As society becomes increasingly digital, mobile, and always connected, qualitative longitudinal research (QLR) needs methods that resonate with everyday practice and trace change as it unfolds. This paper examines social-media-based diaries (SMBDs) within WeChat Moments in a 17-week study of 82 first-year Chinese undergraduates transitioning to university. SMBDs amplify core strengths of diary methods (immediacy, multimodality, contextual richness), yielding layered archives that render trajectories visible rather than isolated moments, while embedding documentation in participants' routines mitigates attrition and reactivity. Yet platform logics introduce trade-offs: fewer opportunities for sustained reflection, greater fragmentation, reduced researcher scope to guide focus, and audience-shaped self-presentation in semi-closed networks. We propose transferable principles: align SMBDs with participants' digital habits; scaffold in-situ expression and reflective insight; respect participant-controlled visibility; maintain minimal researcher presence; and archive iteratively. We argue for adaptive digital methodologies that work with platform affordances while navigating ethical and cultural complexities.
Despite its increasing popularity in community contexts, there is limited literature on the use of auto-driven photo elicitation interviews (PEI) in prison settings. Prisons have many constraints as a research environment, requiring researchers to make adaptations when collecting qualitative data in a way that enhances the qualitative analysis. The first half of this article summarises some of the unique benefits and challenges of using an auto-driven PEI with a marginalised research population in a prison setting. The second half of the article presents the application of using an adapted auto-driven PEI with a prisoner working on an open prison farm in the UK. Whilst not widely used in prison contexts, this article suggests that an adapted auto-driven PEI is an innovative and collaborative research process which should not be summarily dismissed because of security considerations.
This article introduces the Dialogical Recursive Approach (DRA) as a qualitative analytic method developed for psychological research. Situated at the intersection of phenomenology and complexity theory, DRA responds to the need for analytic procedures that engage with the expressive density of narratives without reducing their emotional and relational complexity. The method integrates holistic readings with systematic coding in a recursive movement between global understanding and local detail. The process unfolds through three interconnected phases: (1) phenomenological synthesis of the narrative's emotional tone and expressive configuration; (2) collaborative coding of emotionally, expressively, and relationally salient passages; and (3) dialogical integration of global and local perspectives to foster recognition of experiential patterns. DRA treats researcher reflexivity as a methodological resource integral to interpretation and offers a rigorous yet flexible framework for analyzing clinical, autobiographical, and educational texts while preserving attention to living complexity, experiential nuance, and relational process.
Relational trust is central to credible and ethical qualitative psychology. The rapid influx of artificial intelligence (AI) into qualitative research could alter these dynamics by enabling automated transcription, coding, and analysis, raising concerns about interpretation, accountability, legitimacy and ethical and privacy implications for AI-assisted analysis. Public involvement refers to engagement with multiple, situated publics, beyond the professional research roles that traditionally lead problem definition and interpretive decisions. This article argues that public involvement should be treated as critical infrastructure for ethical AI use in qualitative psychological research. Focusing on approaches within the 'big Q' tradition, it examines how AI-mediated processes can distance researchers from lived experience, obscure analytic judgement, and amplify epistemic risks. Drawing on the SenseMate case study, the article demonstrates how co-design and public oversight can support transparency, reflexivity, and interpretive responsibility in AI-augmented qualitative analysis, while noting the practical limits and potential biases introduced with public involvement. It concludes that democratising AI requires sustained public engagement to support trust, autonomy, and epistemic justice.
The issue of 'imposter' participants within qualitative research has become increasingly prevalent. The problem raises specific concerns for qualitative research around research inclusivity and diversity, alongside the challenge to data integrity and methodological rigour. Existing literature is dominated by case studies and commentaries, with a need for multi-disciplinary guidelines that reflect the specific challenges and context of qualitative research. This study adopted a two-stage expert and evidence-based approach to develop guidance for researchers and organisations. Stage 1 was a mixed-method study with 184 qualitative researchers to establish the reach and impact of the problem, perspectives on the associated issues, and potential solutions across disciplines, career stage, and locality. Stage 2 involved a series of researcher and public workshops to develop and refine guidelines through an iterative analytical process. The resulting guidance for researchers and organisations is a flexible, supportive tool to enable a systematic and evidence-informed approach within their research practice. The guidance provides a framework for considering ethical, epistemological, methodological, and practical considerations when determining how to mitigate the risk of imposter participants within qualitative research. It is hoped that the guidelines will inform wider understanding of the issue and encourage the adoption of evidence-based policies and processes.
