From the president:
The qualitative researcher,
like the field of qualitative inquiry, refuses to be frozen into one
space, or one fixed identity. We are constantly changing, creating
new identities, new ways of being, transforming, shedding one skin
after another, staying alive, giving up control, taking chances, seeking
emotional truth, listening to multiple voices, experimenting with
mirrors, refraction, distortion. It is said of great artists that
they show popular culture how to come to them. They raise the bar
high and challenge others to rise to their level.
Qualitative researchers
must resist the temptation to bend to popular methodological or ideological
demand. We must keep our own bar high, and ask others come to us,
on our terms, not theirs. We will maintain our power and influence
to the extent that we can do this, that is make the world bend to
our vision (Sullivan, 2007, p. 84).
The participation of delegates from around the world in the Congress of Qualitative Inquiry has been integral to the growth of the congress, and its stature as a truly international meeting of scholars. We are truly grateful for this support and participation.
As the Congress has grown and developed, so too has the Center for Qualitative Inquiry and the International Institute for Qualitative Inquiry, the independent non-profit that oversees the Congress. Our shared goals involve leadership, advocacy and collaboration in the use of qualitative research for social justice purposes. With Left Coast Press we have launched the International Review of Qualitative Research (IRQR).
The International Review of Qualitative Research encourages the use of critical, experimental and traditional forms of qualitative inquiry in the interests of social justice. We seek works that are both academically sound and partisan, works that offer knowledge-based radical critiques of social settings and institutions while promoting human dignity, human rights, and just societies around the globe. Submissions to the journal are judged by the effective use of critical qualitative research methodologies and practices for understanding and advocacy in policy arenas, as well as clarity of writing and willingness to experiment with new and traditional forms of presentation. Linked to the annual Congress for Qualitative Inquiry, much of the journal’s content will be drawn from presentations and themes developed from these international meetings. Attendees of the 2008 Congress will receive an annual subscription as part of their registration fees.
Left Coast Press is also publishing an annual volume based on plenary and keynote addresses from each Congress. Previous volumes include Qualitative Inquiry and the Conservative Challenge (2006),and Ethical Futures in Qualitative Research (2007. Attendees at the 2008 Congress will receive a copy of the third volume in the series, Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Evidence (2008).
The Congress is now at the next stage of development--expanding our international presence. We want a global network of interconnected Collaborating Sites (CS). Part of our original mandate, beyond the scholarly promotion of qualitative research on a global scale, is the creation of a working structure that routinely places qualitative researchers in closer contact with one another. To this end we are seeking strategic partners, persons located at collaborating sites who will establish links back to IIQI. This is an open invitation to all delegates to become part of this global network by self-nomination.
Our view of collaborative sites draws on the model of cooperating sites developed and used by the International Institute of Qualitative Methodology. A Collaborating Site (CS) develops its own initiatives for expanding qualitative inquiry and its potential for social justice (see attached document). Each site develops a web page which is linked to the IIQI website (qi2008.org). The CS lists local faculty involved in qualitative research, along with their research interests, and provides information about upcoming workshops, seminars, conferences and other programs in the local area. By making this information available through the web, it is our hope to build a strong network of researchers worldwide.
If you accept this invitation, we would like your response to the Registration form by December 31 , 2008. (We are happy to assist you in filling out this Registration form).We want to print the names and addresses of Collaborating Sites in the 2008 Congress Program. We plan to have an international town hall meeting at the 2008 Congress, where representatives from CSs can meet and share experiences and information.
Download
the Cooperating Site Registration Form
Work is well underway
for the Fourth International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry (QI2008)
to be held on the University of Illinois campus, May 14-17 2008. We
expect the attendance of more than 1200 delegates from more than 60
nations, and 30 disciplines. A full compliment of pre-conference sessions
is being planned, including at least three Language Event Days (A
Day in Japanese, a Day in Spanish, and a Day in Turkish), A Technology
Day, and a Day for Nurses who do Qualitative Research. This year the
Congress, as it did in 2007, will co-host the Annual Couch-Stone Spring
Symposium of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction.
The 2008 Congress
has several new and returning co-sponsors, including Women and Gender
in Global Perspectives (UIUC), the Program in Global Studies (UIUC),
Sage Publications, LeftCoast Press, The Society for the Study of Symbolic
Interaction, and the Manchester Discourse Power Group (DPR).
