Qualitative methods II

Various identified ‘turns’ in human geography, such as relational, non-representational, material and performative, urge and enable geographers to rethink complex people-nature relationships as contingent and layered processes, and the world as projects of human and more-than-human inhabitation. This shift challenges researchers to do geography differently, or in other words, invites alterations in thinking and methods. This progress report focuses on how qualitative researchers in human geography are grappling with the challenge of more-than-human research methodologies. We chart analyses of more-than-human worlds that are reliant on conventional methodological approaches, as well as more innovative methodological approaches which extend more-than-human understandings whilst recognizing their own limits. The report finally considers a small but growing body of work that takes an additional methodological step in developing human–more-than-human collaborative research relationships that are actively engaging with power relationships by reconsidering the author-ity of their research. We conclude that although the more-than-human ‘turn’ is being thoroughly debated and engaged with in theory, the implications of this have not carried through to the same extent in terms of praxis.