‘Narrative portraits in Qualitative Research’ is a workshop relevant to researchers working with qualitative data. In this workshop people learn a method to transform observational notes, interview or focus group transcripts into first-person narratives that can be used in the analysis of qualitative data.
While we as researchers put a lot of effort into making sense of data, we seem to pay less attention to how to communicate our data’s ‘story’ in compelling and engaging ways. Our analytic method helps researchers to engage with people’s stories in an evocative way. It offers a political shift towards focusing on people rather than on abstract results. Whilst a common understanding of the purpose of methodological approaches is to elucidate concepts, identify categories, or themes to understand certain phenomena, narrative portraiture brings the person to the fore and highlights that a portrayal of a sole story can be, not only a medium to understand a research phenomenon, but also a valuable research output in itself.
Rooted in structural narrative analysis and an embodied approach to research, this interdisciplinary method brings together visual and performing arts and social science to create an analytic toolkit that works for research communication and knowledge exchange.
Drawing on our own research in the context of the LGBTQIA+ communities, disability, and experiences of poverty, we will present examples that show how the method can help researchers present their findings in creative ways and participants will have the opportunity to get hands-on experience by applying the method to their own data or provided samples.
This workshop will be delivered over four sessions:
Session 1: Wednesday 14 April, 9.30am-11.30am
Session 2: Wednesday 21 April, 9.30am-11.30am
Session 3: Wednesday 28 April, 9.30am-11.30am
Session 4: Wednesday 5 May, 9.30am-11.30am