Introduction: Qualitative Inquiry ‘Outside’ the Academy

This book was written primarily during the latter half of 2013, at a time in which public debates centered around such pressing topics in the United States as: the implementation of the Affordable Care Act; the Supreme Court decision overturning the Defense of Marriage Act, a decision which served as a major turning point in favor of equal rights for gays and lesbians; the release of classified documents by former U.S. National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden; the racial politics of the George Zimmerman trial;1 the Boston Marathon bombing; the existential crisis posed by Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) on contact sports; ever-growing levels of economic inequality; and the increasingly evident effects of global warming.