Most easily read in RICH TEXT
Thirty-eighth
November 2014
Five-Day Training Intensive
in the
Biographic-Narrative-Interpretive Method
BNIM
Narrative Interview and Interpretation
5 days for 6 people:
2014 Thursday-Friday November 6th - 7th ;
and then Monday-Wednesday November 10th to 12th
at
24a Princes Avenue, London N10 3LR
Muswell Hill, North London, United Kingdom
Finding good methods for doing social research that is genuinely concerned
with the macro-societal, the meso-institutional and also with an informed
concern for subjectivity and 'the inner world' is not easy.
One method of doing such research is biographical-narrative interviewing,
and one of the different methodologies of doing such work is BNIM: the
biographic-narrative interpretive method.
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, tutor-backed,
practical immersion into principles and procedures-for-practice that have
been shown over two decades and many countries to generate constantly
high-quality work.
For over fourteen years in the UK and in Ireland, as well as in Auckland
(New Zealand), Ljubljana (Slovenia), New York (USA), Sydney (Australia),
Grand Canaries (Spain), Coimbra (Portugal) we have been running BNIM
intensive trainings designed for PhD students and for postdoctoral
researchers (both individuals and also research teams) for use in various
pure and applied fields. Comments include:
Tom, I just wanted to say a big ‘thank you’ to you, Prue and Marija for such
brilliant training and such hospitality and collegiality during the week. I
really, really appreciate it. I feel that I benefitted immensely. I felt
that the whole event was so well put together, there was so much advice
being given (and just the right amount) with lots of practical hints as
well.
It really made me confident about trusting my instincts with research and
with BNIM in general and about developing my own ideas about ‘what works’ in
a practical sense while staying within the main parameters of the method.
There was also a good level of theoretical discussion and, given that we
have diverse research interests and are at different levels with projects, I
felt that the whole thing worked well
(Lisa Moran May 2014)
and
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.
Ian - Your course (that I suggested one of our PhD students attend) was one
of the most enjoyable experiences (and intense!) I have had
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.
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.”
Already completed PhDs, clinical doctorates, and a few MA theses by
researchers using BNIM now number over 70, and we know of at least another
20 PhDs, clinical doctorates and post-doctoral research projects in process.
There may well be others. The trend is rising sharply. 23 (three per year)
were submitted in the eight years between 2001 and 2009; but 30 more (10
per year) were submitted just in the three years between 2009 and 2011
(???who says qualitative researchers take no account of numbers and can’t
count???
A very few of the topics covered: the culture of motor bikers;
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 and training programmes;
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; motivations for new
entry into dairy-farming
Increasing numbers of post-doctoral funded collective research projects use
BNIM (details in the free BNIM Short Guide and Detailed Manual).
Anglophone universities involved include Auckland (NZ), Belfast, Birkbeck
College, Birmingham, Central Lancashire, Dublin (Ireland) , de Montfort,
East Anglia, East London, Essex, Exeter, National University of Ireland
(Ireland),, Idaho (USA), Indiana (USA), Kings College London, Leeds,
Leicester, Manchester, Massey (NZ), Middlesex, Oxford, Oxford Brookes,
Plymouth, Sussex, Queens University Belfast.
BNIM assumes that “narrative” expresses both conscious concerns and
unconscious cultural, societal, institutional and individual
presuppositions and processes. Integrally psycho-societal, BNIM interprets
discourse and interview expression to support research into the lived
experience and reflexivity of individuals and collectives, situated
subjectivity, facilitating an integrative 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 want to think psycho-societally and who
need a tool that supports understanding spanning macro-sociological,
meso-institutional and psychological dynamics and structures, and these
treated not statically or separately but as situated, affected and active
historically and biographically.
For some examples of BNIM case studies, some in areas with which you might
well be concerned, see maybe the European Union 7-country SOSTRIS project
Biography and social exclusion in Europe: experiences and life-journeys
(2002: Bristol, Policy Press). A multitude of other books, articles, reports
etc. are listed in the Bibliography A of the BNIM Short Guide (and Detailed
Manual), and in the BNIM Quick Sketch, electronic copy free on request.
