Dear Researchers” — “Dear Practitioners”. Advocating Correspondence as a Research Method Beyond Its Usual Roles and Scopes
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 7819230 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Vera Vicenzotti (0000-0001-6066-0009, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, corresponding author), Carola Wingren (0000-0003-2817-3248, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences) |
| Year | 2025 |
| Volume | 24 |
| Publication date | 2025-11-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | International Journal of Qualitative Methods (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1609-4069 • E-ISSN: 1609-4069 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1177/16094069251406144 |
| OpenAlex | W7113903145 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 27 |
In this epistolary paper, two landscape architects identify and analyse different roles that correspondence has played in their academia-industry collaboration. Their e-mail-correspondence has functioned as (1) process catalyst, (2) tool for data collection, (3) a method to co-create understanding of the subject matter, (4) a medium to level out differences in the project participants’ background (correspondence as ‘the great equalizer’), and (5) a medium to get to know each other and one-self. This paper, which performs what it writes about by taking the form of correspondence, is inserting itself in a steadily growing body of methodological literature on letter-writing and correspondence with a a dual aim. First, it intends to introduce correspondence to the palette of research methods in fields such as the authors’ home discipline that do not, or at least rarely, work with correspondence, but could fruitfully do so. Second, it aims at inspiring researchers from disciplines in which correspondence is readily used and accepted as a research method to employ it in new contexts and with new purposes, primarily for fostering collaboration in research projects with complex (multi-, inter- or transdisciplinary) constellations and demanding dynamics
Qualitative research · Research method · Research methodology · Architecture, Design, and Social History · Artistic and Creative Research · Information Systems Theories and Implementation
Collaborative Autoethnography
Autotheory as Feminist Practice in Art, Writing, and Criticism
Conducting Intensive Interviews Using Email
The Epistolarium
Positionality and Its Problems
Writing letters by hand
“We Must Write Dangerously”
The Correspondence Method as a Data-Gathering Technique in Qualitative Enquiry
Finding the Place of Everyday Beauty
Data Collection via In-Depth Email Interviewing
The Death of the Letter? Epistolary Intent, Letterness and the Many Ends of Letter-Writing
Reflecting on and Managing the Emotional and Ethical Challenges of Letter Writing as a Method of Data Collection With Prisoners
Collective Autoethnography as a Transformative Narrative Methodology
Is This Research? Productive Tensions in Living the (Collaborative) Autoethnographic Process
Letters to those who Dare Feel
Representing Ethnographic Data Through the Epistolary Form
Dear Researcher
Learning with letters
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |