ACQRA provides resources to facilitate carrying out qualitative research by developing relationships with existing research centres at St. Thomas University, bringing in internationally recognized scholars to make public presentations and to consult with local qualitative researchers about their work.
The Atlantic Centre for Qualitative Research and Analysis at St. Thomas University was established in 2006 as one of the projects of the Canada Research Chair in Qualitative Research and Analysis. Its purpose is to encourage and facilitate qualitative research in the Atlantic region of Canada by serving both novice and veteran researchers and to forge links with other centres and scholars.
Disciplines from which manuscripts for Narrative Works are invited include, but are not limited to, psychology, sociology, anthropology, gerontology, literary studies, gender studies, cultural studies, religious studies, social work, education, healthcare, ethics, theology, and the arts. Articles appearing in Narrative Works may concern a range of contexts, topics, and themes; employ a variety of approaches and methodologies; and represent individual or collaborative work by theorists, researchers, or practitioners.
Narrative Works is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal committed to exploring the complex role of narrative in countless aspects of human life. Just as narratives commonly concern many topics at once (emotions, relationships, beliefs, etc.), so “narrative” itself can be understood in numerous ways–in terms, for instance, of narrative theory, narrative inquiry, narrative analysis, or narrative practice. For such reasons, scholarship on narrative often reflects, and connects, a wide range of academic disciplines and professional fields.
Narrative Works is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal committed to exploring the complex role of narrative in countless aspects of human life. Just as narratives commonly concern many topics at once (emotions, relationships, beliefs, etc.), so “narrative” itself can be understood in numerous ways–in terms, for instance, of narrative theory, narrative inquiry, narrative analysis, or narrative practice. For such reasons, scholarship on narrative often reflects, and connects, a wide range of academic disciplines and professional fields.
Narrative Works is an online, open-access, peer-reviewed, interdisciplinary journal committed to exploring the complex role of narrative in countless aspects of human life. Just as narratives commonly concern many topics at once (emotions, relationships, beliefs, etc.), so “narrative” itself can be understood in numerous ways–in terms, for instance, of narrative theory, narrative inquiry, narrative analysis, or narrative practice. For such reasons, scholarship on narrative often reflects, and connects, a wide range of academic disciplines and professional fields.
Human beings have been storytelling creatures since the very beginning, and the narrative impulse permeates countless facets of our world. Narrative is pivotal not just to literature, in other words, but to cognition and emotion, memory and community, politics and religion, culture and identity, counselling and learning. In the same way that any story deals with a number of subjects at once, so the study of story is the province of no one field.
In 2003, St. Thomas approved a Strategic Research Plan which identified narrative as one of six key areas for research across the institution. That interest in narrative has taken root at STU is not surprising, given its collegial environment and accessible size, its tradition of interdisciplinary collaboration, and its commitment to the integration of scholarship, teaching, and practice. In 2007, a group of us made application to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for funding through its Aid to Small Universities Program, and in April 2008, a grant was awarded.
