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BNIM runs 5-day intensives for narrative research interviewing,
interpretation, and the use of cases for policy, practice and theory. There
are two more scheduled for this year. If you are interested, or if you would
just like a free electronic 'BNIM Short Guide and Detailed Manual', DO NOT
HIT "REPLY" but open a NEW EMAIL to <[log in to unmask]>. 
  _____  


PLEASE DO NOT HIT ‘REPLY’” TO RESPOND; 

CONSIDERATELY OPEN A NEW EMAIL !!

 

Twenty-ninth  to Thirtieth 

5-Day Intensive Training

Biographic-Narrative-Interpretive Method :BNIM 

Narrative Interview and Interpretation

5 days for 6 people: the rest of 2011

June 16-17, and 21st to 23rd 

October 6th and 7th, and 10th to 12th

Muswell Hill, North London, United Kingdom

 

 

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 twelve years in the UK and in Ireland,  as well as in Auckland
(NZ),   Ljubljana (Slovenia), New York (USA)  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.

 

Already completed PhDs, clinical doctorates, and MA theses  by researchers
using BNIM now number over 40, and  we know of at least another 30 PhDs,
clinical doctorates and post-doctoral research projects in process.   

 

A few of the topics covered: reintegration of returning Guatemalan refugees;
identity in informal care; men coping with sexual abuse; psychoanalytic
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; female
aboriginal head teachers in Australia; students on different  types of
degree programme; fishing practices in Uganda, treatment decisions around
and experiences of the elderly in hospitals; memories of wars, military
occupations, and massacres; midwife experiences; children in orphanages,
intergenerational transmission; the cultures of innovative organisations.

 

Anglophone universities involved include Auckland (NZ), Birkbeck College,
Birmingham, Central Lancashire, Dublin (Ireland)  de Montfort, East Anglia,
East London, Essex, Exeter, National University of Ireland, Idaho (USA),
Indiana (USA), Kings College London, Leeds, Leicester, Manchester, Massey
(NZ), Oxford, Oxford Brookes, Plymouth, Sussex, Queens University Belfast,
Vilnius (Lithuania). In addition, increasing numbers of post-doctoral funded
collective research projects use BNIM (details in the BNIM Short Guide and
Detailed Manual). 

 

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 some  examples of BNIM case studies, see maybe the European Union
7-country SOSTRIS project Biography and social exclusion in Europe:
experiences and life-journeys (2002: Bristol, Policy Press).  Other books,
articles etc. are listed in the bibliography of the BNIM Short Guide (and
Detailed Manual), electronic copy free on request.

 

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. Innovative and advanced methodology can be lonely without a
secure base and contact with like-minded people working in the same way as
you. The course, the textbook, the free  and constantly updated BNIM Short
Guide and Detailed Manual and the email list (currently around 286 strong)
all offer you support in using part or all of the BNIM tool-kit in your own
work and for liaising with others.


Summary


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. 

 

With two tutors (Tom Wengraf and Mariya Stoilova) , we ensure 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  BNIM Short Guide and Detailed Manual which will be
sent to your email address.  Your previous preparing-by-reading means that
most of your time during the 5 days can be spent on clarification and
practical exercises, learning-by-doing-and-discussing. 


Programme (subject to revision) for 5-day intensives


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 --  give feedback on your transcript and
then on your initial data-processing of that transcript for subsequent
interpretation. 

The 5-day intensive  training   £800 early-bird rate (£900 afterwards),
including the important  post-course ‘support for self-training’ mentioned
above.   

 

 

 

CONTACT

 

To apply for a place (there are currently three places left on the June and
on the October intensive), please contact [log in to unmask] 

 

For a free copy of the most recently updated version of the BNIM Short Guide
and Detailed Manual, or all other inquiries about BNIM,   please don’t
hesitate to contact  <mailto:[log in to unmask]> [log in to unmask] 


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