Critical Qualitative Health Research

Critical Qualitative Health Research seeks to deepen understandings of the philosophies, politics and practices shaping contemporary qualitative health related research. This accessible, lively, controversial introduction draws on current empirical examples and critical discussion to show how qualitative research undertaken in neoliberal healthcare contexts emerges and the complex issues qualitative researchers confront. This book provides readers with a critical, interrogative discussion of the histories and the legacies of qualitative research, as well as of the more recent calls for renewed criticality in research to respond to global health concerns. Contributions further showcase a range of contemporary work engaging with these issues and the complex encounters with philosophies, politics and practices this involves; from seeking explicit engagements with posthuman ideas or detailed explorations of deeply engaged humanist approaches, to critical discussions of the politics and practices of emerging novel, digital and creative methods. This book offers postgraduate researchers, health researchers and students alike opportunities to engage more deeply with the emergent, complex and messy terrain of qualitative health related research.

Kay Aranda is a Reader in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Brighton. Having worked in primary care, public health and community health nursing, her research interests include theory informed-qualitative and feminist research and inequalities related to gender, age and sexuality.

List of Contributors Preface Introduction Kay Aranda 1. Qualitative Research and Ideological Pragmatism? A Journey Chris Cocking 2. Case Study Methodology Kay de Vries 3. Qualitative Methods: Challenges and Celebrations of Fieldwork in the Health Care Setting Julie Scholes 4. The Practice of Grounded Theory: An Interpretivist Perspective Julie Scholes 5. Engaging with Grounded Theory Research as a Doctoral Student Heather Baid 6. From Phenomenology to Practice: Theoretical Foundations and Phenomenological Methods Kate Galvin, Oliver Thurlow, and Rebecca Player 7. Phenomenology: Questioning Consciousness and Experience Graham Stew 8. Re-Thinking Ethnography with Practice Theory Debbie Hatfield 9. Autoethnography Alec Grant 10. Post Critical Qualitative Feminist Research: Implications for Participatory and Narrative Approaches Kay Aranda 11. The Reflexive Autoethnographer Alec Grant