No trenches: toward inclusive and hybrid methodologies – commentary to Tulumello

Abstract

My critical reflection on Simone Tulumello’s intervention focuses first on the need to make a clear distinction between methodologies and epistemologies, asking the author to explain his own perspective. A second area of concern is the analogy he draws between structures engineered with concrete and human societies and how this appears to simplify the debate he initiates. In the third part I suggest that the goal should be to transcend the tensions between paradigms through inclusive and hybrid methodologies.

Open policies, open practices – open attitudes?

“…The commentaries to Tulumello come from two scholars whose work is qualitative, Guntram Herb and Jouni Häkli, and one scholar following a quantitative tradition, Ossi Kotavaara. In his commentary, Herb (2019) takes up the distinction between methodologies and epistemologies by discussing the plurality of quantitative and qualitative geographical research. In a similar spirit, Häkli (2019) draws attention to the 'grey area' where questions of generalisability, for instance, do not appear as straightforward as in the methodological caricatures portrayed by Tulumello.…”