The purpose of this workshop is to understand different ways for researchers to orientate themselves toward qualitative data and, in particular, to consider different ways of being ‘truthful’ to those data. The facilitators will use two extended examples from their own work (an interview study of women’s experiences of GP encounters following domestic abuse and a comparative ethnography of men’s experiences of the social determinants of health). We focus on two types of practice that are positioned as risks within the literature: telling ‘atrocity stories’ and going on ‘poverty safaris’. We will use our own examples to develop structured exercises for workshop participants and will have time for participants to reflect on their own qualitative data orientation.
Delivered by Prof. Mhairi Mackenzie, University of Glasgow