Ethically reflexive researchers must be prepared for communities to say, “We do not want research. We want other interventions.” Asking communities what they want requires being ready to accept that research may not be the intervention that is needed.

I have a new preprint on SSRN: “Beyond methodology: the role of reflexivity in ethical research that benefits marginalised participants and communities” If you find it interesting, I would really appreciate it if you could share it with your network. papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers....

“Positivism Creep” “The subtle, often unacknowledged infiltration of positivist or post-positivist assumptions into methodologies where they do not naturally, philosophically, practically, or epistemologically belong.” By @thomasgraves.bsky.social @maddipow.bsky.social @annayahprosser.bsky.social

I did a blog post for NCRM - Should qualitative researchers be using GenAI? I’ve used LLMs but in-depth analytic engagement is a creative joy of quali research

Are you worried about the devastating cuts we are seeing to arts, humanities & social sciences in UK universities? Last call for my lecture in Leicester this Thurs 27th Nov on the value of these subjects and how they support UK security, cohesion and prosperity www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/shaping-a-...

Come and join us to discuss the whys and wherefores, joys and torture of writing - in solidarity, in relations with participants, in neoliberal academia. We have a panel, snacks, and time for everybody to take part in the conversation Bush House KCL, 4 Nov 2-5pm

🎤 Proposals for our Centre for Qualitative Research, University of Bath Qualitative Research Symposium at University of Bath School of Management are open until November 7th! Find out more and submit your talk, symposium and workshop abstracts here: www.bath.ac.uk/events/quali... #qualitative

Certified organic and AI-free: New stamp for human-written books launches www.theguardian.com/books/2025/o...

hybrid conferences should be the norm, not the exception.

With yet another university hosted event closed to 'non academics' (aka those not employed by a university)* I'm just going to leave this piece by @drhelenkara.bsky.social and myself here blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsoci... * yes I know it's utter nonsense and academics/researchers exist outside unis

New open access paper by me and @ginnybraun.bsky.social - Exploring U.K. University Students’ Social Perceptions of Dating and Physical Disability Using Story Completion. There are extensive Supplementary Materials which we hope are useful for teaching reflexive TA: awspntest.apa.org/fulltext/202...

Melissa McCallum's important research using qualitative surveys, interviews, focus groups & reflexive thematic analysis (supervised by me) - Exploring Black Women's Experiences in Psychotherapeutic Training and Practice in the UK - Counselling and Psychotherapy Research share.google/QAahdyVCLjtV...

👀 ICYMI: "While 92% of undergraduate students are using Generative AI, only 36% said they had been offered support by their university" #AcademicSky #HigherEducation

I think we’re really going to have to do a lot more of this. A massive deprogramming so that people can read more than ten words at a time without anxiety. www.thetimes.com/uk/education...?

Nearly 100 years after her death, Oxford’s first female Indigenous scholar honoured www.theguardian.com/world/2025/o...

Messy, emotional, and necessary: PhD student and research assistant Jo Law reflects on ethical #QualitativeResearch with marginalised groups in this month's #ResearchImpact blog: www.quahrc.co.uk/podcasts-blo... @kingsioppn.bsky.social @bethlehem.bsky.social

Long Covid has now overtaken Asthma in the US, as a cause of chronic health disease in children. There is currently no cure. Yet no action is being taken and Violet Affleck is very much on point.

This is an essay, a reading list and a poem on why I think Pan-Africanism, Afrofuturism and Decolonisation can be insightful tools for realising visions of flourishing future worlds for all. folukeafrica.com/pan-africani...

Unequal pressures: new #qualitative work from the QUAHRC team explores how young people from different backgrounds had very different #Covid experiences, and why this is still relevant to widening inequality www.kcl.ac.uk/how-disadvan...

"In a landmark study, OpenAI researchers reveal that large language models will always produce plausible but false outputs, even with perfect data, due to fundamental statistical and computational limits." www.computerworld.com/article/4059...

How do researchers study experiences that are "too shattering to put into words"? MAshNup method uses art-making, metaphor analysis, and narrative techniques to help participants explore difficult experiences in ethical, sensitive ways. Read the article here: doi.org/10.1332/3050...

Inside the world of Kenya’s ‘shadow scholars’ paid to write essays for UK students www.theguardian.com/education/20...

I have always hated the way smart speakers and chatbots mimic amicability and draw people in to talking to them as if there is a person there. Great to read a scholarly exploration, using dear old Gigerenzer and Grice to set out the problem 🌟

"In 2019, Iceland made headlines as one of the first countries to implement a four-day workweek...Nearly six years later, the results are clear: this bold move has proven to be a game-changer, not just for the workforce, but for society as a whole." www.wecb.fm/iceland-embr...

Are you, might you become, or do you know a transnational scholar from the Global South? Or do you work with one or more? If so, this insightful, creatively written book will be of interest. It's part of the series I co-edit with @patthomson.bsky.social www.routledge.com/Insider-Guid...

Call for chapters: Ethical Review in Practice, edited by Lucy Pickering and me. Do you have a particularly good, bad, or mixed experience with a research #ethics approval body that you would like to share? If so this call may be of interest: helenkara.com/writing/ethi... please share widely!

