KAQI

clicks	1416
Vol (number)	1(1)
title	Portraiture and Essentialist Portraiture
author(s)	Klaus G. Witz (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
Keywords	portraiture, essentialist portraiture, case studies, qualitative methodology, Lawrence-
Abstract	The present paper deals with only one, the most distinctive aspect of “Portraiture” and of “Essentialist Portraiture” in qualitative research or inquiry, viz. that writing a “Portrait” is analogous to a painter painting a portrait of a person. The paper describes this “Portraiture – Portrait-painting” paradigm both for Lawrence-Lightfoot’s original idea of Portraiture in general and for Essentialist Portraiture, and discusses how research of this kind is situated among other traditions in qualitative methodology. Even in portraits of larger social objects such as in Lawrence-Lightfoot’s original portraits (“real life drawings”) of six “good high schools,” or in portraits of activities, programs or services in institutions and organizations, the source of inspiration is the truly human such as can be seen in painted portraits of individuals, both in Western and other traditions of portrait painting. In other words, portraiture represents a general approach to try to give a more direct impression of things intrinsically human in human nature, experience, and consciousness, in a way that has some more objective validity and is accessible to a larger audience. And it can do this in a broad range of social contexts and at many levels.
file	질적탐구1권1호_03_Witz.pdf