The Future of Qualitative Research

I have been playing around with a diagram of the issues I have been thinking about in relationship to the future of qualitative research.  Here is the really messy drawing that I made in my journal.

 I think you might need some translation help.  That messy circle in the middle is qualitative research.  It is standing at the intersection of vast changes we are facing in numerical, spatial/geographical, and sensory technologies.

I think I have come to the same conclusion that Tim Berners-Lee did--it's all about data.  Big data, little data, data displayed visually, tracked geographically, understood on a visceral body level through probes that provide feedback on every sense.  We can do all this--at the broadest and finest levels. 

These worlds of expanding data are bringing together the virtual and the non-virtual...in ways we could not have imagined even a few years ago.

So what will qualitative research look like in the near future?  How will it be practiced?

When I think about the people and movements that point us forward in these areas, these names come to mind:


Numerical--Big Data--Nathan Eagle

Cultural Geography--Mei Po Kwan, Marilyn Cope

The sensory and qualitative research:  Walter Gershon, Alex Ruthmann

These are random names in a sea of much activitiy that is emerging within and around qualitative research.

This is the picture I will be thinking with--what is that future going to look like?