First steps in qualitative secondary analysis: experiences of engaging with the primary research team

Annie Irvine

doi:10.1080/13645579.2023.2267836

First steps in qualitative secondary analysis: experiences of engaging with the primary research team

Annie Irvine

Global Health & Social Medicine

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Engaging with primary researchers during qualitative secondary analysis is a practice much recommended but rarely written about. In this article, I reflect on my experience of crossing an imagined boundary between the discrete textual dataset and its creators, of acknowledging and engaging with those researchers who invested in constructing the data, some of whom are still actively working with it. Focusing on four rationales for engaging with primary researchers - orientation, navigation, interpretation and the ethics of ownership - I describe the opportunities, tensions and dilemmas that presented themselves as I entered into dialogue with members of the primary research team. As the encouragement of rapid archiving practices and open qualitative research present new possibilities in working with contemporary ‘living’ archives, so it also raises new methodological and ethical considerations regarding engagement with and relationality towards primary researchers still active in their fields.

Original language	English
Journal	INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF SOCIAL RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Early online date	25 Oct 2023
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2023.2267836
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 25 Oct 2023

Keywords

Qualitative secondary analysis; reflexivity; ethics; qualitative archives; open qualitative research

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10.1080/13645579.2023.2267836Licence: CC BY

Cite this

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abstract = "Engaging with primary researchers during qualitative secondary analysis is a practice much recommended but rarely written about. In this article, I reflect on my experience of crossing an imagined boundary between the discrete textual dataset and its creators, of acknowledging and engaging with those researchers who invested in constructing the data, some of whom are still actively working with it. Focusing on four rationales for engaging with primary researchers - orientation, navigation, interpretation and the ethics of ownership - I describe the opportunities, tensions and dilemmas that presented themselves as I entered into dialogue with members of the primary research team. As the encouragement of rapid archiving practices and open qualitative research present new possibilities in working with contemporary {\textquoteleft}living{\textquoteright} archives, so it also raises new methodological and ethical considerations regarding engagement with and relationality towards primary researchers still active in their fields.",

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note = "Funding Information: The dataset which I sought to utilise is the Welfare Conditionality Project (Dwyer et al., ). Welfare Conditionality (henceforth WelCond) was a large-scale longitudinal qualitative project, funded by the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), which ran from 2013 to 2019. WelCond investigated people{\textquoteright}s experiences of sanctions and support in the UK welfare system. The dataset is now held within the Timescapes Archive at the University of Leeds. The WelCond study involved a large team of seven investigators and six researchers, most of whom were involved in carrying out research interviews, as well as project managers who were involved in preparing the data for archive. The study recruited 481 participants, with three waves of semi-structured qualitative interviews at approximately 12-month intervals, totalling over 1000 transcripts. Participants were sampled according to nine variables of interest: experience of antisocial behaviour orders, disabled people, ex-offenders, homelessness, jobseeking, lone parents, migrant status, social housing residents, and people in receipt of the social security benefit Universal Credit. A publication by a subgroup of the primary team (Dwyer et al., ) revealed that around half of the WelCond sample (including participants across all nine groups) talked about experiences of mental health problems during their interviews. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2023 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.",

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First steps in qualitative secondary analysis: experiences of engaging with the primary research team

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Keywords

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Understanding mental health in the UK welfare system: representations of distress among benefit claimants and implications for assessment and support

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First steps in qualitative secondary analysis: experiences of engaging with the primary research team

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Projects

Understanding mental health in the UK welfare system: representations of distress among benefit claimants and implications for assessment and support

Cite this