Summary

What is anarchist theory and practice? What does it mean when anarchists engage with qualitative research? Anarchism has a long-standing history within radical political action that has been enacted at particular historical times and spaces. The Spanish Civil War, Paris 1968, and the so-called Battle of Seattle in 1999 saw the potential of anarchism as both a mode of critique and way(s) in which to think about direct political action. However, little has been done within the critical qualitative research project to engage with the ideas and critiques that anarchism offers researchers to think about and inform their own work.

Resisting hierarchies and their arrangements, challenging domination and relationships of power, rethinking praxis and direct action in qualitative research, and envisioning a utopian social and political imagination have been just a few of the political and epistemological projects that anarchists have undertaken that have direct implications for qualitative researchers. In thinking about future potentials, it has become imperative that critical qualitative researchers engage with anarchist theory and its critiques to better inform its own assumptions when thinking about the roles that qualitative research plays in resisting and altering oppressive social, political, and economic conditions.