Re-renderability as an alternative to FAIR: maintaining epistemic pluralism amidst the emerging regime of open research

Research funders worldwide are starting to mandate open access data be output alongside publications, often brandishing the threat of defunding research as a form of governmentality to counter non-compliance - including for interpretivist-inspired research. In configuring a regime of open research, their impetus is steeped within a democratic ethos of transparency derived from scientific revolution and Enlightenment thinking. However, doing so risks epistemic oppression, shoe-horning research into formats that privilege realist modes of inquiry. Drawing on primary research with qualitative researchers (including a scoping survey, semi-structured interviews, and a stakeholder workshop) paired with a review of literature across eight academic databases, we propose ‘re-renderability’ as an alternative to reproducibility and replicability. renderability’ as an alternative to reproducibility and replicability. Albeit we do so by embracing a broader, philosophical view of science, as Hegel’s die Wissenschaft, and not as parochially STEM-centric. We argue re-renderability offers a better fit for interpretivist-aligned research, where a ‘storying the story’ of analysis supplants assumptions of directly repeatability and/or any supposed disentanglement of researcher from context, whilst enabling interpretivist researchers’ claims to be opened for evaluation and scrutiny. Moreover, re-renderability remains sensitive a much broader array of approaches. These include research conducted as process (and end unto itself), as interventions to bring about change, as participatory and/or co-constructive collaborations, to generate aesthetic/intrinsically valuable outputs (i.e. dance, music, poetry), or Indigenous and/or embodied ways of knowing beyond the purview of realism.