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Reflections on the Purposes of Human Inquiry

University of Bath

Human inquiry is participative, experiential, political, and action oriented. As such, it addresses very different purposes from orthodox social science, moving away from the narrow purpose of contributing to a field of knowledge toward a living inquiry that is integrated in the lives of all those involved. Such inquiry "faces the people" and "is of use," arising out of the needs and experiences of the people it serves, aiming to interrupt patterns of power that define issues in the service of the powerful. Using theory primarily in the service of the practical may also aim to speak out to a wider audience in a manner that causes them to reflect on the nature of knowledge making. In addition to immediate purposes, human inquiry also aims to heal the fragmented experience that is part of the legacy of positivism and to stand continually against the development of a new orthodoxy in inquiry.

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