This paper argues that debates over saturation in qualitative research point to a deeper problem than conceptual ambiguity or inconsistent application. At stake is the lack of a general account of how inquiry becomes sufficient. Drawing on sociological theories of justification, evaluation, and boundary work, the paper introduces the concept of epistemic closure to describe how qualitative inquiry is rendered sufficiently complete to warrant stopping, despite the continued availability of further data and alternative interpretations. Reframing saturation in these terms shifts attention from methodological endpoints to the social processes through which claims of adequacy are rendered credible. The paper develops a typology of four distinct grammars of closure—redundancy, interpretive, procedural, and audit—and argues that contemporary alternatives to saturation are best understood as different ways of rendering inquiry sufficiently complete rather than as competing stopping criteria. In doing so, it reinterprets contemporary debates over saturation, information power, and rigor as struggles over how closure is achieved. The paper concludes by showing how this framework recasts rigor as a relational and situated accomplishment while situating epistemic closure within the broader governance of qualitative knowledge.
Michael S. Carolan· Sociological inquiry· 0 citations
Sustainable agricultural value chains are increasingly governed through information infrastructures, such as traceability systems, certification schemes, auditing protocols, and verification mechanisms. This paper, however, argues that information and temporal coordination are distinct governance capacities. Drawing on a comparative interpretive analysis of twenty-seven sustainability-oriented agricultural value chain initiatives, supported by an iterative inductive–deductive coding matrix and cross-case synthesis, the paper examines how sustainability is rendered governable across public programs, corporate strategies, international development projects, supranational policy frameworks, and multi-stakeholder initiatives. It shows that contemporary initiatives consistently frame sustainability as a coordination problem and rely heavily on instruments that generate visibility and verification. Yet comparatively few mechanisms are devoted to sustaining alignment across the extended time horizons through which many sustainability outcomes emerge. The comparative analysis identifies a governance asymmetry in the document collection: it devotes extensive attention to mechanisms for making sustainability visible, while comparatively fewer mechanisms address the obligations, risks, rewards, and expectations of actors that unfold across ecological, institutional, financial, market, and livelihood timelines. The paper contributes to value chain governance and sustainability scholarship by conceptualizing sustainable agricultural value chains as systems that must address temporal coordination and by arguing that durable and resilient sustainability transitions require not only better information but also institutional capacities to coordinate across multiple time horizons.
Michael S. Carolan· Sustainability· 0 citations
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