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Due to a late cancellation, there are now two places available on the
October 2006 2-day training in biographic-narrative interviewing. Best
wishes. Tom. Taking this course -- now in its 20th run -- will powerfully
improve the quality of your narrative interviewing. 

  _____  

 

  Intensive Short Course in 

NARRATIVE INTERVIEWING 

  The Biographic-Narrative-Interpretive Method (BNIM) 

 

2 days for 6 people:   Monday-Tuesday October 16th-17th  2006 in Muswell
Hill, North London


Summary 


Designed for MA, PhD students and professional researchers, the course
provides a  training in doing BNIM biographic narrative interviews.
Students develop a sense of how their own research projects might use such
aspects  and components. The cost is £300. Taught by Prue Chamberlayne and
Tom Wengraf in North London, the course’s  small number of students ensures
close coaching and support for the intensive work that is needed for you to
acquire both the understanding of  principles and the practical capacity for
proceeding with the  systematic practices involved in BNIM narrative
interviewing.

 

It would be a good idea to have looked at (not read!)  chapter 6   of Tom’s
textbook, Qualitative research interviewing: biographic narrative and
semi-structured method (2001: Sage Publications), Examples of the use of
BNIM can be found in the case-studies from the European Union  7-country
SOSTRIS project in our (edited)  Biography and social exclusion in Europe:
experiences and life-journeys (2002: Policy Press) and in other items in the
bibliography of the Short Guide to BNIM .  Preliminary and supplementary
material will be provided. More recent debates and developments in theory
and method are integrated into the programme. Before the course starts, you
are expected to have studied the relevant sections of the most recent
version of the Short Guide to BNIM which will be sent to your email address.
The  Short Guide is the text for the course.

 

2-day Programme 

 

We start with a short introduction to the Biographic-narrative-interpretive
method,  a very brief history of its development in Germany and then in
Britain, and an indication of the principles behind its practice. The  point
and timing of  using  open-ended biographic narrative interviews rather than
(only) the more conventional semi-structured and attitude-and-argument
focused ones is clarified.  The bulk of the  two days is then almost
entirely devoted to learning the craft of  BNIM interviewing practice. This
involves  learning to  ask  narrative-pointed questions (both topic-focused
and also open) and not inadvertently interrupting or deflecting the
interviewee. Apparently simple, it rapidly becomes clear that such a craft
requires repeated and careful practice to be successfully achieved.
Pencil-and-paper and repeated practical exercises ensure such success is
achieved by the end of the 2nd day. The course involves supporting you as
you design your own narrative-question and  come to grips with the
principles of following up the interviewee’s response in a way that
maximises the chances of getting the material you want for your project. 

 

We provide methodological feedback on any transcript of a pilot BNIM
interview you subsequently send us. This course corresponds pretty closely
to the first two days of the standard 5-day intensive course in BNIM
interviewing and interpretation, the next UK run of which is in March 2007.[
If you complete these two days, then (subject to the availability of places)
you are in a position at a future date to take the last three days of the
5-day course, namely the three days on BNIM interpretation].  This 2-day
course is free-standing and many researchers already have non-BNIM
interpretive procedures in mind but wish to give themselves the best chance
of getting the best narrative interview material.

 

 

To get a copy of the  free Short Guide to BNIM, to ask any questions or to
book a place, contact  [log in to unmask]  Please give your institutional
affiliation, and – to help us help you – please tell us  for what research
purpose you are envisaging using  BNIM narrative interviewing.


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