Kaleidoscope Analysis: a multi-theoretical framework for exploring lived experience, identity and structural power
Tiffany NelsonPurpose
Kaleidoscope Analysis is a multi-theoretical framework for examining how lived experience, identity and structural power interact within qualitative research. The framework responds to limitations in existing methods, many of which engage experiential, identity based and structural perspectives without an explicit framework for integrating them, by offering an approach that holds these analytic planes in dynamic relation.
Design/methodology/approach
Grounded in a critical realist ontology, intersectionality as a non-negotiable analytic foundation and informed by Black feminist epistemology, Kaleidoscope Analysis integrates three lenses: Lived Experience, Intersectionality and Structural–Systemic Analysis. Analytic movement is conceptualised as kaleidoscopic: shifting vantage points reveal different patterns of meaning, allowing idiographic depth to sit alongside critical, systemic interpretation and giving rise to an Integrative Kaleidoscopic View. Positionality operates as method, recognising researchers as situated knowers whose identities and structural locations shape interpretive insight. A worked example from the author's empirical study illustrates how the lenses interact in practice.
Findings
Kaleidoscope Analysis illuminates patterned relationships between individual meaning making, intersecting identities and socio-political structures. Moving across lenses enables previously obscured mechanisms, including racism, ableism, gendered norms and institutional conditions, to become analytically visible through their effects on lived experience.
Originality/value
The framework offers a named, rigorous and adaptable approach for analysing phenomena where embodiment, identity and power are tightly entangled. Its explicit intersectional grounding, multi-lens structure and emphasis on positionality support justice-oriented qualitative inquiry that remains accountable to the communities whose experiences are explored.