title: Qualitative methods to capture the nuance of realities: My journey to explore their stories, our stories and my own stories

authors: Lee, Jinah

abstract: This study reflects on my research journey with qualitative methodologies — specifically narrative inquiry, autoethnography, and duoethnography — as ways to capture the nuanced and complex realities embedded in diverse contexts. Through revisiting four distinct studies, I demonstrate how these approaches offer rich possibilities for novice and early-career researchers seeking to engage deeply with lived experience.

My doctoral research employed narrative inquiry to foreground their stories — the lived experiences of participants shaped and expressed through personal narratives. Building upon this foundation, I turned to autoethnography to explore my stories in relation to theirs, acknowledging the entangled nature of researcher and participant narratives and the emergence of our stories. Most recently, duoethnography has enabled collaborative meaning-making, where your stories and my stories intersect, challenge, and evolve together.

Across these methodological explorations, I highlight the importance of reflection, reflexivity, retrospection, and iteration as central practices within qualitative inquiry. These elements not only support the construction and co-construction of realities but also foster deeper understanding of complexity and context. By critically positioning ourselves in relation to the stories we study, co-create, and share, researchers can cultivate spaces for ethical engagement, transformative insight, and relational accountability.

text: Qualitative methods to capture the nuance of realities: My journey to explore their stories, our stories and my own stories This study reflects on my research journey with qualitative methodologies — specifically narrative inquiry, autoethnography, and duoethnography — as ways to capture the nuanced and complex realities embedded in diverse contexts. Through revisiting four distinct studies, I demonstrate how these approaches offer rich possibilities for novice and early-career researchers seeking to engage deeply with lived experience.

My doctoral research employed narrative inquiry to foreground their stories — the lived experiences of participants shaped and expressed through personal narratives. Building upon this foundation, I turned to autoethnography to explore my stories in relation to theirs, acknowledging the entangled nature of researcher and participant narratives and the emergence of our stories. Most recently, duoethnography has enabled collaborative meaning-making, where your stories and my stories intersect, challenge, and evolve together.

Across these methodological explorations, I highlight the importance of reflection, reflexivity, retrospection, and iteration as central practices within qualitative inquiry. These elements not only support the construction and co-construction of realities but also foster deeper understanding of complexity and context. By critically positioning ourselves in relation to the stories we study, co-create, and share, researchers can cultivate spaces for ethical engagement, transformative insight, and relational accountability.

year: 2025

title: Shifting Selves: Home beyond the House - A Study of Ageing, Housing and Wellbeing of Older Chinese Migrants to New Zealand

authors: Li, Wendy Wen

subjects: Self

abstract: Older Chinese immigrants are one of the largest ethnic ageing groups in New Zealand. However, people‘s everyday experiences of settling in a new and unfamiliar environment have been largely overlooked, particularly for older adults. This research explores the biographies, identities and everyday experiences of filial piety among older Chinese immigrants. Particular consideration is given to the role of filial piety in participants‘ housing and ageing experiences. This research is one of the first explorations of Chinese immigrant ageing in place, which also considers changing enactments of filial piety. The research is informed by a hybrid narrative approach that draws on episodic, go-along and fangtan interview techniques used with 32 older Chinese immigrants in Auckland and Hamilton. Findings support the importance of exploring positive experiences of migration and ageing. Older Chinese immigrants do often experience biographical disruptions and status-discrepancies when they move from China to New Zealand. However, in response, the participants engage in positive activities such as gardening and art as a means of cultivating a new sense of self and place in a new land that is compatible with their existing identities as older Chinese adults. The analysis explores the material-mediated basis for participant adjustment and acculturation. Through adaptive acculturation, older Chinese immigrants‘ abilities for both integrating into the host culture and maintaining their ethnic identities are realised. The analysis also demonstrates that traditional Chinese aged care models of family support with high level of intergenerational co-residence are evolving to encompass practices of filial piety at a distance and to encompass more pluralistic familial living arrangements. The analysis also demonstrates the importance of considering how ageing occurs beyond physical spaces and within cultural, social, relational and imagined landscapes. The analysis shifts away from the focus in existing literature on how older Chinese immigrants are passively transformed into minority subjects to how they are transforming themselves through migration and their efforts to age well in New Zealand.

