ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many of the ideas contained herein were worked out in teaching contexts, whether in classroom settings or in conversations with our respective students and colleagues. We thank all of them in their several settings: the Political Science Department at the University of Utah; the 2006–2009 “Meaning and Methods” course in the Culture, Organization, and Management Department at VU University, Amsterdam, and the Netherlands Institute of Government “General Methodology” course, co-taught with Markus Haverland; the 2009 National Science Foundation Workshop on Interpretive Methodologies in Political Science; and methods courses, workshops, and seminars of various sorts at Vienna's Institute for Advanced Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam's Institute for Health Policy and Management's Healthcare Governance Group, Charles University-Prague's Center for Social and Economic Strategies, and the Methods Cafés at the Western and American Political Science Association meetings. In particular, we are grateful for the extraordinary collegiality of members of our extended interpretive research community—Robert Adcock, Lee Ann Fujii, Patrick Jackson, Xymena Kurowska, Cecelia Lynch, Ido Oren, Tim Pachirat, Fred Schaffer, Ed Schatz, Joe Soss, Merlijn van Hulst, and Dorian Warren—who have never stinted on advice and critical input. What we have learned from our ongoing conversations with them is reflected in the pages of this book, even as the usual and customary caveats concerning ultimate responsibility apply. We also thank Eric Blanchard, Matthew Burbank, and Jennifer Yim for comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript; Lee Ann Fujii, in particular, for bringing her strict eye for formal writing to a line by line reading of much of the previous draft; and Akiko Kurata for last-minute graphic design help. The conversations initiated through the vehicle of detailed comments received from our four reviewers have helped us shape the book into its present form, challenging us to better articulate our reasoning and views. In addition, Dvora Yanow would like to thank the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences, Political Science Department, at the University of Amsterdam, and especially Mark Rutgers, John Grin, and Frances Gouda, for creating a hospitable setting in which to write this book.

It is not only colleagues who enable research and writing. Given that we speak in Chapter 4 of the relational character of research and the support field research often requires, we want also to acknowledge the trans-collegial relationships whose emotional and other support enabled the writing of this book: Dave Gelici, at the Coffee Connection in Amsterdam, and the friendly baristas at Salt Lake Roasting Company and The Coffee Garden, both in Salt Lake City, where each of us has spent many hours thinking through the issues discussed here; Juraj Fabus at Health City, Amsterdam, and the many yoga instructors who brought that discipline to the US, who helped each of us keep body and soul together in ways that enabled long hours glued to the desk chair; and Tim Shea, who has been unstinting in his support over many years.