I’m so pleased to share that the launch issue of the Journal of Creative Research Methods (JCRM) is now live! 🎉 👉 bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journal... Huge thanks to my wonderful Co-Editors in Chief Su-Ming Khoo, Harriet Shortt & Sophie Woodward. #CreativeMethods #JCRM

Doing teaching prep in terror at how soon summer will be over. A reminder that a pedagogy of love is possible. It INVITES our students to be the best of who they can be in the classroom and beyond it. A pedagogy of love DEMANDS the same thing of us teachers. folukeafrica.com/to-bell-hook...

Here's a talk I gave as a keynote for the BPS @qmip.bsky.social conference (July 2025) - the result of @vicclarke.bsky.social & I recognising we needed to "dive in" & grapple with the beast that is GenAI & qualitative/(reflexive) thematic analysis www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zFQ...

My new project! Funded by @isrfoundation.bsky.social, with lovely colleagues @katefoxwriter75.bsky.social and @autgeek.bsky.social First time I've ever had funding for research 🥳 #Neurodivergent #AcademicSky #LivedExperience #CreativeResearch

First up we have @ginnybraun.bsky.social discussing the impact of Gen AI on qualitative research. Is this something we can ignore or do we need to develop a position on the use of Gen AI? Is AI our friend or not to be trusted? #qmip2025 @qmip.bsky.social

When I started my PhD, I had never heard of epistemic decolonisation. Then I came across 2 books that changed my life. One was "Decolonizing Methodologies" by Linda Tuhiwai Smith; the other was "Decolonising the Mind" by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o. Rest in piece Prof. Ngũgĩ, may your works live long.

Developing a structured daily routine for writing and research www.raulpacheco.org/2018/11/deve... One of the biggest challenges I faced as a graduate student and still face now as a Full Professor is knowing how to structure my time given that time in academic work is so unstructured. #RPVSky

Large rise in NI universities' mental health spending since Covid www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... This is mirrored across the sector and worth unpacking as I know this is an area where people have a lot of strong opinions currently. Here's a quick thread 🧵 please add your thoughts.

Continuing our theme of #SocialJustice and #Migration, this month's Impact in #QualitativeResearch blog explores co-researching with domestic workers who have experienced #trafficking and exploitation: www.quahrc.co.uk/impact-in-qu... #ResearchImpact #ResearchMethods #Qualitative

Exactly what I’m about to talk about next week in a keynote on research on (religion and) disability. Who is it for? So much talk. So much more need for action. (I’m a hypocrite here too - but I can at least ask the question.)

Sister and Friend, 2024 ♀ by Betty Acquah, Ghanaian feminist painter #WomensArt #InternationalWomensDay ♀

Fab essay from member @gabrielscheidecker.bsky.social: "early childhood science implicitly promotes Western, urban middle-class skills and behaviours... a child has reached their full potential when they behave and think like a Western, urban middle-class child." aeon.co/essays/the-p...

I'm proud to be chairing 'How Creative Research Methods Challenge Power Dynamics in Knowledge Production', for Policy Press. 📅 24.03.2025 | 📍 Zoom For further information and to register now, click here: bristol-ac-uk.zoom.us/webinar/regi... #CRMethods

I really like this conceptualization of reflexivity by Braun & Clarke (2022): "good reflexivity isn't a surface reflection, it isn't a comforting feeling or something designed to make you feel like a better person; it can and should be discomforting, unsettling, and change-bringing."

Impact in Qualitative Research blog: www.quahrc.co.uk/podcasts-blo... There is often limited opportunity to demonstrate impact in #qualitative research, and so we are hoping to provide a place to do this. If you are based at King’s and have an idea for a blog post, get in touch at [email protected]

📢 New publication "Reflexivity for Qualitative Research Quality and the Quality of Reflexivity" with Alexander Stoffel for The Sage Handbook of Qualitative Research Quality (ed. Uwe Flick) 1/6 https://buff.ly/3PlKaz3 @lsemethodology.bsky.social #reflexivity #qualitativeresearch #researchquality

I really like this conceptualization of reflexivity by Braun & Clarke (2022): "good reflexivity isn't a surface reflection, it isn't a comforting feeling or something designed to make you feel like a better person; it can and should be discomforting, unsettling, and change-bringing."

The first episode in our SEVENTH series of the #Qualitative Open Mic podcast is here! #Neurodiversity Matters: Damian Milton on double empathy and #autistic worlds www.quahrc.co.uk/resources/ne... #QualitativeResearch #ResearchMethods #Neurodivergent #Autism

The video of last week's methods panel is up! Come check out Freddie Jones, Léon Van Ommen and I talked about using qualitative methods with nonspeaking people. Link to the full panel video (and to the slides for my section) available here: www.heasutherland.com/talk/ethnogr...

I don't know if you've seen these three recent papers from @vicclarke.bsky.social and me (and others for #3) but they may be useful.... (linked below - all open access). Good luck! These experiences are so so so frustrating!!