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Twenty-Ninth and 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, (weekend free), and then 20th to 22nd
October 6th and 7th,, (weekend free), and then 10th
to 12th
Muswell
Hill,
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.
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.
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 [log in to unmask].