ICQI

The Future of the ICQI Announcement from IAQI

Call for Papers

21^st International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry

May 14-17, 2025

We shall not cease from exploration/ And the end of all our exploring/ Will be to arrive where we started/ And know the place for the first time (T. S. Eliot, No. 4 of Four Quartets, 1942).

The 21^st International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry will be held virtually from May 14-17, 2025.

The theme of the 2025 Congress is “Qualitative Inquiry under a Big Tent”. Following from the 2024 ICQI Memorial Addresses—which highlighted expanding methodological boundaries, diversity of epistemological and ontological perspectives, and calls for social change through community engagement and policy work—we envision the 2025 Congress as a transitional, turning point moment for the ICQI community, one that seeks to build an even bigger tent for the discipline and practice of qualitative research. 

As ICQI moves into its third decade, we are reminded of what Denzin and colleagues (2023) recently noted, that “the field of qualitative research continues to transform and reinvent itself. The changes that took shape during the first two decades of this new century are gaining momentum, even as they confront multiple forms of resistance. Multiple histories and theoretical frameworks, when before there were just a few, now circulate in the field.” Indeed, qualitative research is in transition. Whether constructivist or posthumanist, feminist or Indigenous theorist, social worker or sociologist, artist or anthropologist, we exist in a field that is always already in transition, always already being revised and rewritten. Indeed, there is a moving—rather than static—center to qualitative research, one that moves across contexts and ontologies, moves between agreement and disagreement, forges new collaborations, and informs new inter- and trans-disciplinary approaches to research (see Denzin & Giardina, 2024).

From ongoing questions concerning the research marketplace, data entanglements, and the politics of research, to continually growing interest in new materialism, posthumanism, co-production, and digital methods, to the increasing importance of civically-engaged collaborative research and social justice inquiry, there are many diverse avenues of inquiry that our communities hold dear. And importantly, the opportunities are there for the next generation of scholars in the field to take qualitative inquiry to new heights—to create a new language of inquiry that responds to and makes sense of our current context, one dominated by global political and economic crises, the rise of authoritarian governments, the existential threat of climate change, and continued forms of oppression and marginalization across numerous communities. 

To this end, the charge of the 2025 Congress is to continue to consider ways to better link our research and our attendant interventions to those institutional sites where private troubles are turned into public issues and public issues transformed into social policy. For we must continue to look for new ways of connecting persons and their personal troubles with social justice methodologies—toward ways of bringing about change in and with our research. In these uncertain times, we need to look forward with a renewed sense of hope, but a hope that remains grounded in the reality that much work lies ahead. Collectively and collaboratively, this moment calls for a critical, performative, social justice inquiry directed at the multiple crises of our historical present. Our inquiry must meet the demands of our hopeful–but evolving–future. It is in the hands of the diverse and ever-evolving qualitative research community to intervene into the challenges and demands that we face–to be present to the history that we all shape. These challenges and demands may require us to rethink our ethical, political, and methodological moorings–create new alliances and collaborations.  Although we do not know what the future may hold, we must ensure our voices will be heard as we continue to intervene into the spaces of the everyday–working toward a more diverse, inclusive, and transformative future-present.

We invite papers and sessions addressing a wide array of topics and themes, including but not limited to:

• Contemporary social phenomena, including those related to higher education, identity politics, globalization, and health and well-being,
• Methodological innovations and advancements, including those related to ethnographic practices, intersectionality, post-humanism, and collaborative research across the disciplines
• Social Justice and Equity, including those related to marginalized voices, activism and social change, and policy development
• Narrative and Storytelling, including poetic, performative, and arts-based approaches
• Digital Methods, including netnography, social media, and ethical issues
• Politics of Science, Research, and Inquiry, including funded research, audit culture, and research marketplaces
• Co-Production, including stakeholder involvement and community impact

Sessions in the 2025 Congress will take up these topics, as well as those related to and/or utilizing: feminist inquiry; Critical Race Theory; intersectionality; queer theory; critical dis- ability research; phenomenology; Indigenous methodologies; postcolonial and decolonized knowing; poststructural engagements; diffraction and intra-action; digital methodologies; autoethnography; visual methodologies; thematic analysis; performance; art as research; critical participatory action research; multivocality; collaborative inquiry; and the politics of evidence. Sessions will also discuss threats to shared governance; attacks on freedom of speech; public policy discourse; and the changing nature of qualitative inquiry itself.

Scholars from around the world participate in the Congress to resist, to celebrate community, to experiment with traditional and new methodologies, with new technologies of representation. Together we seek to develop guidelines and exemplars concerning advocacy, inquiry and social justice concerns. We share a commitment to change the world, to engage in ethical work that makes a positive difference. As critical scholars our task is to bring the past and the future into the present, allowing us to engage realistic utopian pedagogies of hope.

We will begin accepting abstract submissions beginning on October 1, 2024. 

Submissions can be made by following the link here: https://icqi.org/home/submission/

NOTE: The virtual format is the format that we successfully used during the fully online Congresses in 2021 and 2022, and for the virtual portion of the 2024 Congress.  All sessions will be streamed live via the virtual Congress conference provider, CVent. As part of the registration fee, attendees will also receive a one-year subscription to the official ICQI journal, International Review of Qualitative Research. For an additional fee, participants can also register for Congress workshops.