Qualitative Research Journal

The Qualitative Research Journal is a peer reviewed, electronic journal devoted to the communication of the theory and practice of qualitative research in the human sciences. It is published twice a year. Now in its 11th year, the editorials below set out the new directions QRJ is pursuing. If you have queries about the journal, please click on this link to email the editor, Dr Julie White.

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Excerpt from Julie White's first editorial, 2011

As the new editor of QRJ, the first thing I would like to record here is the highly valued contribution made by Mark Vicars, who has overseen this edition and several others prior to this. Mark accepted the challenge to reinvigorate debate and discussion about the relevance and sense of community related to contemporary qualitative research and I congratulate him on his work. ...

In the most recent issue of QRJ, in his editorial entitled 'Coming Out' Critical, Mark put out a call for participation for the DPR/AQR conference that will be held in Cairns, Australia in August this year. In many ways this conference signals a change for both AQR and this journal as the focus shifts, quite deliberately, from research methods or procedures to the social context and complexity in contemporary qualitative research. The title of the conference reflects this: 'Will the Real Evidence Please Stand Up: Politicizing Qualitative Research'. In many ways the critical has taken the place of the technical, and the conference affords an opportunity to trouble this and to consider what this might mean.

Further information about this conference can be found at the website: www.aqr.org.au. I hope that you will consider attending this conference and joining our community. We have uploaded some abstracts already, so you can get an indication of the diverse range of research interests that will be present. Our keynote speakers are all highly respected scholars within international communities and we anticipate they will offer provocation and affirmation related to our conference there and the direction our association is headed. Professor Linda Tuhiwai Smith from The University of Waikato in New Zealand, Professor Pat Sikes from THe University of Sheffield in England and Professor Fazal Rizvi from the University of Melbourne in Australia are all confirmed to attend the conference and are all highly engaging and thought-provoking speakers.

We are also delighted to announce that there will be a number of publishing opportunities associated with this conference, and calls for submissions will be made in September and October 2011. These opportunities will only be available to those who attend and present at the conference. The three confirmed publication arising from the conference will be:

• a special edition of Qualitative Research Journal
• a special edition of Creative Approaches to Research
• an edited book (under contract with Sense Publishers).

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Excerpt from Mark Vicars 1st editorial, 2009

A continued strength of QRJ is its commitment to publishing work which could be described as theoretically and methodologically promiscuous. I would, therefore, like to extend the invitation to prospective authors to continue contributing clamorous voices, committed to proliferating research that pushes at the boundaries of disciplinary practices (Sparkes, 2000).

QRJ endeavours to journey away from prevailing methodological normativities and certainties and, in doing so, is interested in advancing critical conversations around experiences of methodological process, inquiry and representation. It is imperative that those of us involved in engaging and extending debate about what is, and is not, considered as appropriate knowledge and ways of knowing, continue to trouble research practices. Constructing knowledge from the complexity of the unknown habitually involves a questioning of the regimes of truth that naturalise knowledge production and that invariably involves brushing up against the rough trade of normalising academic protocols.Qualitative research practices, located within and emerging from globalised social and cultural landscapes, offer up possibilities of ‘surveying, mapping, even realms that are yet to come’ (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987, pp. 4–5) and it is, therefore, important that we continue to mess around on the fringes of methodology (Wolfe, 1992).

Vicars, Mark, 2009, 'Editorial', Qualitative Research Journal, vol.9, no.2, p. 1

References

Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1987). A thousand plateaus. Capitalism and schizophrenia. London: Continuum.

Sparkes, A. C. (2000). Autoethnography and narratives of self: Reflections on criteria in action. Sociology of Sport Journal, 17(1), 21–43.

Wolfe, M. (1992). A thrice-told tale: Feminism, postmodernism, and ethnographic responsibility.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.