How to - , 09-11-2023

How to use qualitiative 'timeline interviewing' when conducting research with political and profesional elites

Speaker(s):

Bio: Dr Laura Bainbridge is a Lecturer in Criminal Justice in the School of Law at the University of Leeds. Laura's scholarly interests lie at the nexus between social policy, criminology and political science. She specialises in violence reduction and the multi-level processes in which policies and programmes 'travel' across the globe. As an expert in advanced and innovative qualitative methods, Laura acts as a Methods Ambassador for the Social Research Methods Centre at the University of Leeds and is taking forward training pertaining to both graphic elicitation techniques and interviewing political and professional elites. Laura is currently the PI on two studies. The first is a N8 PRP funded project dedicated to understanding and preventing County Lines 'cuckooing' victimisation, while the second explores the benefits and hazards of mandating domestic violence perpetrators to a period of compulsory sobriety. Laura is also a Co-I and the ECR Champion for the recently launched ESRC Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre. Laura is the founder and chair of the UK Compulsory Sobriety Network. In addition, she sits on the Editorial Board of the Journal of Social Policy, is a member of the Howard League for Penal Reform's Research Advisory Group, and has a seat on the West Yorkshire Violence Reduction Unit's Advisory Board. As an impact-focussed researcher, Laura has successfully disseminated her findings to UK government ministers, civil servants, Members of Parliament and Police and Crime Commissioners. At the international level, she has been invited to share her insights with crime and justice practitioners located in the United States, Canada, Poland and Belgium, and has acted as an advisor to the Australian Government's Behavioural Insights Team.

Abstract:

This session is dedicated to exploring how qualitative 'timeline interviewing' can successfully be incorporated into fieldwork conducted with political and professional elites. The session will begin by introducing participants to graphic elicitation techniques in a broad sense, before moving on to examine the array of timelines that can be co-constructed during interviews. Laura will then present some timeline examples from her own research portfolio, and in doing so reflect on the opportunities and challenges that timeline interviewing presents for researchers seeking to engage with elite agents.