Abstract

The increasing requirement of social researchers to archive datasets generated from research, alongside advances in methods of qualitative secondary analysis (or QSA), is creating new opportunities for greater innovation and flexibility in data re-use and approaches to qualitative analysis. One such opportunity is collective secondary data analysis, namely analysis within research teams assembled for the purposes of QSA. Collective QSA facilitated by the new and expanded data landscape described throughout this volume prompts new questions about what the processes in collective QSA might involve, and what are the theoretical and methodological implications of bringing data together via data-sharing. This chapter offers insight into how and why QSA might be conducted collectively and the opportunities that are opened up in sharing data. It does so via reflection on two data-sharing workshops that brought together purposefully assembled teams of researchers and two existing qualitative datasets.