triggers abstract old age
insecurity which triggers abstract fertility.
Bond and Van de Vijver pride themselves on eliminating concrete,
structural, cultural explanation and description: ìIf we have completely unpackaged
the cultural difference by using a [moderating] construct to predict the
outcome, then we have effectively ëmade culture disappearíî (p. 85)! It is
interesting that scholars in a field which studies culture gloat over
decimating their subject matter, and regard their behavior as contributing to
it. In contrast, utilizing qualitative methodology to conceptualize and study
poverty and its psychological consequences would treat them as directly and
organically interrelated. Specific forms of poverty would be identified, and
these would be construed as the operating mechanism of subjectivity and the
decision to bear children - just as the Hmong cultural belief system was the
operating mechanism of Maiís symptoms. Cultural factors are definite, and open
to comprehension by appropriate qualitative-hermeneutic methods. There is no
need to postulate non-cultural moderator variables as more definite causes of
psychology than cultural factors are. Bond & Van de Vijver
manufacture a specious problem (of cultural vagueness) only to serve as
justification for ìunpacking,î i.e., decimating, culture.
Another example
illustrates their attack on culture. They seek to explain the finding that
American university students are more satisfied with their lives than Hong Kong
Chinese students. The moderator variables that explain this are ìlevel of relationship harmony,î and
ìself-esteemî (p. 84). The specific structure of cultural practices and beliefs
is replaced as explanatory constructs and descriptors by quantitative levels of
abstract psychological moderator variables. From this perspective, we donít
have to concern ourselves with the social roles of students, the pedagogy that
is practiced (e.g., competitive grading, stressful assignments), financial
pressures, job opportunities, family pressures, or romantic distractions. We
simply measure and manipulate levels of self-esteem and relationship harmony to
explain, predict, and increase happiness. There are many sources of self-esteem
and relationship happiness; cultural factors only comprise one source; we can
never hope to identify and control all the sources; so we confine our work to
proximal moderator variables and ignore the distal, diverse, intangible
cultural sources. The authors are explicit about this: ìWe do not need to know
a personís cultural background to predict his or her score on [a psychological
variable]. Simply knowing the personís position on [a moderating psychological]
explanatory variable is sufficientî (p. 86). Again we witness cross-cultural
psychologists decimating the field of cultural psychology as spokesmen of that
field (see Chen, Bond, Tang, 2007 for another example).
Applying this to
Maiís symptoms, cross-cultural psychologists would disregard the specific
cultural belief system of souls, soul loss, soul reclamation, and anxiety. They
would replace these with an
abstraction such as ìlevel of religiosity.î The quantitative level of religious
attitude would be linked to level of anxiety. Culture would be distanced from
anxiety and relegated to the status of a distal factor which triggers the
quantitative level of the proximal, abstract, psychological variable ìlevel of
religiosity.î The concrete cultural belief system would be made to disappear,
as Bond and Van de Vijver wish.
Qualitative methodologists
and positivists move in opposite directions in relating psychology and culture. Qualitative researchers utilize rich
cultural factors to explain psychology, while positivistic cross-cultural
psychologists use psychological moderator variables to explain away culture
which they regard as a vague, unscientific construct. Qualitative
methodologists (when they use their methodology to its full potential) move
from one cultural factor to the entire culture system (as a hermeneutic circle)
in order to concretize the factor. They then utilize this hermeneutic
understanding of the rich, complex cultural-historical character of a cultural
factor as the direct explanatory construct, operating mechanism, and descriptor
of a psychological phenomena. This concretizes the latter (Ratner, 1997, 2011a, b). Qualitative methodology thus
develops the broadest, richest view of culture in relation to psychology. Positivists
develop an impoverished view of culture in relation to psychology. They
disparage culture and displace its connection with psychology by interpolating
abstract psychological variables between them. This prevents cultural factors from lending their concrete
characteristics to psychology. Abstract moderator variables render both
cultural factors and psychological phenomena abstract. Cultural factors are
relegated to general triggers of moderator variables, and psychological factors
are abstract consequences of moderator variables.
Liamputtong points out additional differences
between qualitative methodology and positivism in the study of culture and
psychology. Qualitative methodology employs culturally (ecologically) congruent
research methods, culturally specific knowledge (particularly about ìstructural
conditions that contribute to participantsí responses and to the interpretation
of situationsî p. 87), culturally sensitive data interpretation, culturally
informed theory and practice, and concern for subjects and consulting with them
in planning, conducting, analyzing, and disseminating research. Positivists do
not emphasize these points. Instead, the chapters in Matsumoto and Van de Vijver address technical concerns of positivist measurement
such as sampling, effect sizes, statistical data analysis, and multilevel
modeling. These chapters never address underlying problems of how to elicit and
analyze culturally and psychologically meaningful information. Another
important difference between the approaches is that Liamputtong
emphasizes political aspects of human psychology and the theories and methodologies
of studying psychology, while cross-cultural psychologists never touch this
issue (Ratner, 2011a).
Occasionally Liamputtong invokes qualitative methodology in romantic
ways which I consider to be misplaced and counterproductive. She speaks of it
as a healing methodology that encompasses the principle of unconditional love
and honoring and respecting indigenous knowledge and traditions (pp. 15, 23). However,
it would be a disservice to oppressed indigenous people and to qualitative
methodology to use the methodology to indiscriminately profess love and respect
for cultural practices. To do so would be to disregard the cultural
organization of experience which is oppressed and oppressive. When the
experience is culturally oppressed and oppressive, culturally sensitive
qualitative methodology must be used to identify and condemn this cultural
quality, not romanticize it as a free, liberating creation of agency (Ratner,
2011b; 2008).
Liamputtongís book is a readable, non-technical
account of the social and political aspects of qualitative methodology for
cultural psychology. It explains how the methodology gives voice to indigenous
people, and should be used in consultation with them to illuminate their life
style so as to empower them. The book does not delve into specific procedures
of qualitative methodology such as coding (cf. Ratner, 2008 for a discussion of
both the social-political and the technical procedures of cultural qualitative
methodology). Because of this, the book is primarily suitable for
undergraduates and lay people. In contrast, Matsumoto
& Van de Vijverís book is a technical
presentation of positivistic procedures. The book is suitable for professional
social scientists already committed to these procedures as it unreflexively treats them as given methods which require no
justification in terms of epistemological or ontological principles. The book
has little to offer to qualitative methodologists and maintains the traditional
insularity of positivism to qualitative methodology.
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