Beyond the snapshot: reconceptualising human agency and context in qualitative IS research

Interpretive qualitative research has undoubtedly broadened the theoretical and methodological horizons of the IS field. In modelling their research practice on the natural sciences, however, many researchers in this tradition may be argued to be failing to recognise the full implications of their position. In this chapter, we seek to explore these implications in relation to the treatment of human agency and of context in qualitative IS research; challenging the tendency to treat them as independent, autonomous, static, and exogenous. Five principles of an alternative methodological position are identified: contingency, multiplicity, movement, performativity and positionality. The implications of such a treatment of human actors and context for the practice of qualitative IS research are discussed.