PRACTISING “SOFT SCIENCE” IN THE FIELD OF HEALTH

Abstract

While many reject the label of “soft science” that is often used derogatorily to characterize qualitative research in the health sciences, we propose we should embrace and redefine the label, asserting its methodological potency for understanding health and health care, and as an expansion of the scientific field. In this paper, we reflect on the strategies we have developed over the last 25 years, as we worked together as teachers of qualitative research at the graduate level in the health sciences. The main outcome of our collaboration was the establishment and development of the Centre for Critical Qualitative Health Research at the University of Toronto. As former directors, we reflect on how to practice and teach in a world of limited literacy in qualitative research; how to make an institutional place for critical qualitative research in the health sciences; how to understand critical qualitative research as a potent form of “soft science”; and how we positioned ourselves in a marginal scientific location, at the edges of the academic system, while celebrating our potent “soft” methodologies and methods.