— with Franziska Zirker (Weizenbaum-Institute)
When: October 8, 2026; 9:15am–16:45pm
Where: in-person only
Level: Beginner/Intermediate
Category: Qualitative methods, data analysis
Seats: limited to 15 participants
Abstract
Qualitative research rarely investigates isolated phenomena. Instead, it seeks to understand how people, technologies, institutions, discourses, and material environments become entangled in complex situations. This workshop introduces participants to Situational Analysis (Clarke, Friese & Washburn, 2018), an interpretative qualitative research approach that helps researchers make these relational complexities visible through mapping.
Working with their own research projects, participants will first create situational maps before experimenting with an innovative collage-based extension of the method. By translating analytical maps into digitally sourced images and assembling them into physical collages, participants will explore how moving between textual, diagrammatic, and visual forms of representation can generate new perspectives on their research.
Combining hands-on methodological exercises with collective discussion and reflection, the workshop invites participants to experiment with creative analytical practices and to consider how visual methods can enrich qualitative research and communicate complex findings in new ways. Participants will discuss how digital image selection, printing, cutting, and reassembly shape analytical thinking and open new understandings of their research situations, as well as how collages can serve as communication devices for presenting their research.
No prior knowledge is required, and research projects at any stage are welcome. The workshop forms part of an ongoing methodological study on collage-based mapping. With informed consent, workshop materials and reflections may be used as research data; participation is voluntary and independent of workshop participation.
Bio
Franziska Zirker is a doctoral researcher at the Collaborative Research Centre Dynamics of Security at Philipps University Marburg, where she works at the intersection of Science and Technology Studies and critical security studies. Her research examines how data technologies shape the production of knowledge in crises, with a particular methodological focus on Situational Analysis, interviews, ethnographic, and arts-based methods. She was a Visiting Researcher at the University of Edinburgh and teaches qualitative research methods at Philipps University Marburg.