Doing Interpretive Research: Book Launch Workshops

📘 You're Invited

Two Workshops Celebrating the Publication of

Doing Interpretive Research: Learning and Teaching Imagination in Social Researchby Koen Bartels & Hendrik Wagenaar, Oxford University Press, 2025.

This June, Koen Bartels and Hendrik Wagenaar published a new book that offers both guidance and inspiration for those engaging with interpretive research — as learners, teachers, and practitioners.

Rather than hosting a traditional book launch, we invite you to join us for two interactive online workshops designed to reflect on the book's themes and how they resonate with your real-world research and teaching experiences.

🗓️ Workshop Dates & Times

To accommodate participants across time zones, we offer two options:

• Tuesday, October 29 at 10:00-11.30 CET (Europe/Africa/Asia-friendly)
• Wednesday, October 30 at 17:00-18.30 CET (Americas-friendly)

Each workshop will explore key questions raised by the book, guided by brief inputs from invited colleagues and open discussion.

🧭 About the Book

Doing Interpretive Research addresses a crucial gap in social science: while interpretivism holds intuitive appeal, many researchers feel unsure how to do it. Others perceive it as a niche practice with little relevance for broader social inquiry.

The book challenges this notion by arguing that the logic and practice of interpretation is foundational to all social science, including quantitative research. It enables readers to engage more reflectively, creatively, and confidently with interpretive research.

What makes the book unique:

• Emphasis on the experience of doing research — including negative emotions of doubt, anxiety, and discovery, as well as positive emotiosn such as elation and increased self-confidence.
• A practical, open-ended approach that emphasizes heuristics and strategies for inquiry instead of methods.
• An accessible style enriched with real-life vignettes of the experience of acquiring research skills from students and the authors themselves.
• Designed for direct use in methodology teaching and researcher development.

💬 Questions for Reflection & Dialogue

Rather than summarizing chapters, each workshop will explore two guiding questions:

1. Teaching and learning in diverse contexts:In what ways can you organize teaching interpretive methods? How could the principles in the book be used across cultural contexts?
2. Meaning for early-career researchers:What is the appeal interpretive research to young researchers? How does it shape their future careers in research or policy practice?

Each question will be introduced by one or two invited discussants to spark a lively and constructive conversation.

📍 Location: Online via Zoom

🔗 A link and agenda will be shared closer to the date.

We warmly welcome students, instructors, supervisors, researchers, and anyone interested in deepening their engagement with interpretive research.

A 30% discount code for the book will be shared upon registration.

Please save the date — we hope to see you there!

Please share this invitation with other interested people.