The Long Run: A Story About Filmmaking as Qualitative Research

Against the logic that if you aren’t a film maker, you shouldn’t make films, we hope to shed light on why qualitative researchers might consider a filmmaking journey. Research-based films are an accessible genre through which to raise issues in an empowering way, about the lives of stigmatized and marginalized people. For us, a vital step in the production of films has been through writing stories and songs. As a reflexive resource, a song anchors a researcher in a multidimensional way to events and relationships. We use a storytelling format here to illuminate these interrelated processes while giving support to the philosophy of “slow” scholarship.