After 20 years of Qualitative Inquiry, some current trends and challenges are outlined, which might affect the current state and further development of qualitative research in the near future. A central focus is their impact on the politics of qualitative research. Politics of inquiry addressing problems of societal relevance are challenged by the globalization and internationalization of qualitative enquiry or trends to big data in funding. Other relevant trends are expectations about archiving and reanalysis of qualitative data, the new interest in qualitative inquiry in the context of evidence, limitations coming from ethical reviews, and the limitation to mixed methods research. These trends are discussed here by using examples from current research projects. Locating qualitative inquiry in the future is discussed between being pushed aside by citizen research and taking over some (sub)disciplines.
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