Embracing Alterity, Reflexivity & Passion in Research

“We CAN be human, we CAN theorize with sensitivity and sensibility, with our bodies, our hearts and our emotions in ways that resonate with others.”
(Cunliffe, 2022: 22)

“I believe it is vital to the aims of equality that more scholars speak out and speak against the diverse and continuous pressures for epistemic obedience.”
(Liu, 2019: 22)

As the work of both Ann Cunliffe and Helena Liu demonstrates, learning to conduct research that is “different” from the mainstream can be challenging, as institutional forces encourage researchers to conform to established traditions to get published, gain employment, and be viewed as a credible scholar.

In management and organization studies, Ann Cunliffe has dedicated her career to opening pathways for doing research differently—most notably by developing and embracing the notions of alterity, reflexivity, and passion. At its core, to embrace alterity in research is to celebrate difference and non-conformity in a way that enables us to follow our passions to explore new possibilities, questions, and ways of relating.

Embracing alterity is consistent with reflexive research practices, which entail critically interrogating one’s positionalities and assumptions about the nature of reality and knowledge, as well as understanding research as a deeply relational, embodied, and emotional endeavor.

The QRM 2025 conference seeks to honor and build upon Ann Cunliffe’s body of work that has paved a way for qualitative researchers to embrace alterity, reflexivity, and passion in the field of management and organization studies, which often privileges functionalist and dispassionate research under the guise of objectivity. Relatedly, we seek to explore how embracing alterity, reflexivity, and passion can enable us to engage in anti-racist and decolonial research practices that challenge the pervasive whiteness of management, organization studies, communication, and other related fields, which is a central theme in Helena Liu’s work. Similarly, we invite participates to consider how embracing alterity, reflexivity and passion can help challenge a host of oppressive ideologies including, but not limited to, patriarchy, whiteness, cisheteronormativity, colonialism, Western-centrism, classism, ableism, and ageism.

The conference also strives to build upon the initiatives of the past seven QRM conferences in providing opportunities for scholars from a wide array of disciplines and at different stages of their careers to discuss and explore reflexive and thought-provoking ways of imagining and researching organizational life.

In this regard, we encourage contributions from a variety of epistemological perspectives and a range of disciplines including management and organization studies, communication, sociology, psychology, education, accounting, marketing, cultural studies, information and decision sciences, health, and public administration. We also welcome multiple modes of presentation, including paper, panel, and performance.

Conference Streams

The conference will consist of two streams.

• Stream 1 will focus on exploring how alterity, reflexivity, and passion are both studied and practiced in qualitative research, as well as constitutive features of the research process.

• Stream 2 will address more general issues relating to methods, voices, and ways of doing and writing qualitative research.

Preconference Workshops

In addition to the two conference streams, we will be running the following pre-conference workshops from 1:30–4:30 pm on Tuesday, April 15:

• Developing Beautiful and Good Research
  Hosted by Giuseppe Scaratti, Silvia Ivaldi, and Maddalena Gambirasio of the University of Bergamo, Italy

• Reflexivity: Journaling Right and Left
  Hosted by Janet Salmons of Sage Research Methods Community

• Mashn-up as method: A gestalt qualitative workshop using metaphor, arts-based research, and narrative analysis
  Hosted by Sarah J. Tracy of Arizona State University, USA (with contributions from Cary Lopez, Independent Scholar)

Abstract Submission and Deadlines

Prospective contributors should upload an extended abstract of 800–1,000 words to the conference website. The abstract should include the contributor name(s), contact information, submission stream, and overview of the proposed presentation.

Contributors who submit by the priority deadline of October 4, 2024 will receive decision notices in October, which will allow additional time to make travel arrangements, apply for funding, and apply for a visa (if necessary). The final deadline for submissions is December 6, 2024.