Contemporary conflicts over knowledge have an unfortunate effect: they reinforce ideological divisions at the very time when there is an opportunity to better understand the complex web of uneven connections that structure the entire range of inquiry's practices. To map the connections has been the project of the present study. I have shown how inquiry's formative discourses become differentially intertwined in various generalizing and particularizing methodological practices that are widely deployed in research. These practices and their shared discursive sources reflect seldom recognized but deep affinities among seemingly alien projects. Despite the affinities, however, it is apparent that inquiry cannot be reduced to any single overarching logic. Even projects that share the same research agenda, discipline, interdisciplinary enterprise, or emancipatory endeavor may diverge from one another in their methodological practices and the character of knowledge produced. The overall domain of sociohistorical inquiry is thus considerably less than unified.

When inquiry is understood in these terms, what are its prospects? To begin with, the map is not the territory. I have sought to explore the connected sources of inquiry's practices, not to “represent” inquiry comprehensively. The diversity is obvious. The practices initially identified in table 6.1 encompass both particularizing and generalizing orientations, used for the investigation of one or many cases, and they admit to the possibilities of both qualitative and quantitative data. In exploring examples, I have drawn on historically focused studies.