Voice

Voice is a key concept in contemporary qualitative research. It is particularly prominent in fields concerned with marginal groups that have historically been denied a voice, such as disability studies, childhood studies, postcolonial studies and social work research. This entry begins with an overview of dominant conceptions of voice. It discusses the politics of voice, and its production through relations of power, before moving on to discuss critiques of voice and their relevance for qualitative research. We focus in particular on how voice can become a tool of appropriation, and how dominant notions of voice can exclude voices that do not conform to the expectations of conventional qualitative methods. The entry concludes by reviewing work that attempts to go beyond the model of rational subjectivity implied by dominant notions of voice. We consider the methodological potential of conceptualising the voice as embodied, material and more-than-representational.