This article advances a methodological shift in narrative identity research by addressing the field's protagonist bias - the tendency to rely on first-person autobiographical accounts as the primary evidence for identifying cultural master narratives. We integrate Erikson's psychosocial identity framework, Vygotsky's 'tool and result' methodological insight, and sociolinguistic approaches to narrative to develop a three-stage analytic logic: (1) identifying small-n narratives through scenes conveyed in discourse; (2) grouping these into Big-N narratives that cohere thematically across scenes; and (3) assessing candidate master narratives. We demonstrate this approach through a case example from an interview-based study on rural youth outmigration. Our approach broadens narrative sampling beyond first-person accounts, avoids assumptions about parallelism between personal and cultural narratives, and offers a method for tracing how master narratives circulate, gain normative force, and shape identity beyond protagonist storytelling in autobiographical interviews.
Within the Western academic landscape, a binary seems to exist: either we are the researcher or the 'lived experience' participant. Academics who carry their own lived/living experiences therefore live in a liminal space. Here, identities are negotiated. Tensions are felt. Knots are made. Our subjectivities impact our positionality and praxis, yet we seldom speak of dancing between personal and professional realms - or the transformative potential of this. And yet in this grey space, great things can happen. In this critical reflexive piece, I offer insights of living 'between worlds' as an Indian, Australian-born, female academic with lived experience subjectivity. I then provide six recommendations to uphold 'lived experience responsiveness' from systemic, structural, and person-centred angles - centring reflexivity and collective action at the heart of transformation. Together, these reflect pragmatic ways forward to support those in bloom to lead, innovate, and thrive within systems that will benefit greatly in return.
Avatars remain under-utilised in qualitative research interviews. This paper presents Avatar-Based Interviewing (ABI), which is a six-step qualitative method that addresses this gap by placing the avatar at the centre of the research encounter. Interviews are held in person, and an avatar is designed and discussed by participants. ABI involves: (1) identifying research questions and familiarising oneself with the gaming environment; (2) selecting an appropriate genre and game; (3) avatar creation by participants; (4) discussing the nickname chosen by participants for their avatar; (5) discussing the avatar and research topic; and (6) analysis with the avatar in focus. We present a case study with 23 teenagers in Malta, demonstrating ABI's capacity to generate rich insights on young people's identity and self-concepts. ABI encourages open dialogue and positions participants as co-researchers via its collaborative ethos. It allows the study of actual, ideal and alternative selves often missed by traditional interviews.
The passage of the UK Illegal Migration Act (the Act) has implications on the mental health of refugees and people seeking asylum (PSA). A critical discourse analysis (CDA) was employed to critically examine 29 UK parliamentary debates surrounding the Act. The current study focuses on the top-down effect that these discourses have on societal perceptions about this population and their negative influence on their mental health. Using Fairclough's three-dimensional framework for CDA, the findings revealed three core discursive practices: (1) construction of the othered; (2) criminalisation and punitive control; and (3) conditional compassion. The findings of the analysis are consistent with current literature, demonstrating that PSA were systematically othered through mechanisms of dehumanisation and criminalisation. This justified punitive legislation while allowing the government to maintain a moral high ground by offering compassion only to those who meet the narrow, often unachievable, standards of deservingness. Clinical implications and recommendations are discussed.
Discursive approaches have established how entertainment documentaries about the super-rich can be analysed as a form of political communication to explore how positions on wealth inequality are legitimised. Programmes broadcast in the UK draw upon neoliberal ideology to present extreme wealth as the product of individual achievements as the nation is positioned as a meritocracy. This article offers an illustrative example of how ostentatious spending is accounted for within entertainment documentaries. Discursive psychology that incorporated Goffman's concept of 'frames' was applied to the analysis of 41.5 hours of non-subscription UK television data from 2016 that included the term 'super-rich'. Ostentatious consumption is presented as normal, and three interpretative repertoires are employed to support this: (1) deservingness of the super-rich, (2) expenditure as an investment, and (3) trickle-down effect. The application of frames highlights the inequalities present through the contrasts between speakers' wealth status and environment within the discourse.
This auto-hermeneutic study explores the self-development of a future drama therapist during engagement with Temiar children in Malaysia. While personal transformation is central in dramatherapy education, little research has examined trainees' lived experiences. This study addresses that gap by investigating challenges, support factors, empathy, and cultural competence in a multicultural setting. Reflective diaries were analysed using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, revealing twelve themes. Challenges included: physical and emotional well-being and language barriers. Support and empowerment factors included: collaboration with Temiars, intentional self-awareness, creative experimentation, resilience and optimism. Three themes - knowledge shift, empathy at risk, and commitment to personal evolution - revealed the development of empathy and tolerance in a multicultural environment. Cultural awareness, uncovering assumptions and blind spots, and engagement with culture are key aspects of developing cultural competence. Findings are relevant to arts therapy students, educators, practitioners, helping professionals working interculturally, and researchers using autobiographical and reflexive methodologies.
