On Friday, October 25 from 12-1:30 PM, Dr. Eric Mykhalovskiy will present CQ’s latest seminar.
This is a hybrid (online and in-person) session and will not be recorded. Register here. If you are attending in person, please select the “in-person” ticket option. If you are attending online, please select the “online” ticket option.
Title: Thematic Analysis, Qualitative Health Research, and Reflexivity. Are Theory and Social Location Enough?
Abstract: In recent years a particular approach to thematic analysis has taken the qualitative health research world by storm. It has become something of a “go to” approach within qualitative research in health sciences environments, helping to establishing “themes” as an expected, almost required feature of the reporting of qualitative health research. These and other important dimensions of thematic analysis, that would seem to contribute to the structuring of the field, suggest that the approach deserves critical reflection on the part of scholars interested in or concerned about the direction of qualitative health research in the health sciences. In this work in progress paper, I aim to contribute to that type of reflection. I focus on the work of psychologists Braun and Clarke who began writing about thematic analysis in the early aughts. I use their attempt to revise their original formulation of thematic analysis—through their promotion of “reflexive thematic analysis”—as a starting place to consider what it might mean to bring reflexivity to bear on thematic analysis. I argue that, while important, their corrective, which calls upon researchers to locate themselves explicitly in their work and draw on theory in their analysis, can be extended. Other traditions of thought about reflexivity that emphasize the intellectual, political, and institutional contexts that shape inquiry and that call into question the concepts used in inquiry invite a deeper questioning of thematic analysis and/or its reflexive variant. In this talk, I invite the CQ community to join me in thinking about responses to questions informed by such traditions, including: How are we to think about thematic analysis? What is a theme and what does the concept do? What makes thematic analysis so popular and what’s at stake for the field?
Speaker Bio: Eric Mykhalovskiy is a Professor of Sociology at York University in Toronto. His research is principally informed by Studies in the Social Organization of Knowledge and engages critically with public health issues. Recent preoccupations are the public health implications of HIV non-disclosure, the concept of the “unwilling or unable” in public health guidance, and urban residential noise. Eric is an associate editor of the Canadian Journal of Public Health and a member of the editorial board of the Journal of Critical Public Health. He is a past member of the board of directors of the Canadian HIV/AIDS Legal Network and the steering committee of AIDS ACTION NOW! Eric edits the Institutional Ethnography Book Series published by the University of Toronto Press.
