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Twenty-first
and Twenty-Second
October 2009, March 2010
5-Day
Intensive Trainings
Biographic-Narrative-Interpretive
Method
BNIM
Narrative
Interview and Interpretation
5
days for 6 people:
2009
- October 8th and 9th; 12th
to 14th
2010
– March 11th-12th,
15th -17th
The
value of open-narrative
interviewing and insightful interpretation is widely recognised, but rather than having to invent the
wheel for themselves, many people welcome a systematic textbook-backed immersion
into principles and procedures that have been shown over two decades and many
countries to generate constantly high-quality work.
An
excerpt from an email we received from one university may be suggestive:
“… a number of the
trainees who graduated this year got top awards in their doctorate
projects... BNIM and narrative projects were considered to be of
a particularly high standard by both internal and external examiners, and
were very well received. The course director was very impressed and has told
me that the standard of the research of those undertaking
these projects (using BNIM) has improved the standard of the whole
cohort.”
For
over nine years in the UK, and more recently in New York (USA), in Auckland
(NZ), Ljubljana (Slovenia), and Sydney (Australia), we have been running BNIM
intensive trainings designed for PhD students and for postdoctoral researchers (both
individuals and research teams) in various pure and applied fields. Comments
include:
Elvin – A richness beyond what
I could imagine.
Sasha - thank you, for a wonderful
training course. I learnt so much - and it was a great experience for us all as
a team, and in terms of all of our intellectual and skills development.
Mark – I could go away and
practice now. I liked the balance of how and why. I really got my head round
that and could explain it to someone else.
Completed PhDs, clinical doctorates, and
MA theses s by researchers using BNIM now number about 22. They range over
topics such as: reintegration of returning Guatemalan refugees; identity in
informal care; men coping with sexual abuse; psychosomatic study of breast
cancer; love and intimacy; motivation in occupational therapy; nurses’
and health visitors’ learning and their professional practices;
relationship experiences in psychosis (such as those of, and with, hearing voices
people) and hospitalisation; migration experiences; head teachers; We know of 20 more PhDs, clinical
doctorates and post-doctoral research projects in process.
Anglophone
universities involved include
BNIM assumes that “narrative”
expresses both conscious concerns and unconscious cultural, societal and
individual presuppositions and processes. Integrally psycho-societal, it
supports research into the lived experience and reflexivity of individuals and
collectives, facilitating understanding both the ‘inner’ and the
‘outer’ worlds of ‘historically-evolving
persons-in-historically-evolving situations’, and particularly the
expectedly surprising interactivity
of inner and outer world dynamics. It especially serves researchers who need a tool that supports
understanding spanning sociological and
psychological dynamics and structures, and these treated not statically but as
situated, affected and active historically
and biographically.
For one example of BNIM case
studies, the European Union 7-country SOSTRIS project (edited) Biography and social exclusion in Europe: experiences
and life-journeys (2002: Bristol, Policy Press). Other books,
articles and reports are listed in the full bibliographies of the free BNIM Short Guide (and Detailed Manual)
BNIM research provides an innovative base
for policy review and for better policy, and for professional or activist
practice.
When you do
the course, you automatically become a member of the <Biographic-narrative-BNIM> email
list where news, questions and discussion circulate. Methodology can be
lonely without a secure base and like-minded people working in the same way as
you. The course, the textbook, the free Short
Guide and Detailed Manual and
the email list offer you support in using part or all of the BNIM tool-kit in your own work and for
liaising with others.
Designed for PhD students and professional researchers, the
course provides a thorough training in doing BNIM biographic narrative
interviews, together with ‘hands-on experience’ of following BNIM
interpretation procedures. Students develop a sense of how their own research
projects might use such aspects and components.
Taught by Tom Wengraf and Caroline Barratt in Muswell Hill,
(typically 6) ensures close coaching and support for the
intensive work that is needed for you to fully acquire both the understanding
of principles and also the practical capacity for proceeding with the
systematic procedures involved in BNIM – usable both for BNIM but also
for other types of narrative interviewing and interpretation.
You will be expected to have looked at (not read!)
chapters 6 and 12 of Tom’s textbook, Qualitative
research interviewing: biographic narrative and semi-structured method
(2001: Sage Publications). Before the course
starts, you are expected to have studied some bits and scanned
others of the most recent version of the Short
Guide and Detailed Manual which will be sent to your email address.
This preparing-by-reading means that most of your time during the 5 days can be
spent on clarification and practical exercises, learning-by-doing.
Thursday
and Friday
We start with a short introduction to the
Biographic-narrative-interpretive method, the history of its development, and
to 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. You get to see the value of the 3 quite different subsessions. The
bulk of the first two days is then almost entirely devoted to learning the
craft of BNIM interviewing practice. This involves learning to ask
narrative-pointed questions (both open and also focused) and not inadvertently
interrupting or deflecting the interviewee. Apparently simple, it rapidly
becomes clear that such a craft requires repeated and carefully-monitored practice
to be successfully achieved. Pencil-and-paper and repeated interview practice
exercises ensure such success is achieved by the end of the 2nd day.
Monday to Wednesday
We outline the principles and you engage in the key
practices of BNIM interpretive work . We explain the importance of the twin
interpretive tracks of ‘living of the lived life’ and ‘telling
of the told story’ analysis, and micro-analysis, and how you convert the
raw transcript into two series of processed data for each track. You learn the
significance of the future-blind chunk-by-chunk approach peculiar to BNIM by
practice – by doing parts of a narrative text analysis, a
micro-analysis and biographical data analysis. You see the value of
bringing the separated tracks together in an integrated ‘case
account’. Finally, on the basis of case-presentations, you practice
systematic case-comparison and the generalising and particularising modelling towards which BNIM work is
typically oriented. The course ends with our looking again at how you might
best use all or part of the BNIM approach within your individual research
projects, and, given the existence of sceptical research and applied policy
audiences, how to defend your choice to use such an in-depth biographical
research method with a necessarily low-N sample.
After
you start your work, to help you avoid unnecessary errors, we advise on your eventual design of a SQUIN for your first pilot BNIM pilot
interview, and then – if you wish -- comment
on your transcript and then on your data-processing of that
transcript for subsequent interpretation. There is no extra cost for this..
Procedure
To reserve a place on one of the
courses. To
reserve a place, you need to send us a deposit
of £225 (or the full amount). You
secure your place by paying a deposit (£225) or the full payment.
Places
are reserved in strict order of deposits (or full payment) received. Half your Deposit is returnable if you
cancel before the first day of the previous month, ie. 1st September
2009, and 1st February 2010, respectively.
The third 2009 course will run on October 8-9 and 12th to 14th. The
cost will be £725 if paid in full
before 1st September 2009;
otherwise the cost rises to £825
The first 2010 course will run on March 11th -12th and 15th
to 17th in 2010. The cost will be £725 if paid in full
before 1st February 2010;
otherwise the cost rises to £825.
CONTACT
All
inquiries and bookings, and
requests for a free copy of the most
recently updated version of the BNIM
Short Guide and Detailed Manual: please contact [log in to unmask].