Conference Agenda

This paper compares the process of data coding as carried out by Qualitative Content Analysis and Grounded Theory. It uses the metaphor of a city tour guide to describe how different philosophical assumptions and research objectives between and within these approaches/methods to qualitative data analysis lead to very different tours in your city of interest. In comparing these tours, this paper focuses on the relative importance of deduction and induction and the use of literature, the meaning of theoretical saturation and the process of sampling and the relative importance of reliability in coding and how ‘quality’ is understood more generally in these approaches/ methods to qualitative data analysis. While these different tour guides will offer you a different experience in terms of ‘what you see’ and ‘how you will see it’, they enrich each others’ approach to knowledge development. The paper offers specific suggestions in terms of how these approaches / methods to QDA can learn from each other and can be used in more integrated ways to offer different kinds of experiences and outcomes of knowledge production.

In this presentation, we will speak about our new book being published with Routledge, where we explore what it means to have lived experience in practice. Written by academics and activists working with and in the field of criminological lived experience, we explore the concepts and ideas that form this movement.

Sharing autoethnographic insights and experiences of both being imprisoned and working with the previously imprisoned, this is a groundbreaking book that gets to the heart of what it means to have lived experience. We offer an innovative exploration of the transformative potential of lived experience expertise in criminology and criminal justice. This book employs a series of compelling case studies and praxis examples to examine how lived experiences can challenge established paradigms and enrich education, research, practice and activism. Authored and edited collaboratively by academics and practitioners, including those with lived experiences of incarceration, this work bridges the gap between theory and practice. Our authorship and editing process was one where we ensured transparency and collaborative writing were held in the highest regard. We used a circular writing and editing process, where we each wrote a chapter and then shared and edited each other's work. With monthly meetings and an open editing process, this book speaks to the values that we wish to uphold with our lived experience advocacy. Collaboration, transparency and ensuring that everyone gets a seat at the table.

Ultimately, we hope our book inspires transformative systemic change through authentic lived voices, expertise and insights in both the fields of lived experience and collaborative writing and publishing.

What happens when data begin to outgrow the analytic frame we bring to them? This presentation traces the methodological evolution that transformed an intended thematic analysis into the development of a grounded theory.

The study began as a small-scale thematic analysis of around ten interviews exploring self- and other-blame among survivors of interpersonal trauma. Yet, as the first transcripts were analyzed, participants’ narratives resisted containment within the anticipated thematic frame. What initially appeared to be individual expressions of blame, gradually revealed an underlying grammar of moral negotiation—moments in which participants weighed emotional, relational, and social costs before assigning or accepting trauma-related blame. These recurrent patterns of moral positioning, exchange, and regulation indicated that something more complex was unfolding: not merely what or who survivors blamed for their traumas, but how and why blame was distributed across interpersonal and cultural contexts. It became increasingly evident that the data were not only describing experiences but also theorizing them.

In response, the study’s design was reconceptualized through Constructivist Grounded Theory. Data collection and analysis became iterative and comparative, guided by theoretical sampling until saturation was reached. This shift enabled the emergence of the Perpetrator–Other–Self (POS) economic model of blame, which conceptualizes blame as a moral economy shaped by psychological and socio-cultural forces. According to this model, blame attribution follows an “affordable blame heuristic,” whereby survivors evaluate the emotional and relational costs of each blame trajectory—toward the perpetrator, others, or the self—and assign blame selectively, in ways that feel both bearable and functional.

Methodologically, this project demonstrates how data can reorient the researcher’s analytic path and epistemological stance. It highlights the generative potential of flexibility, reflexivity, and theoretical sensitivity in qualitative inquiry—particularly when the data themselves demand that we expand our conceptual and methodological imagination.

Centring lived experience has gained traction in qualitative research and beyond in recent years. ‘Lived experience’, sometimes referred to as ‘expertise by experience’ or ‘lived experience expertise’ is understood here as the unique expertise held by those who have experienced first hand the socio-political issues which researchers work to understand and policymakers commit to address. In the face of global crises the value of such expertise cannot be overstated. Whilst the ethical imperative to meaningfully involve lived experience expertise is crystal clear the praxis is less so. Drawing on research with experts by experience impacted by the criminal legal system in the UK, the paper engages readers with a number of emergent tensions in these research experiences. In response, arguing for a critical reflexive inquiry approach to collaboration. Those considering or already involved in research which seeks to meaningfully position individuals with lived experience expertise in research are encouraged to deeply engage with the tensions identified to enact equity and the emancipatory potential of centring lived experience.

This presentation introduces Momentary Reflective Data Collection (MRDC), an innovative methodological approach designed to capture the intersections of precarious work, family life, and mental health. Emerging from our study of Canadian families navigating precarious employment, MRDC adapts and extends ecological momentary assessment into a qualitative and arts-based paradigm.

Drawing on over 600 responses generated during this study, MRDC was developed to capture intensive, contextual accounts of lived experience. Across a 14-day period, participants documented their realities of precarity and family life through audio clips, photographs, and written reflections in response to daily prompts. These multimodal responses provided not only descriptive content but also insight into the rhythms, textures, and temporal negotiations of everyday life under conditions of precarity.

As we engaged with this “real-time” data, patterns emerged not only in the content of responses but also in their rhythm, timing, and tone. These patterns invited a critical re-examination of what counts as “real time.” Rather than interpreting timestamped responses as neutral temporal markers, we considered how individuals actively shape their temporal experiences. Participants exercised temporal agency—delaying, reframing, or returning to prompts—when emotional readiness, relational demands, or contextual conditions aligned. Thus, what might appear as a “late” or “belated” response instead represented the right moment for meaning-making.

Reframed through the concept of Momentary Reflective Data, each response becomes less a spontaneous real-time record and more a situated, reflexive engagement—an entangled moment shaped by attention, affect, and presence. This approach not only generates intensive and contextual descriptive data but also foregrounds the relational and affective dimensions of temporality within qualitative inquiry.

Our presentation will demonstrate the methodological contributions of MRDC, illustrating how recognizing participants’ temporal agency transforms real-time qualitative data collection into a practice attuned to the “textures of time” and the lived complexities of precarious work and mental health.