Weaving the web: negotiating context and theory to form coherent qualitative health research

Abstract Through a novel analogy, this article suggests how one might undertake coherent and defensible qualitative health research. It is argued that prospective researchers might create their methodological framework as a spider forms its foundational ‘dry lines’; the logic of their study may develop when each previous step informs the next, and each is also informed by the overall needs of the research. Though the spider cannot ‘envision’ its final product while it is weaving, it is through an iterative process that its work achieves coherency and therefore functionality. Similarly, researchers must negotiate changing research contexts, theory, personal motivations, and various challenges, building–but also cutting–dry lines, constantly refining their project to ensure that it eventually ensnares its prey–findings which might answer the research’s question(s). This article details how an Institutional Ethnography of a healthcare organisation developed in this way, to demonstrate how one might undertake their own coherent inquiry.