text: Shifting Selves: Home beyond the House - A Study of Ageing, Housing and Wellbeing of Older Chinese Migrants to New Zealand Older Chinese immigrants are one of the largest ethnic ageing groups in New Zealand. However, people‘s everyday experiences of settling in a new and unfamiliar environment have been largely overlooked, particularly for older adults. This research explores the biographies, identities and everyday experiences of filial piety among older Chinese immigrants. Particular consideration is given to the role of filial piety in participants‘ housing and ageing experiences. This research is one of the first explorations of Chinese immigrant ageing in place, which also considers changing enactments of filial piety. The research is informed by a hybrid narrative approach that draws on episodic, go-along and fangtan interview techniques used with 32 older Chinese immigrants in Auckland and Hamilton. Findings support the importance of exploring positive experiences of migration and ageing. Older Chinese immigrants do often experience biographical disruptions and status-discrepancies when they move from China to New Zealand. However, in response, the participants engage in positive activities such as gardening and art as a means of cultivating a new sense of self and place in a new land that is compatible with their existing identities as older Chinese adults. The analysis explores the material-mediated basis for participant adjustment and acculturation. Through adaptive acculturation, older Chinese immigrants‘ abilities for both integrating into the host culture and maintaining their ethnic identities are realised. The analysis also demonstrates that traditional Chinese aged care models of family support with high level of intergenerational co-residence are evolving to encompass practices of filial piety at a distance and to encompass more pluralistic familial living arrangements. The analysis also demonstrates the importance of considering how ageing occurs beyond physical spaces and within cultural, social, relational and imagined landscapes. The analysis shifts away from the focus in existing literature on how older Chinese immigrants are passively transformed into minority subjects to how they are transforming themselves through migration and their efforts to age well in New Zealand.

year: 2011

title: Students’ Social Interest and University Partnership with Local Indigenous People

authors: Theodorus, Edward

subjects: social interest

abstract: According to Alfred Adler, people will have a meaningful life if they contribute to the realisation of an ideal cooperating community. The psychological process of “contributing” is captured in the Adlerian concept of “social interest.” This study investigates students’ social interest in university partnership with local indigenous people. The partnership between the University of Waikato and local tribes of Tainui is a particular concern of this study, with Kīngitanga Day as the specific phenomenon. Mixed methods–descriptive statistics and thematic analysis–were employed to investigate students’ social interest. Data collection was done in three phases. From data analysis, I found eight primary themes of students’ social interest, namely knowledgeability, significance to self, identification, awareness of community context, gradation of sympathetic concern, willingness, action, and reflection. How the findings relate to the literature on social interest and university-community partnership is discussed. A new model of applied social interest is developed. This thesis ends with elaboration on limitations and recommendations for future research.

text: Students’ Social Interest and University Partnership with Local Indigenous People According to Alfred Adler, people will have a meaningful life if they contribute to the realisation of an ideal cooperating community. The psychological process of “contributing” is captured in the Adlerian concept of “social interest.” This study investigates students’ social interest in university partnership with local indigenous people. The partnership between the University of Waikato and local tribes of Tainui is a particular concern of this study, with Kīngitanga Day as the specific phenomenon. Mixed methods–descriptive statistics and thematic analysis–were employed to investigate students’ social interest. Data collection was done in three phases. From data analysis, I found eight primary themes of students’ social interest, namely knowledgeability, significance to self, identification, awareness of community context, gradation of sympathetic concern, willingness, action, and reflection. How the findings relate to the literature on social interest and university-community partnership is discussed. A new model of applied social interest is developed. This thesis ends with elaboration on limitations and recommendations for future research.

year: 2015