Mirka Koro is a professor of qualitative research at Arizona State University. Koro’s scholarship operates in the intersection of methodology, philosophy, and socio-cultural critique. Her work aims to contribute to methodological knowledge, experimentation, and theoretical development across various traditions associated with qualitative research.
Session Description
We propose that all methodologies, in this presentation qualitative ones, create a footprint similar to the carbon footprint. Research requires economic, natural, and social resources that are not equally distributed across the globe. Further, the products, processes, and wastes of research are a function of knowledge and power, situated in the instrumental and individualist logics of the knowledge economy and wrapped up in publication, job searches, tenure and promotion, and other political yet embodied aspects of the academy. We argue that considering research’s methodological footprint enables qualitative researchers, funding agencies, and other bodies that evaluate research to question whether new data, information, evidence are needed. Conducting more research, collecting more data may not be desirable, let alone virtuous. With methodological footprint thinking, research might be evaluated by its potential to sustaining interdependent equitable living and thriving on Earth, as opposed to (only) advancing the interests of individuals, groups, institutions, or nations. We also propose more data recycling, data sharing, open access data, data conservation, and other ecological ways of supporting shared knowledge and monitoring excessive data production.