March 8, 2023

March 8, 2023 Melina Aarnikoivu (JYU) “‘Look a squirrel!’ – Non-focus in qualitative research”

Abstract

Can research ever be “ready” before you can show it to your audience? What is behind the “polished” research products, such as journal articles? Could setbacks and “failures” of research be considered an inherent part of researcher growth? In this talk, I will offer an autoethnographic view on doing research as a non-focused, meandering process. The aim is to conceptualise non-focus in qualitative research; to bring transparency to nonlinear, uncertain, and occasionally messy research processes. The talk, which is based on a published paper (Aarnikoivu & Saarinen, 2021), offers a methodological starting point for those qualitative researchers who want to tackle complex phenomena but do not yet know where to start and what types of questions to ask specifically.

Bio

Dr Melina Aarnikoivu is a postdoctoral researcher at the Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä. She completed her PhD in applied linguistics at the Centre for Applied Language Studies in 2020. In her doctoral work, she studied doctoral education as a form of social action. Since then, she has been particularly interested in early-career researchers’ academic writing practices. Her methodological expertise includes qualitative methodologies, especially doing (insider) ethnography.