Introduction to the Special Issue: “Curiosity and Serendipity in Qualitative Research”

Katarina Jacobsson is an Associate Professor in Sociology at the School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden, and vice-chair of Research Network 20 Qualitative Methods. With a general interest in qualitative methodology and sociology of knowledge, her present research project focuses on documenting practises among human service workers. A recent text on methodology – “Interviewees with an agenda. Learning from a «failed» interview” (Jacobsson, Åkerström 2013) – is published in Qualitative Research.

Kristina Göransson, PhD in Social Anthropology, is an Assistant Professor at the School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden. Her research primarily concerns intergenerational relations and family, gender, Singapore/ Southeast Asia, and ethnographic methods. She is the author of The Binding Tie: Chinese Intergenerational Relations in Modern Singapore (2009) and “Ethnographic Family Research: Predicaments and Possibilities of doing Fieldwork on Intergenerational Relations in Singapore” in the Journal of Comparative Family Studies (2011).

David Wästerfors is an Associate Professor in Sociology, Lund University, Sweden. His recent publications include “Disputes and Going Concerns in an Institution for «Troublesome» Boys” in the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (2011) and “Analyzing Social Ties in Total Institutions” in Qualitative Sociology Review (2012). Apart from his interests in institutional youth care, he has also been engaged in studies of corruption, scandals, disabilities, and masculinities from interactionist, ethnomethodological, and constructionist standpoints.