Varieties of ‘Sociological Enlightenment’: Critical Arts-Based Inquiry Versus German Reconstructive Social Research

Abstract

This article is a methodological reflection on recent developments in qualitative research. It discusses the methodology of critical arts-based qualitative inquiry (CAI).Since the 1980s and in postmodern, poststructural or postpositivist approaches CAI is seen as a renewal of qualitative research. Though, apart from special discourses in Cultural Studies, CAI seems to be ignored by German sociology. I will focus on the theoretical-methodological fundamentals of these approaches with respect to a politics of interpretation, and discuss these basics from the perspective of German qualitative-reconstructive research traditions. Although CAI can be a source of productive irritations, the differences suggest contrasting concepts of a “sociological enlightenment.”