Call for papers: Qualitative methods in times of uncertainty

• Call for papers released: July 2026
• Proposed abstracts due: September 1, 2026
• Initial manuscript submissions due: January 1, 2027
• First-round reviews completed: May 1, 2027
• Revised manuscripts due: September 1, 2027

• Gabriel Velez, PhD
  Department of Educational Policy and Leadership
  Marquette University
• Séamus A. Power
  Associate Professor of Psychology
  Department of Psychology
  University of Copenhagen

Periods of societal change marked by disruption, and contested meanings can be challenging to study and defy many traditional, static methods of inquiry (Power & Velez, 2020). Destabilizing events and shifting cultural narratives call for methodological approaches that can capture lived experience, meaning-making, and relational processes as they unfold over time. In recent decades, there have been numerous examples of such phenomena, including the COVID-19 pandemic, multiple international wars, economic shocks, technological advances, political upheavals, and “migratory crises”. These events entail significant change for individuals, groups, and societies, which can make them difficult to research. It is critical that psychological science be strongly positioned to provide robust, applicable, and valuable insights into how people are experiencing, understanding, and responding to these changes (Power et al., 2023; Zittoun et al., 2025).

This special issue proposes to foreground innovative qualitative methods and integrative research designs that are explicitly responsive to moments of social flux. Building on recent calls to rethink methodological integrity, qualitative generalization, and integration across paradigms (Levitt, 2021; Levitt et al., 2017), this special issue of Qualitative Psychology seeks to advance the view that qualitative inquiry is uniquely positioned to study psychological phenomena in these moments of change and flux. The proposed issue is intended to highlight how qualitative, integrative designs can illuminate how individuals and communities interpret, navigate, and respond to changing social conditions, and to create knowledge to shape the trajectories of our societies and cultures.

Our aim will be to solicit contributions to the special issue that showcase methodological innovation across traditions such as—but not limited to—narrative inquiry, longitudinal qualitative designs, participatory and community-engaged research, and dialogical and discursive methods. The issue will foreground and prioritize theoretical, epistemological, and analytic integration, including how qualitative findings can guide research designs, support socially responsive scholarship, and inform the direction of our future societies and cultures.

This special issue aims to:

• demonstrate how qualitative methods can be adapted to study rapidly changing contexts,
• articulate best practices for integrative designs centered on qualitative logic, and
• contribute to ongoing methodological debates about rigor, generalization, and impact in qualitative research.

Together, the papers will offer conceptual, empirical, and methodological resources for psychologists conducting research in times of transformation and change.

This special issue aligns directly with Qualitative Psychology’s mission to publish innovative methodological, theoretical, and empirical work that advances qualitative inquiry across psychological subfields. The proposed focus on social instability and change foregrounds epistemological concerns, methodological decision-making, and analytic strategies that are central to the journal’s readership. Moreover, the emphasis on integrative and qualitatively driven designs responds to recent discussions in the journal that question established assumptions about rigor, replication, causality, and generalization in qualitative research.

The special issue will be developed through a targeted call for papers, distributed through the Society for Qualitative Inquiry in Psychology (SQIP), APA Division 5 listservs, and direct invitations to scholars known for methodological innovation in qualitative and integrative research. A recruitment blurb will emphasize the issue’s methodological contribution and its relevance to Qualitative Psychology.

Periods of social instability and change pose critical methodological challenges for psychological science. Global events such as pandemics, political upheavals, economic shocks, technological transformations, and migratory crises demand approaches that can capture lived experience, meaning-making, and relational processes as they unfold over time. It is critical that psychological science be well-positioned to provide robust, applicable, and valuable insights into how people experience and respond to these developments (Gillespie & Wagoner, 2025; Power et al., 2023; Zittoun et al., 2025).

This special issue of Qualitative Psychology seeks manuscripts that advance innovative qualitative methodologies and research designs that are explicitly responsive to moments of social change.

Submissions could include narrative inquiry, longitudinal qualitative research, participatory and community-engaged methods, dialogical and discursive approaches, and transformative or qualitatively driven mixed methods.

