This webinar was organised by QUEST (Qualitative Expertise at Southampton) in collaboration with the National Centre for Research Methods, the South Coast Doctoral Training Partnership and Work Future Research Centre. The speakers were: Dr Uracha Chatrakul Na Ayudhya, of Birkbeck, University of London, and Fabien Littel, a postgraduate researcher at the University of Southampton.
The recent NCRM session on Collective Writing and Dialogic Storytelling offered a detailed exploration of two collaborative qualitative methods, both grounded in reflexivity and critique of mainstream research practices.
The first part of the session focused on collective writing as a way to challenge dominant academic norms—particularly around authorship, voice, and knowledge production. Drawing on work with students and professional staff, the speaker described how co-writing in real-time, and reading aloud to each other, became a space to resist extractive research and to surface underrepresented perspectives. They shared examples where writing was not just a method but also a form of inquiry, resistance, and shared reflection.
The second part introduced dialogic storytelling as a method to navigate polarised contexts—specifically within the oil and gas industry and climate activism. The speaker described how structured workshops used individual and collective storytelling, supported by live illustration, to facilitate engagement across opposing viewpoints. While not always comfortable or conclusive, the sessions were framed as opportunities for listening and imagination rather than persuasion.
What both approaches had in common was a focus on method as a means of making space—whether for critical questioning, mutual recognition, or simply slowing down enough to write and reflect together. While some aspects of the session felt more developed than others, it provided a useful prompt to think about who is included in research, how knowledge is co-created, and what methods might offer beyond data collection.
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National Centre for Research Methods
