February 7 – 10 2017 // Leuven, Belgium

After 12 successful editions of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry from our partner at Illinois University in the US, we are pleased to announce that the first European edition of the congress will be hosted in the beautiful city of Leuven, Belgium.

On behalf of the Network Qualitative Research Leuven and our distinguished partners, I extend a very warm welcome to qualitative researchers worldwide.

The venue of ECQI 2017 will be KU Leuven, situated near Brussels, the capital of Europe, and a centre of learning for almost six centuries now (founded in 1425). KU Leuven has grown substantially and has become a multi-campus university employing over 11,500 persons and hosting more than 50,000 students, 14% of which are ‘international’ students representing 147 different nationalities.

The 1st edition of the European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry is a unique event for sharing knowledge and seeking new collaboration and partnerships. It provides opportunities for addressing the common challenges that qualitative researchers face in their own geographical regions or research disciplines. Most importantly the Congress is a lively event, providing ample opportunities for interacting with friends and colleagues and learning about the latest developments and innovations in qualitative inquiry. Following the example of ICQI, we offer you a space where you may feel comfortable experimenting with new ideas and critical thoughts and push the boundaries of what we currently perceive as best practice in qualitative research.

Committed to strengthen the qualitative research agenda in Europe, we particularly invite contributions that address the important aspect of quality and reflexivity in qualitative inquiry.  Quality criteria and quality frameworks used to judge our own work and the work of others are constantly negotiated in the context of emerging areas of qualitative methodological innovation and new ways of conceptualizing qualitative inquiry. We recognize the value of flexible, emerging and progressive approaches to qualitative research developed in response to the often wicked, challenging topics we study and welcome contributions that are provocative, creative and critical towards our own established toolbox of qualitative research approaches.  To maximize learning potential, we invite researchers to share transparent audit trails of methodological decisions made in qualitative research projects and reconstruct their research logic for others. We hope to welcome many of you to join us in evolving debates on what constitutes good practice in qualitative inquiry and by doing so, influence the direction, focus and atmosphere of potential future editions of ECQI.

We are looking forward to welcome you in Leuven, a bustling city with many museums, monuments and historic buildings(incl. Unesco World Heritage) and a rich gastronomy, claiming to be ‘The place to beer!’.

On behalf of the Network Qualitative Research Leuven,
Karin Hannes, conference chair

More info: https://kuleuvencongres.be/ECQI2017

More videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mdr08GP2w7A&list=PLNormAuTYSJumInVborMzkwg5zXdCvDg8&index=1

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Keynote Speakers

Virtual introduction to the European Congress of Qualitative Inquiry by Norman Denzin, conference chair of the International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry.

Norman K. Denzin is Emeritus Professor of Communications, Sociology, and Humanities at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. Denzin is the author or editor of more than two dozen books, including Indians  on Display; Custer on Canvas; The Qualitative Manifesto; Qualitative Inquiry Under Fire; Searching for Yellowstone; Reading Race; Interpretive Ethnography; The Cinematic Society; The Voyeur’s Gaze; and The Alcoholic Self. He is past editor of The Sociological Quarterly, co-editor (with Yvonna S. Lincoln) of four editions of the Handbook of Qualitative Research, coeditor (with Michael D. Giardina) of 12 plenary volumes from the annual International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry, co-editor (with Lincoln) of the methods journal Qualitative Inquiry, founding editor of Cultural Studies/Critical Methodologies and International Review of Qualitative Research, and editor of three book series.

Mats Alvesson is Professor of Business Administration at the University of Lund, Sweden, and, part-time, University of Queensland Business School, Australia and Cass Business School, London. He has done extensive research and published widely in the areas of qualitative and reflexive methodology, critical theory, organized culture, knowledge work, identity in organizations, gender, organizational change, management consultancy etc. He has published 20 books with leading publishers and hundreds of articles, many of which are widely cited and used on higher levels in university education. Recent books include Understanding Gender and Organizations (Sage, 2009, with Y. Billing), Reflexive Methodology (Sage, 2009, with K. Sköldberg), Interpreting Interviews (Sage, 2010), The Triumph of Emptiness: Consumption, higher education and work organization (Oxford University Press, 2013) and Constructing Research Questions: Doing interesting research (Sage 2013, with J. Sandberg)

About his talk: Identifying and solving mysteries in empirical research. A methodology for generating novel and interesting theories is by challenging the links between empirical material and theoretical conclusions. Many researchers approach robust quantitative or qualitative data (generated through grounded theory, experiments, ethnographies, observations and so forth) as both the basis delivering theoretical insights through proper analysis and as the final arbiter of their theories’ truthfulness. I, by contrast, do not regard empirical material as the royal road to theory, no matter how diligently and rigorously it has been collected and how technically well it has been analysed. Instead, I see theory and empirical material in a constant interplay with the latter as a source of inspiration rather than as the ultimate arbiter for the latter. Theory and empirical material must be in constant dialogue, interrogating and refining each other, with special attention being paid to discontinuities, paradoxes and mysteries. I consequently suggest a methodology for theory development through encounters between theoretical assumptions and empirical impressions that highlight breakdowns. It is the unanticipated and the unexpected – the anomalies that puzzle the researcher – that are of particular interest in the encounter. These do not just appear, they need to be creatively created. Accordingly, theory development is stimulated and facilitated through a special interest in what does not work in an existing theory or in received wisdom. The ideal of this research methodology can be summed up as including two elements, the identification of a mystery and its solution. It means the active use of empirical material not to confirm and reproduce but kick back and challenge dominant ideas and developing something unexpected and novel. The talk is based on Alvesson and Kärreman: Qualitative Research and Theory Development, Mystery as Method, Sage 2011).

This key note is sponsored by the Faculty of Economics, KU Leuven.

Maggie MacLure is Professor of Education in the Education and Social Research Institute (ESRI) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). She leads the Theory and Methodology Research Group in ESRI. Her most recent research projects have centred on early childhood education, and the issue of ‘behaviour’ in school. Maggie is the founder and director of the Summer Institute in Qualitative Research. Her book, Discourse in Educational and Social Research, won the Critics’ Choice Award from the American Educational Studies Association.

About her talk: Rethinking reflexivity in the ‘ontological turn’. Reflexivity has been a powerful concept for qualitative research. It has challenged narrow definitions of ‘objectivity’, and attempted to repair the fatal breach that such definitions posit between researchers, participants and knowledge. However I want to reconsider the status of reflexivity, from within the ontological or materialist ‘turn’ in theory. This ‘turn’ – a loose confederation of disparate influences from Barad, Braidotti and Deleuze, among many others – is prompting a radical rethinking of the methods and the conceptual architecture of qualitative inquiry. It presents a profound challenge to the humanism that still underpins much of the research endeavour, with its privilege of language, discourse and culture over matter and nature. Can reflexivity be rethought within the new materialisms; or is it irrevocably tainted through its association with human entitlement, and the distancing effects of language and representation? Barad asserts that ‘we’ are components of each research apparatus that engages the world: that we are born from the ‘agential cut’ that also produces the ‘data’ and our relation to it. What would an immanent reflexivity look like, and how would it work? I suggest that we might think of reflexivity, after Laura Cull (2011), as a kind of immanent attention or ‘ontological participation’, and explore some of the methodological and ethical implications for qualitative inquiry.