The Conference intends to address the following question: “What qualitative psychological research becomes in the age of uncertainty?” Innovation and social transformations, as critical features of our liquid contemporaneity, trouble traditional categories and challenge established practices, creating a state of structural uncertainty. This uncertainty may also be exacerbated by social, political, and environmental events having global repercussions – the pandemic, climate change, the war in Ukraine, rising unemployment rates and various attacks on human rights and dignity.
Putting these phenomena in the spotlight, the Conference encourages us – as researchers – to critically reflect on the “objects” we focus on and how we can understand and explain them by means of qualitative approaches.
Concerning the first issue, we ask ourselves what impact structural change and uncertainty exert on our research “objects”. To this end, we welcome research proposals focusing on the theme of change in its various manifestations – personal, environmental, social and organisational, political, technological – and/or its effects on individuals, organisations, and social contexts. Following the same line, we are interested in research highlighting how individuals and groups navigate uncertainty to promote innovation and change.
Concerning the second issue, we question how we can innovate our theoretical and research apparatuses to better capture the dimensions of change and fluidity. We therefore welcome methodological reflections and/or proposals introducing and discussing innovative practices to generate or analyse data. In fact, contemporary fragmentation and uncertainty also trouble traditional methods and methodologies, leading and encouraging us to imagine and craft new methodological discourses and practices.
In this age of uncertainty, psychological phenomena become fragmented, blurred, and challenging to grasp. Consequently, their understanding requires original and emancipatory visions, inviting qualitative researchers to adjust and experiment in a way that enables people and scholars to both pursue social justice and contest oppression. This Conference invites participants to abandon the certainty of analytical procedures, to put their imagination to work and propose new ways of doing research.
