Combining thematic and narrative analysis of qualitative interviews to understand children’s spatialities in Andhra Pradesh, India

One of the foremost questions for any researcher setting out on a qualitative study is which form of analysis to use. There are a diverse range of qualitative analytical methods, each offering different forms of insight. In this paper, we discuss our experience of combining two distinct but complementary analytic methods – thematic and narrative analysis. We provide a worked example that combines the two approaches to analyse secondary data from the Young Lives study (see www.younglives.org.uk), in a project carried out as part of the ESRC National Centre for Research Methods Node, NOVELLA (Narratives of Varied Everyday Lives and Linked Approaches, see www.novella.ac.uk). We reflect on the challenges and benefits that result from our combined approach, aiming to illuminate the ways in which the integration of narrative and thematic analysis can support and enrich understanding of a complex dataset.