......................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................... doi:10.1017/S1049096519000179 © American Political Science Association, 2019 PS • July 2019 465 The Profession Making Interpretivism Visible: Reflections after a Decade of the Methods Café Kevin Funk, University of the District of Columbia ABSTRACT More than a decade after the observation that an “interpretive turn” was perco- lating through political science, there are clear indications of growth in the perceived legiti- macy of interpretive scholarship. Both accompanying and contributing to interpretivism’s ascent has been the regular staging of Methods Cafés at various conferences in and beyond the discipline. First held at the 2005 meeting of the Western Political Science Association, the Methods Café subsequently landed at the 2006 conference of the American Political Science Association. The Methods Café has become an institutionalized feature of these and other conferences. This reflection looks at the past, present, and future of these events, as well as the key role they have played in making interpretivism visible in the discipline. In particular, I highlight their function as non-hierarchical intellectual spaces that promote teaching, learning, and interpretivist community building. Further, I offer friendly but not uncritical commentary on the successes and limitations of the Methods Café. D uring the decade following the observation that an “interpretive turn” was percolating through political science, research in—and about—this previously marginal (and marginalized) intellec- tual tradition has gained significant recognition (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2006). Understood not only as a broad label for a diverse set of methodological approaches but also as encompassing a series of epistemological and ontological claims, interpretivism is prem- ised on the notion—as Clifford Geertz put it, channeling Max Weber—“that man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun.” This implies pursuing “not an experimental science in search of law but an interpretive one in search of mean- ing” (quoted in Yanow 2014, 6). Accordingly, interpretivism’s main focus is on “the centrality of meaning in human life” and the myriad ways in which actors construct their life-worlds (Yanow and Schwartz-Shea 2014, xiv). Unlike positivism, it does not privilege parsimony and generalizabil- ity over context and nuance. This makes interpretivist approaches highly appropriate for pursuing certain lines of inquiry, especially those related to meaning-making practices. Clear indications of growth in the perceived legitimacy of interpretivist scholarship include the 2008 founding of the Interpretive Methodologies and Methods Conference Group through the American Political Science Association (APSA); the establishment of the Routledge Series on Interpretive Methods; and the increasing citation counts of interpretivist works (Lynch 1999; Oren 2003; Pachirat 2011; Schaffer 1998). Likewise, interpre- tivist research is increasingly published by the discipline’s most esteemed presses and journals (Majic 2017; Smith 2019). Both accompanying and contributing to interpretivism’s ascent is the regular staging of Methods Cafés at conferences both in and beyond political science. First held at the 2005 meeting of the Western Political Science Association (WPSA), the interpretivism- focused Methods Café was brought by its creators—Dvora Yanow (Wageningen University) and Peregrine Schwartz-Shea (University of Utah)—to the 2006 APSA Annual Conference. Notably, this occurred long before “cafés” were introduced at APSA. These Methods Cafés have become annual events at both conferences. Furthermore, in the case of APSA, they have enjoyed the support of the qualitative and multimethod research sec- tion as well as official APSA sponsorship—that is, participa- tion does not count against conference presentation limits and the Café has a guaranteed spot on the program. Breaking with the traditional hierarchies of conference panels, the Cafés seek to function as informal spaces in which attendees circulate freely among thematically organized tables staffed with con- versation leaders. Inspired by the original events, diverse iterations of Methods Café–style gatherings—with varying levels of interpretivist content—have since been held at conferences of the International Studies Association (ISA), International Political Science Associ- ation, and Law and Society Association, among others. Kevin Funk is assistant professor of political science at the University of the District of Columbia. He can be reached at kevin.funk@gmail.com.