Kurs
Training in the Biographic-Narrative Interview Method (BNIM)
Training in the Biographic-Narrative Interview Method (BNIM) 2-days intensive in November; together with overall introduction to BNIM and experiences of a BNIM interpretive panel.
‘Biographic narrative interviewing’ is a method in which you ask somebody to tell a story of all or part of their life. Their situations, their subjectivities, their locations are assumed to be liable to mutations during that life-period. As a necessary starting point, we are trying to get at their ‘lived experience(s)’.
About the course
Rare Oslo Opportunity: Training in the Biographic-Narrative Interview Method (BNIM) 2-days intensive in November; together with overall introduction to BNIM and experiences of a BNIM interpretive panel.
‘Biographic narrative interviewing’ is a method in which you ask somebody to tell a story of all or part of their life. Their situations, their subjectivities, their locations are assumed to be liable to mutations during that life-period. As a necessary starting point, we are trying to get at their ‘lived experience(s)’.
This self-storying by them is then used as a basis for your understanding (and eventual narration) of some aspect of the historically-evolving psycho-societal reality/period/situation that they have lived through, have themselves been, or have inhabited and/or had effects on. Their self-report is not the end of your inquiry, but the necessary start of your psycho-societal research….which is not limited to their own current self-understanding or long term subjectivity.
Research interviewing for (auto)biographic narratives is being used more and more in sociology and psychology but also in applied areas such as health, education, organisational relations, etc. However, it is hard to get well-developed full training in using open-narrative interviewing and reconstructing cases and their histories both systematically and sensitively.
One method is BNIM (the biographic narrative interpretive method) which has carefully designed clear and systematic protocols and training for both the three-session BNIM interviewing and the two-track BNIM case-interpretation, describing and interpreting lived experience.
Tom Wengraf is author of Qualitative Research Interviewing: biographic narrative and semi-structured method (Sage Publications). For the last 20 years, he has been using and researching this biographic narrative interpretive method (BNIM), training and supporting other researchers in its use, and publishing frequently in this area. He is a founding trustee of the Association for Psychosocial Studies and was formerly Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Social Research Methods at Middlesex University and an Honorary Research Fellow at the Birkbeck Institute of Social Research, London.
He is running two BNIM events in Oslo in November.
- For those interested in observing or participating in a 4-5 person BNIM interpretive panel, there will be BNIM interpretive panel on November 15th
- There is a 2-day full interview training intensive in Oslo on November 17th and 18th It will be a small group of no more than 10 trainees: the fee is 2700 nok for the two days, including materials and further free tuition afterwards.
If you might be interested in any of the above, whether you can attend any of the events or not, further details can be obtained from KHiO Research fellow Jesper Alvær at jespalva@khio.no (48050535) or directly from Tom Wengraf at tom.wengraf@gmail.com. You may as well receive a free BNIM Quick Outline Sketch. All comments and questions happily received.