There will be more
than 20 prefconference workshops. Over 850 papers will be presented
and performed in 185 sessions. Keynote addresses will be given at
the opening session of the Congress by Gloria Ladson-Billings and
Ian Stronach. The winners of of the Illinois Distinguished Qualitative
Dissertation Award, will be announced. The winners will receive $250
book certificates from Sage Publications.
The theme of the
Fourth International Congress, "Ethics, evidence and Social Justice
" builds on and extended the themes of the First, Second and Third
International Congresses which focused on “Qualitative Inquiry in
a Time of Global Uncertainty,” “Ethics, Politics and Human Subject
Research, ” and Qualitative Inquiry and the Politics of Evidence.
Within the last decade resistance to qualitative inquiry has increased.
Much of this resistance grows out of neo-conservative discourses which
assert that qualitative research is non-scientific, should not receive
federal funds, and is of little value in the social policy, social
justice arenas.
The Fourth Congress
will offer the international community of qualitative research scholars
the opportunity to engage in debate on ethical, epistemological, methodological
and social justice issues. In these changing times, there are attempts
to label as politically correct social justice concerns, to argue
that concerns for politics, equity and justice have no place in the
academy. At the same time there are efforts to impose so-called ‘value-neutral’,
but uniform bio-medical ethical standards on qualitative research.
There are also increasing efforts to judge qualitative research in
terms of experimental, or scientifically-based criteria. Others seek
to impose a quantitative grid over program evaluations, looking for
an algebra of justice that is value-free.
The politics of evidence
and ethics carries important implications for how qualitative research
is used in the pursuit of social justice issues. Participants will
explore the relationship between these three terms and what these
relationships mean for qualitative inquiry in this new century. If
we as qualitative researchers do not take control of these terms for
ourselves, someone else will.
Delegates will consider
what ethics, evidence and social justice mean under different epistemological
regimes. Participants will explore new ways of evaluating and using
qualitative evidence in social policy arenas.
Sessions will once
again address such topics as: the politics of evidence; interpretive
criteria for evaluating qualitative inquiry; qualitative alternatives
to evidence-based models; mixed-method inquiries; case studies and
public policy discourse; different models of social justice; ethical
regulatory systems (IRBs) and human subject research; indigenous research
ethics; new ways of decolonizing inquiry; race, class, gender and
standpoint epistemologies. Contributors are invited to experiment
with new methodologies, and new presentational formats (drama, performance,
poetry, autoethnography, fiction) while presenting the results of
inquiries which implement these methodological innovations. Sessions
will offer scholars the opportunity to demonstrate the importance,
value, and relevance of qualitative inquiry in these troubling global
times. Such work will offer guidelines and exemplars of how qualitative
research can be used in the policy-making arenas.
Globally, the walls
separating science, public policy and religion are being challenged.
Increasingly, qualitative scholars are resisting institutional attempts
to impose narrow models of evidence on educational and healthcare
research. The 2008 Congress explores experiences with, and criticisms
of evidence-based inquiry, and their counterparts in other nations.
Too often these state-sponsored systems of science rely upon narrow
definitions of research and scientific reasoning. These regulatory
and ethical activities raise fundamental philosophical, epistemological,
political, and pedagogical issues concerning scholarship and freedom
of speech in the academy. These issues cut across the fields of journalism,
educational and policy research, the humanities, communications, health
and social science, social welfare, business, and law.
The deadline for
submitting session, paper and poster proposals is 1 December 2007.
Conference and workshop registration also begins on 1 December.
The International
Association of Qualitative Inquiry (IAQI) was launched in 2005 at
the First Congress. Three years later this new umbrella association
has a Newsletter, and over 1500 members. IAQI and IIQI are currently
active in establishing mutually beneficial relationships with existing
national qualitative research associations in, among other countries,
Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland,
France, Germany, Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia,
Mexico, South Africa, South Korea, and Spain.
The IAQI Newsletter
is a place to extend conversations about the association. We invite
your contribution. The Newsletter offers a venue for taking up controversial
topics. It is a site where new publications and up-coming conferences
can be announced. Negotiations are under way to secure reduced subscription
rates for IAQI members for a number of qualitative research journals.
Please send us your announcements
Thank you so much,
Norman K. Denzin
REFERENCES
Sullivan, Robert
2007. ”This Is Not a Bob Dylan Movie.” New York Magazine, 7
October: pp 58-65, 84, 89-90).
