Commentary: emphasizing the role of positionality, theory, and ethnographic writing conventions in reflexive texts
Jennifer A. Rode
What the paper says
This commentary provides a critique of Crabtree’s (2025) strong article on best practices for qualitative reviews. Crabtree’s challenging premise covers all aspects of qualitative research, from lab-based qualitative studies to ethnography, which, of course, has many kinds, including ethnomethodological and anthropological ethnography. In this response, I take the liberty of extending the arguments to focus on more anthropological ethnography, especially of the confessional and impressionistic variety. In doing so, I will focus on three areas: 1) Reflexivity, Positionality and Rapport, 2) Structure, Sensitizing Concepts, Including Theory, and 3) Embracing Differing Ethnographic Writing Conventions.
Evidence weight
Balanced mode · F 0.40 / M 0.15 / V 0.05 / R 0.40
| F · citation impact | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
| M · momentum | 0.50 × 0.15 = 0.07 |
| V · venue signal | 0.50 × 0.05 = 0.03 |
| R · text relevance † | 0.50 × 0.4 = 0.20 |
† Text relevance is estimated at 0.50 on the detail page — for your query’s actual relevance score, open this paper from a search result.