What “Thickness” Means in Qualitative Research
Hello Qualitative Mind,
Are you familiar with the concept of “thick description” in qualitative research? Do you ever wonder where it came from and how it became so popular among qualitative researchers?
I recently read a paper – Brief Note on the Origins, Evolution, and Meaning of the Qualitative Research Concept “Thick Description” – by Joseph G. Ponterotto (2006) that deepened my understanding of “thick description,” and I want to share some of the things I learned with you.
I’ve always understood “thick description” as qualitative findings (i.e., results) that have substantiated details about participants and their contexts, circumstances, cultures, etc., allowing us as readers to walk with them in their experience. I’ve also perceived “thick description” as a positive consequence of qualitative research that is well-designed and implemented. This could mean many different things, depending on the research and methods used, but it commonly means sampling and recruiting the “right” participants, reaching data saturation and conducting concurrent data collection and analysis.
What I didn’t know (and learned from Ponterotto) was that the concept of “thick description” didn’t originate in anthropology or its famous ethnographic texts. The concept of “thick” description (not “thick description”) originated in 1949 with Gilbert Ryle, a British metaphysical philosopher. In 1971, Ryle described “thick” description as ascribing intentionality to one’s behaviour. He gave a sport-related example to illustrate this; and I’m going to give you an example from my PhD research. It might be more complex but also more powerful.
In my work with 17 Somali women, they described in one-on-one interviews that rice, flour, pasta, sugar, bread and Halal meat were the foods their families most commonly bought and consumed throughout the month. In this rather thin description of the results, I didn’t include the fact that participating women were severely food insecure. As such, you, the reader, wouldn’t be able to understand that the lack of variety in women’s diets was a consequence of not having enough money to buy the foods they wanted for their families.
Somali women stretched their limited financial resources by buying cheap foods, and if they had any extra money they would treat their families to Halal meat. The thin description I gave you about my work wouldn’t enable you to grasp the cultural and religious meaning of Halal foods for participants, and how not being able to afford them for their entire family meant a loss of culture and identity.
The example from my work is my effort to exemplify what “thin” versus “thick” description is.
“A “thick description” gives the readers of our qualitative research an opportunity to be put in our participants’ shoes, to walk their walk, experience their realities, and feel their feelings. ”
In my opinion, a “thin description” can do quite the opposite {and quite frankly can be dangerous}. It tends to enable judgement, fuel stereotypes and, very often, link participants’ poor “choices” to their lack of knowledge rather than the socio-structural factors in which their “choices” were made. “Choices” are purposefully in quotation marks because how much choice does one actually have when they have to choose between eating a variety of foods for three weeks of the month or refined carbohydrates for almost the whole month? I don’t know your answer but I certainly know what mine would be.
So, how do we build a “thick description” in our qualitative work? Not by exhausting our reader with so many details that would put our word count way over most journal’s word limits. A “thick description” describes social actions with a certain degree of detail (about participants’ demographics, contexts, cultural backgrounds, etc.), and the text is brought to life with participants’ quotes, allowing readers to understand the reasons behind those actions. As such, the qualitative results are followed by a discussion that interprets and assigns meanings to participants’ social actions.
This is how qualitative research sheds light on what doesn’t seem to make sense, on things about which little is known, and on how we can work towards better human experiences across various areas of practice and research.
Talk soon,
Maira