A Year with Svend Brinkmann’s Book ‘Qualitative Inquiry in Everyday Life’

The project of recording a series of videos based on Svend Brinkmann’s book, Qualitative Inquiry in Everyday Life: Working with Everyday Life Materials, continues. I just posted Part 9. Two more parts remain to be recorded and then the series will come to its conclusion. After updating the Patreon Videos page, I realized I had started working on this series last March–a little over a year ago.

The book presents itself as a “survival guide” for researchers who work with little resources, but it has a more profound aim. In this book, Brinkmann wants to show the connections between life and research. He wants to show the hidden presence of qualitative research, or the extension of the researcher’s mindset, beyond formal academic fields, beyond strict methods and conventional projects. He wants to show that the aim of understanding a piece of life can coincide with the aim of living a good life.

Everyday observations, a conversation with a friend, material in social media, films, and books of fiction can all provide stimulation–and a starting point– for thinking, research, and writing, if we learn to look at the material through a researcher’s perspective. The book has especially proven relevant to me in my current position outside academic institutions, without institutional support. “Everyday life” is all that I have now. I don’t really want more than what I have, but I do want to look at my material in a better and more careful way, not for the sake “productivity,” but for the sake of the value that was once expressed in researchers’ productivity.

I am grateful to my Patreon supporters for giving me a place to even consider doing this series of videos. This series has been so experimental, so unusual and free in its form, that I would’ve never tried it on my public YouTube channel. Regardless of the attention my videos might receive from an audience, I have found something in Brinkmann’s book that justify the year-long project. I have, at least, found a way to remain in touch with my own questions.

If you’re interested in watching my series of 11 videos based on this book, Qualitative Inquiry in Everyday Life, you can do so by signing up on my Patreon page with the minimum (Tier 1) level of support. Your support would mean a lot to me and would help me continue working along similar lines.