This is the editorial paper for the virtual special issue “Using Q methodology in higher education: Opportunities and challenges”, consisting of nine original research studies from different international contexts. In addition to presenting novel findings, contributors were invited to discuss the following two questions at the center of the special issue call: In what sense has Q methodology served as a fitting approach to investigate subjectivity in higher education? What methodological opportunities and challenges arise with Q methodology in higher education settings? This editorial provides an overview and discussion of the various justifications mentioned for Q methodology. Furthermore, it collates the opportunities and challenges contributors discuss in relation to their studies using this almost 90-year-old methodological approach. The editorial paper concludes with recommendations for future Q methodological studies in higher education and beyond.
MULTIFILE
In this paper, we explore the ways in which we can employ arts-based research methods to unpack and represent the diversity and complexity of journalistic experiences and (self) conceptualisations. We address the need to reconsider the ways in which we theorise and research the field of journalism. We thereby aim to complement the current methodologies, theories, and prisms through which we consider our object of study to depict more comprehensively the diversity of practices in the field. To gather stories about journalism creatively (and ultimately more inclusively and richly), we propose and present the use of arts-based research methods in journalism studies. By employing visual and narrative artistic forms as a research tool, we make room for the senses, emotion and imagination on the part of the respondents, researchers and audiences of the output. We draw on a specific collaboration with artists and journalists that resulted in a research event in which 32 journalists were invited to collaboratively recreate the “richness and complexity” of journalistic practices.
The third book of the Ebifananyi series, Ebishushani III – All the Tricks, delves into the life of Elly Rwakoma who ran photostudio studio and was a presidential photographer as well as a social worker and a businessman. Ebishushani III takes of from one particular image that, due to various circumstances, went missing. The reader is also told, by Elly Rwakoma himself, what the circumstances were in which he trained himself as a photographer and later ran his practice.Each one of the Ebifananyi books deals with one specific Ugandan photo collection, and is made in close collaboration with the owners of the material and other contributors. Ebifananyi 1, 2 and 3 form a trilogy, presenting examples of photographic practices in Uganda.
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