Psychology has failed to meet an epistemological imperative. Presently and formerly incarcerated people are rarely included in psychological scholarship about the carceral system as co-constructors of knowledge. Grounded in Liberation Psychology, this research centers the wisdoms of grassroots organizers from New York's Release Aging People in Prison (RAPP) campaign. This study aims both to critique the current parole application process and challenge traditional Western psychological research methods for studying dehumanization. Analyses and policy recommendations stem from focus group data regarding how survivor-organizers (1) understand, critique, and advocate for reforming the parole application process, and (2) evaluate and critically respond to psychological research approaches to understanding dehumanization. I weave in reflexivity by narrating trial and error, as I engage the "knots" of epistemic justice and ultimately, make the case for participatory commitments in research. Overall, the findings indicate an urgent need for both policy change and psychologists' solidarity with liberation movements.
This paper outlines the importance of Black aesthetics and onto-epistemologies in qualitative research and details the values, commitments, and potential contributions of Call and Response (CaR) as epistemology and methodology. Articulating and implementing CaR as epistemology and methodology was an outgrowth of The Black MAP Project: A Black People's Epistemology of Healing (an ongoing research project) - wherein every phase of the research was informed by Black theories, praxes, epistemologies, and methodologies. While elements of CaR have previously been published, this paper offers qualitative researchers an in-depth view of what CaR is and how it might be applied in practice. Additionally, this piece grapples with the epistemic knottiness that emerges when choosing to embrace Black knowing and doing ways in qualitative research.
Within participatory research practices, adult researchers must be strongly committed to social justice. This means that they must engage with challenging questions about the underlying processes that enable participatory practices, what is valued as knowledge, who has access to and ownership of knowledge production, and who is excluded or silenced from these processes. This is especially true for research with young people in contexts of oppression, who have historically been silenced and exploited by many care, policy, and research practices. In this article, we share our reflections of our own learning experiences with young people in contexts of oppression using participatory research approaches. We attempt to untangle some of the ethical issues we faced by focusing on: 1) navigating rigidity in 'powerful' research institutes; 2) the positivistic, biomedical, and eurocentric standards of ethics; 3) adultism at the center of research projects; and 4) challenging adultism in fostering meaningful collaboration.
Efforts to achieve social justice often cannot operate outside of pre-existing social structures; accordingly, this article disentangles complexities toward identifying how systems and rules may promote social justice. Drawing upon practitioner experience, data under a case study methodology is highlighted to provide contrasting experiences of equity, diversity, and inclusion within systems. First, engagement with a case of conflict of interest is considered to explore epistemological complexities within systems. Second, a three-year engagement in maintaining and operating a system-intended to provide community mental-health funding-serves as a follow-up reflection. Ten considerations ground the data analysis: transparent communication of objectives and of shortcomings; explicit acknowledgement of rules as reductionist and imperfect; acknowledgement of marginalization via rule-complexity; acknowledgement of the role of individual agents in asserting personal legitimacy; empowering system-agents to empower communities; grounding system-disqualification in explicit rationale; minimizing disqualification-via-sustained-engagement; strategizing open and inclusive process in amending system-errors; minimizing collusion; and considering unintended impacts.
In this article, I explore the intersection of Bateson's epistemology, particularly his concept of the metalogue, with the applications of generative AI. I propose a creative, reflective, and playful approach to initiating a literature review by developing AI-generated metalogues that mimic Bateson's recursive and performative style. Drawing from systems thinking and Bateson's concept of bioentropy, I discuss the potential of AI to facilitate deeper engagement with academic texts. Rather than positioning AI as either a threat or a panacea, I frame it as a relational tool, one that can scaffold understanding, provoke inquiry, and support metacognitive learning when used appropriately. I present a practical method for prompting AI to generate Batesonian metalogues and reflect on their advantages and limitations. Through this work, I argue that mindful, creative, and methodologically informed integration of AI in research and study activities can enhance the practice and teaching of qualitative research
This paper presents a Foucauldian-inspired Discourse Analysis of two concomitant artistic exhibitions that took place at the Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK, in 2023. While the Traces of Displacement is on forced migration and the experiences of artists and makers who were forced to flee their homeland, (Un)Defining Queer examines how we can use a queer lens to understand queer and queerness in Whitworth's collections. This paper uses 'border as method' and a psychoanalytic framework to depict and discuss the connections and absences between 'forced migration' and 'queerness' as portrayed in the exhibits and artefacts of these two exhibitions. Both exhibitions form discursive frames and specifically depict the order of discourse between forced displacement and queer studies, while failing to acknowledge the dimensions of each other. This study uses qualitative research methods to intervene in how political research and space can be understood in the field of Critical Psychology.
