Beyond Method: Meaning, Theory, and the Intellectual Practice of Socio-Anthropological Research

What does it actually mean to conduct research in the humanities and social sciences? Beyond procedural compliance, formatting rules, and methodological templates, this book confronts a more fundamental question: what is research as an intellectual practice? Beyond Method is written in response to a widespread but rarely addressed problem in contemporary academia: research that follows procedures but lacks theory, interpretation, and meta-theoretical awareness. Drawing on extensive experience as an academic reviewer for international journals, national research grants, and universities across Indonesia, the author exposes how much research today is methodologically correct yet intellectually shallow. Data is presented without theory, analysis without interpretation, and methodology without epistemological grounding. Rather than offering another technical manual, this book repositions methodology as a mode of thinking. It argues that rigorous research begins not with instruments or techniques, but with clarity about meaning, theory, and the nature of social reality. Through a socio-anthropological lens, the book demonstrates how interpretation, reflexivity, and conceptual coherence form the core of serious scholarly inquiry. This work guides readers to: understand the difference between method and methodology, recognize the role of theory and meta-theory in shaping research questions and analysis, move from description to interpretation and argument, treat writing as an intellectual process, not a reporting task, and restore ethical and intellectual responsibility to research practice. Written from long experience teaching at UIN Ar-Raniry, delivering academic training at UIN Syarif Hidayatullah Jakarta, and evaluating research at multiple institutional levels, Beyond Method speaks directly to the realities faced by scholars working under publication pressure and bureaucratic research systems. It offers a clear, reflective framework for researchers who want their work to be conceptually grounded, theoretically informed, and intellectually credible. This book is essential reading for: lecturers and researchers in the humanities and social sciences, reviewers and editors of academic journals, postgraduate students seeking methodological clarity, and institutions aiming to improve the quality of scholarly research beyond mere procedural compliance. Beyond Method does not promise shortcuts to publication. Instead, it restores what research is meant to be: a disciplined, reflective, and meaningful intellectual endeavor.