CQ is a community of practice that enables researchers to develop and refine novel strategies for social inquiry pertaining to health. Members of CQ’s community of practice are extending and adapting a diversity of research methodologies and methods, including ethnographic and arts-based approaches.
The community also engages in reflexive, theoretically-informed discussion of the social relations of inquiry, including its own work. As such, CQ has become a hub for innovation, as well as a platform to critique current qualitative research methodologies, methods and practices. For example, a current scoping review of body-mapping demonstrated a lack of explicit theoretical approaches used in health science inquires adopting this method, proposing methodological innovation using a specific theoretical approach.
Collaboration is crucial to CQ’s role, as a leading centre of methodological innovation. CQ facilitates networking and research collaboration between critical qualitative specialists and the broader medical, social-science and arts-based research communities. Meanwhile, specialization in critical methodologies, like digital storytelling, and a commitment to addressing inequities, has led to partnerships with groups that are affected by health services, research and policy, as well as individuals with lived experience of health issues and social marginalization.
