Spring into Methods returns to St Andrews
The University of St Andrews Business School hosted an interdisciplinary qualitative research methods workshop for postgraduate research students across Scotland at the beginning of May 2024. The workshop, '(In)tangible inquiry: sensory methods for qualitative research', formed part of the SGSSS and SGSAH annual 'Spring into methods' programme.
'(In)tangible inquiry' was led by Dr Anna Brown, Professor Alina Baluch, and Dr Janis Petzinger from the Department of Management, in collaboration with Dr Lenia Kouneni from the School of Art History. The event provided research students from disciplines spanning education, creative arts, geography, and health an opportunity to experiment with sensory method as a means of generating qualitative research.
Students drew on all their senses during practical activities in the morning session to explore the sensory experience of participants, as well as engage their own researcher bodies as active meaning makers in the research process. In the afternoon, workshop participants were joined by Professor Tine Koehler, Senior Global Fellow at the University of St Andrews, to discuss how to move from experience to representation through data analysis and write up. The workshop aimed to support interdisciplinary embodied researchers to have the confidence to think 'differently' about research practice.
'Intangible inquiry' is a follow up to Methods that move, which ran in 2022 and forms part of a series of methods workshops organised by Dr Brown on affective and embodied method in qualitative research.
Photo by Aniket Bhattacharya on Unsplash