Editorial

Abstract

This is the first issue of a new journal, entitled Qualitative Studies. We hope that this new journal will become a central forum for discussions of qualitative research in psychology, education, communication, cultural studies, health sciences and social sciences in general. Qualitative Studies is peer-reviewed and publishes papers in English and the Scandinavian languages in any of these areas. We are interested in papers that discuss qualitative methods, their promises, problems and philosophies, and also papers that apply such methods in concrete qualitative studies. We aim to publish two issues a year, but since Qualitative Studies is an open access and web-based journal, we can allow ourselves some flexibility in this regard, and for example choose to publish additional special issues, if such options arise. Qualitative Studies is associated with the Center for Qualitative Studies at Aalborg University in Denmark (www.cqs.aau.dk). But we hope that potential authors from other universities in Denmark and the rest of the world will take an interest in Qualitative Studies as an outlet for their work. In preparing this first issue, we have received a fair amount of manuscripts, many of which are still under review, but in order to show that Qualitative Studies is alive as a journal, we have chosen to publish this first issue with four articles, two of which are in English and two of which are in Danish. Together, these articles show the scope of themes and approaches that we hope will flourish in Qualitative Studies. Abbey and Zittoun offer a semiotic analysis of interview processes, Kristensen analyses power dynamics as reflected in people’s everyday lives, in casu modern traffic, Klausen reports a study of parkour, an art of urban movement, and Frimann & Jantzen present a cultural-poetic analysis of a short interaction sequence at a gas station. All articles integrate theory and empirical material in fruitful, albeit very different, ways. We hope that this will inspire future contributors to Qualitative Studies. As a journal its mission is on the one hand to discuss qualitative methods, but equally important to be a forum for the publication of qualitative studies that contribute to our knowledge about the human, social and cultural world. We wish to thank the anonymous reviewers, whose generous comments have helped improve the quality of the manuscripts and also our editorial board. We look forward to seeing how Qualitative Studies will develop! The Editors, Svend Brinkmann, email: svendb@hum.aau.dk Lene Tanggaard, email: lenet@hum.aau.dk