BNIM research provides an innovative base for policy review and for better
policy, and for professional practice and the upgrading of existing theory
and case-description practices
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 BNIM Quick Sketch (with Bibliography),
the constantly updated BNIM Short Guide and Detailed Manual , and the
dedicated email list (currently around 450 strong) all offer you initial and
ongoing support in using part or all of the BNIM tool-kit in your own work
and for liaising with others.
Summary of the 5-day BNIM-intensive
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/Deborah Rodriguez) , 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 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 can be spent
on clarification and practical exercises during the 5 days,
learning-by-doing-and-discussing and then rectifying practice.
Programme (subject to revision) for 5-day intensives
Thursday and Friday - interviewing
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-(self)-monitored practice to be successfully
achieved. To do this you will interview other trainees and be interviewed
by them. Repeated short interview practice exercises and discussion ensure
such success is achieved before the end of the 2nd day.
Monday to Wednesday – interpreting , and theorising from cases
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 theorising 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, either on its own or as part of a multi-method
approach.
After the course, post-course support
To help you avoid unnecessary errors when you start to practice BNIM
yourself, we continue to advise on your eventual design of an
open-narrative question (the SQUIN) for your pilot interviews, and then –
if you wish – we give feedback on your first transcript and then on its
initial data-processing for subsequent interpretation.
The BNIM Detailed Manuals (constantly updated) are very powerful resources
for post-course reference and clarification of questions that arise in your
post-course practice.
The tuition fees for the 5-day intensive training (including the important
post-course initial support mentioned above) are earlybird £825 (or £925
afterwards). .
[Further Tutorial Feedback up to the level of the Case-Account is also now
available for those who have completed the 5-day intensive]
CONTACT
To get a free digital copy of the BNIM Quick Sketch and Bibliography, or
for information about the most recently updated version of the
BNIM Short Guide bound with the BNIM Detailed Manuals,
or for all other inquiries about BNIM,
please don’t hesitate to contact me at <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
[log in to unmask]
Qualitative Research Methodology
<http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/>
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/ shows how qualitative research
can provide key indicators for understanding how a regime works….. takes a
minute to read!
Re: Planet’s biographical news.
We all know that ecocide happens – for example, we know along the Amazon in
South America an area of forest the size of France is lost every day. (see
<http://www.climatepsychologyalliance.org/in-conversation-hilary-prentice-an
d-colin-feltham/www.eradicatingecocide.com> www.eradicatingecocide.com).
And planetary climate degradation to 4C and above is heralded:
<http://medialens.org/index.php?option=com_acymailing&no_html=1&ctrl=url&url
id=3131&mailid=270&subid=4000> http://tinyurl.com/o7y5qol.
TTIP = Transatlantic Terror Intimidation by the Powerful is the most recent
struggle by the super-rich to completely subordinate states to their will,
working through the corporations. You can help block TTIP (officially
disguised under the ‘Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnerships’) can
be blocked like previous ones if we work at it.
Go to <wdm.org.uk> and search the site for “TTIP”.
If the governments of the super-rich were successful in preventing all
restraint of trade, all preservation of our eco-system, see what would
happen to London when and as all the ice were melted.
<http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map>
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2013/09/rising-seas/if-ice-melted-map. The
City of London so keen on TTIP would be out on a limb, so to speak!
Weapons of Planetary Destruction (now ongoing at a government near you).
http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175847/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_is_climate_c
hange_a_crime_against_humanity/#more
And thanks to Oxfam, we know a bit about the power relations: 85 people
world-wide have extracted enough wealth equal to that of 3.5 billion people,
half the world’s population. Here in Britain, 5 families own wealth equal to
that owned by the poorest 20% of the British population. 1 family owns more
than do the bottom 10%. For dynamics of such elite-mass relations, see for
example <http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/>
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/09/65578/.
Our small project to change a handfull of biographies in Uganda
For news about our changing development project in a Ugandan village,
including agricultural training, microcredit loans for women to set up small
businesses and psycho-social and material support for the poorest children,
see <http://www.kiuganda.org/> www.kiuganda.org.
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