A Bergsonian analysis of time in qualitative research: Understanding lived experiences of street homeless people in Moscow

Abstract

Understanding of how time is experienced is essential when conducting qualitative research. This article explores how time seemingly stands still, speeds up, slows down, rewinds and fast-forwards for the participants in our qualitative investigations. Drawing upon interview data with street homeless people in Moscow, Russia, this article examines the ways in which time is contextualized and used by research participants to make sense of their everyday experiences and important events in their lives. There is a tendency to understand time by measuring it, rather than seeing it as something within which lived experience happens and qualitative research is carried out. Drawing on Bergson’s conception of time as duration, this article examines the ways in which time can be distinctively used and understood within qualitative research.