Experiencing Interconnectedness Through Mindful Inquiry and Meditative Thematic Analysis in Social Science Research

Contemplative practices, such as mindfulness and meditation, can assist qualitative researchers in discovering novel ways to gather and analyze data and connect with research participants. In this collaborative inquiry, we retrospectively explored how mindful inquiry and contemplative inquiry-inspired approaches impacted our previously conducted studies. Our examination included discussions and comparisons of how we engaged mindfulness-based techniques when generating or analyzing our data. We discovered that these novel approaches enhanced our ability to connect more deeply with both participants and data as compared with using traditional qualitative methods and in the case of meditating with data, creating more open spaces of consciousness to allow insights and themes to flow more freely.