Thread by @drvicclarke

1/ Themes don't emerge but themes can be emergent?! What? Eh? A quick thread on the differences between emerge(d) & emergent. @ginnybraun & I bang on about themes not emerging. We are critical of the phrase "3 themes emerged..." etc for 2 reasons. First, it can imply themes are

2/ ontologically real things that exist in data independent of a researcher's engagement with the data. If themes are real the researcher's role becomes one of extraction or discovery. In our reflexive TA approach themes aren't real! They're not in data fully formed. Instead,

3/ themes are generated by the researcher through their interpretative engagement with data - created from codes & through coding. Second, "the themes emerged" can imply the researcher is passive in the theme development process when they are anything but. At the same time the

4/ emergent has a long history in qualitative research - I associate it with grounded theory, the first analytic approach I learnt about waaay back in the 90s - meaning specifically inductive, grounded in data. So in IPA lower level themes are called emergent themes. Emergent =

5/ inductive it doesn't mean themes exist in data fully formed or the researcher is passive in theme development. So themes in some approaches are described as emergent & @ginnybraun & I can say themes don't emerge. These aren't contradictory. This is a small example of why

6/ understanding the history of certain terms and what researchers mean by them is really important for navigating the messy swamp of qualitative research.