AN IMMERSIVE QUALITATIVE APPROACH TO RESEARCH
I am a qualitative researcher, and I am deeply committed to building theory through close engagement with real-world problems and with the people who experience them directly. For me, understanding issues such as poor working conditions, poverty, inequality, stigma, and exclusion requires spending time in the settings where these challenges unfold rather than studying them from a distance.
Ethnographic fieldwork is therefore central to how I conduct research. I spend substantial time in the field, often returning to the same contexts and communities, conducting face-to-face interviews, focus groups, observations, and participatory research activities. I place particular value on direct observation because it allows me to understand not only what participants say, but also how organisational life is experienced, negotiated, and enacted in practice. I am equally interested in the small, everyday interactions, bodily practices, routines, and tensions that can be difficult to capture through more standard forms of data collection.
This immersive approach also shapes how I build relationships with research participants. In many of the settings in which I work, participants may be marginalised, politically vulnerable, economically precarious, or socially stigmatised. Spending time in the field helps me better understand the context surrounding their experiences and, importantly, gives participants greater opportunity to shape the direction of the research rather than simply responding to questions imposed from outside. I see fieldwork as an ongoing process in which emerging interpretations inform what I observe, whom I speak with, and what questions I ask next.
This approach is demanding, but I believe that immersion and iteration are essential for producing research that is both theoretically meaningful and faithful to the realities of the people and organisations I study. Throughout my academic career, I have conducted hundreds of interviews and spent extensive periods undertaking fieldwork across countries including Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, and Sri Lanka.