More specifically, we invite the followings types of papers:

• theoretical or methodological
  • examining and offering innovative pathways for doing qualitative psychological research during times of change and rupture
  • articulating frameworks for maintaining qualitative rigor, transparency, and validity during times of change and social instability
• empirical
  • demonstrating how qualitative methods can be used to guide rich, valuable insights into psychological phenomena during times of change and social instability
• systematic reviews
  • analyzing and commenting on current approaches to using qualitative methods to study psychological phenomena during or related to times of change and social instability

Possible topics could include, but are not limited to:

• narrative reconstruction of identity during prolonged social disruption
• shifting cultural narratives of risk and responsibility during global crises
• youth participatory inquiry into digital life during societal transition
• community narratives of resilience and inequality during economic or environmental disruption
• meta-synthesis of qualitative accounts of social change
• translating qualitative findings into social action during periods of flux

Submissions to this special issue should make a clear methodological contribution and engage directly with epistemological, theoretical, or analytic issues related to studying uncertainty and social change. Manuscripts must also conform to the submission guidelines for Qualitative Psychology and be no longer than 40 pages.

Of particular interest are manuscripts that:

• demonstrate how qualitative methods can be adapted to study rapidly shifting social contexts
• articulate best practices for integrative or longitudinal qualitative research designs
• engage questions of rigor, qualitative generalization, and methodological integrity
• show through empirical examples how qualitative findings can guide theory development, causal explanation, or research design
• advance socially responsive, ecologically valid, and impact-oriented qualitative scholarship

Please submit your abstract using the abstract submission formopens in new window.

Authors invited to submit full papers should do so using the Qualitative Psychology online submission system and clearly identified as submissions for the special issue “Qualitative Methods in Times of Uncertainty.”

Authors must follow the journal’s author submission guidelines.

Submissions will undergo the journal’s standard peer-review process. Acceptance decisions will be based on scholarly quality, methodological contribution, and fit with the aims of the special issue.

Authors are expected to comply fully with Qualitative Psychology’s guidance on the use of artificial intelligence. The journal requires transparency in any use of generative AI during research or manuscript preparation, and authors remain fully responsible for the accuracy, ethical integrity, and interpretation of their work.

Full AI policy details are available on our webpage.

Camic, P. M. (2021). Qualitative research in psychology: Expanding perspectives in methodology and design. American Psychological Association.

Levitt, H. M. (2021). Qualitative generalization, not to the population but to the phenomenon: Reconceptualizing variation in qualitative research. Qualitative Psychology, 8(1), 95.

Levitt, H. M., Motulsky, S. L., Wertz, F. J., Morrow, S. L., & Ponterotto, J. G. (2017). Recommendations for designing and reviewing qualitative research in psychology: Promoting methodological integrity. Qualitative Psychology, 4(1), 2.

Power, S. A., & Velez, G. (2020). The MOVE Framework: Meanings, Observations, Viewpoints, and Experiences in processes of Social Change. Review of General Psychology, 24(4), 321–334. https://doi.org/https://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1089268020915841

Power, S. A., Velez, G., Qadafi, A., & Tennant, J. (2018). The SAGE Model of Social Psychological Research. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(3), 359–372. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691617734863

Power, S. A., Zittoun, T., Akkerman, S., Wagoner, B., Cabra, M., Cornish, F., Hawlina, H., Heasman, B., Mahendran, K., & Psaltis, C. (2023). Social psychology of and for world-making. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 10888683221145756.

Shweder, R. A. (1996). Quanta and qualia: What is the “object” of ethnographic method. In R. Jessor, A. Colby, & R. A. Shweder (Eds.), Ethnography and human development: Context and meaning in social inquiry (pp. 175–182). University of Chicago Press.

Velez, G., & Power, S. A. (2024). Manywheres: In Pursuit of Social Justice in Developmental Science. Human Development, 68(2), 61–76.

Zittoun, T., Pedersen, O. C., Gillespie, A., Mirza, N. M., & Perrin, M. (2025). Crisis and Human Development. Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science, 59(4), 94. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-025-09947-y