What Is Critical Qualitative Inquiry?

Critical qualitative inquiry (CQI) serves as an instrument to reveal power and generate previously unthought possibilities for social change. CQI methodologies interrogate and disrupt taken-for-granted assumptions that reify oppressive structures, hegemonic power dynamics, and dominating discourses. Indigenous, critical race, critical feminist scholars, among others, in particular, have emphasized the ways in which power reproduces privilege, power, and oppression on systemic, institutional, and individual levels. The work of feminist scholars of color has especially interrogated the intersection and perpetuation of isms, including that of Arab American feminists, Asian American feminists, Black feminist scholars, Chicana feminists, and Native American feminists, to name a few. The themes and critical insights that emerged from constant comparison and reflexive journaling were then analyzed through the generation of a social spheres/power arenas map, which illustrated and served as a means to complicate the intersection of ‘social spheres’ and ‘power arenas’.