Reflexivity Gate — Trustworthiness Before the Interpretivist Claim

Skill type: DISCIPLINE-ENFORCING. This is the qualitative analog of the measurement gate in the social-science methods spine. Where the measurement gate asks "is this number a valid, reliable measure?", the reflexivity gate asks "is this interpretation trustworthy — and is the researcher's hand in it made visible?" It runs no coding itself; it requires the warrant and routes execution to alterlab-qualitative-analysis.

The Core Rule

IN INTERPRETIVE WORK THE RESEARCHER IS THE INSTRUMENT. STATE POSITIONALITY AND EARN TRUSTWORTHINESS
BEFORE MAKING A CLAIM — DON'T ASSERT RIGOR, EVIDENCE IT.

Positivist validity does not transfer to interpretivist work. The field's analog is Lincoln & Guba's trustworthiness: credibility, transferability, dependability, confirmability. A qualitative claim is only as strong as the warrant behind each — and the researcher's positionality shapes the finding, so it must be declared, not hidden behind a passive voice.