Rethinking the Logic of Postfoundational Political Commitments in Qualitative Inquiry: Or, How to Take a Stand When There Is No Ground on Which to Stand

Postfoundational (posthumanist, postqualitative, postempiricist) inquiry promises expanded ethical and political responsibility, yet often emphasizes critique, leaving its affirmative commitments unspecified. We argue this tendency is rooted in deep taken-for-granted principles of classical, or “settler,” logic employed in almost all positivist, critical, and postcritical research. Through an examination of quantum and other paraconsistent logics, we demonstrate that settler logic is neither necessary nor politically neutral. Drawing on feminist, Black, and Indigenous scholarship, we offer that pluralizing logic helps reframe inquiries as world-making, not world representing, and refocuses inquiry on the specific possibilities and futurities they might help bring into being.