I'm in the third year of my social science PhD currently doing thematic analysis on interview data. I am really worried about epistemology and ontology. My field is not very theory dense and I'm very much a pragmatist so my research was shaped around what was ethical for my participants (vulnerable group) and what I thought could give the most insights into the topic and my analysis with what I feel can best explain the data and give workable findings inside and outside academia - also like categories so thematic fits quite well with me because of the coding and order. I have an idea of theories I think could explain my data, but when it comes to the wider philosophical epistemology and ontology I worry if I have done enough and what 'camp' I'm in - and then I worry more because I don't really know and feel like I'm slapping a label on. I would say I'm an interpretivist qualitative researcher, but I hear other people say I'm a [insert lots of long words] researcher. Any guidance would be really appreciated on working this out - having a bit of a 'who am I' moment.

Hey HennyPenny, I totally get the struggle with this. I have recently been writing this section of my method and have found Bryman's (2008) Social research methods to explain it fairly well.