Abstract
What is the meaning of depth in qualitative inquiry? How does some writing penetrate beneath surface-level meanings and reveal the deep mystery of qualis, yet other writing drifts into cliché or paltry abstraction? How is it that some qualitative texts not only stay with us but also allow us to settle into them, as if the depth they offer is a space to enter, to inhabit, or even to dwell in? In this article, we draw on phenomenology as a way to contemplate these questions and to explore the experiential and transcendental dimensions of the notion of depth. Here, we find depth is not solely a matter of deepness and profundity; it also has to do with our existential position and condition, and with questions of the beyond and immeasurableness in the qualis sense of hiddenness.
Introduction
“It suffices to dream of pure depth which needs no measuring, to exist.”
So writes Gaston Bachelard of an absolute depth, in the depths of the ocean, where an image of depth is given. Imagine such a space of water where one finds no high or low, no right or left, only a world unified by the substance of the sea. Here, we may find a pure depth without qualification; it is absolute and complete. It is a depth that requires no specific measurement, calculation, or appraisal to be sensed. Pure depth is all that it is. Deferentially, we may read Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space not only as a philosophical meditation on oneiric space but also as a reflection on the literary image. We may relate the meaning of depth to text, whereby to write something truly deep may ultimately be a demanding aspiration for those who qualitatively inquire, who are drawn to the meaningfulness of existence.
And yet?
What is depth? Can we put words to it? Without simply using related adjectival or adverbial terms for it? These are serious questions for qualitative inquiry, whether we seek detail and richness in description, whether we aim for penetrating and discerning interpretations, or whether, in an intuitive yet profound way, we hope for insights and understandings. For if we pause to question what this word depth names, we may question whether it means anything at all. Some may like this paper, referring to it as deep. Others may not care for it, accusing it of not being deep enough. Could it be that both judgments are potentially acceptable? And if so, how does depth add quality to the sentiment, view, or description? It is perhaps something like calling a piece of art beautiful. On one hand, we may call art beautiful without really looking at it. And just like beautiful, the term depth may become somewhat of an empty word of praise. This is perhaps why we can imagine being told that it is not good enough to describe a piece of writing as beautiful, let alone deep. On the other hand, we may be struck by art whereby we use the word beautiful not as a label but an expression of our experience of it, knowing that no single word will suffice to adequately describe it. Beautiful is all that we can say. Perhaps here is where we may consider a pure depth, one that resists qualification.
So, do we end this paper before it has begun? That the meaning of depth cannot be defined. Well, if we take a dictionary definition as a starting place, depth is “something that is deep” (Oxford English Dictionary, 2023). In a convolved manner, we may speak of a deep depth or depth that turns deep. This is not simply a play of words, but rather an acknowledgment that depth does not imply a cause, source, or foundation: depth is groundless. And yet, depth describes something; it has meaning in a cavernous, sonorous, or profound sense. For even the notion of depth can have depth. In the Old English deop, we find the meaning of something “having considerable extension downward” (Harper, 2001). In the Oxford Historical Thesaurus (2023), there is an entry dated 1382 referring to “a deep part of a body of water, especially a sea or ocean.” And there is also an entry dated 1400, referring to “a profound depth; the deep.” We may also find references such as “beyond or out of one’s depth,” which expresses both the “literal in water too deep to stand in” and the “figurative beyond one’s understanding or ability.”
Within qualitative inquiry, depth is readily recognized as valuable. To indicate that the quality of a paper is deep, we could start with the root word qualis, meaning “what kind of” or “what is the nature of” or “what is something like” (Harper, 2001). The word qualis is used to ask about the quality or whatness of something. And, the phrase talis qualis means “such as it is” (Harper, 2001). The Greek word for qualitas was formed as quality, and coined by Plato to mean “of the kind, or, of what kind” (Klein, 1971, p. 608). These etymological references of the term qualis point to the need for the deeper meanings of the quality of the terms qualis and quality, which translate in Latin as deep, depthful, or deepness. So, the core meaning of the phrase “qualitative inquiry” may be read as deep or depthful inquiry. And ironically, to question what qualis is like is, therefore, deep in two senses: it is the dictionary meanings of the Latin term qualis itself, and it is the deep meaning of the mystery of language that may be at issue.
From this seeming ambiguity, the term depth circulates easily in qualitative methodological conversations. This ease is not accidental. Depth is a familiar word drawn from everyday language, where it commonly refers to going beneath the surface and may even carry a subtle caution against going too far. We may use the word depth without giving full consideration to its meaning, even if we can recognize a certain study as having depth. In comparison, in prominent encyclopedias of qualitative research, depth lacks its own entry (see, for example, Given, 2008; Lewis-Beck et al., 2004; Noblit, 2020). And the term depth is not necessarily defined in dictionaries of qualitative inquiry (see, for example, Schwandt, 2014). But depth and related words may be used in phrases such as in-depth interviews, deeper insights, in-depth analyses, and we may talk about methods of research that aim to achieve depth.
From a perspective of depth, certain perennial topics of qualitative inquiry—such as care, trust, responsibility, hoping, longing, suffering, despair, and so forth—are realized not as concepts that can be abstractly explained, but instead, as deeply meaningful entanglements of cognitive, affective, social, and emotional understandings. A substantive study of any of these notions would benefit from a depthful examination. In comparison, a person who thinks more deeply and who has a deeper understanding of things may be more intellectually demanding. While for emotions, depth can refer to a strong, intense sensation that is felt deeply within, such as deep sadness or deep sympathy. In relations, depth can refer to closeness and commitment, as in deep connections or deep trust. In complexity, something of deep meaning is not obvious or superficial; it is profound, grave, complicated, or mysterious. Qualitative research, with its sustained attention to meaning, thus draws on an everyday term whose ordinary meanings both enable and complicate its methodological aspirations. Attending to depth, then, requires not only asking how qualitative inquiry becomes deep but also reflecting on what we mean when we speak of depth at all.
Focusing on Depth in Phenomenological Research
We may appreciate that there are a large number of traditions of qualitative inquiry that differ in their methodological aspirations and commitments. As such, there is a risk that if we try to approach depth for the totality of qualitative research, the methodological commentary could only be cursory; for if we go deeper, we may sink into those creviced voids of methodological difference. Therefore, we believe that we have an argument for focusing on depth within a methodological tradition, or at least a tradition of traditions. Our thesis is that depth is not something qualitative research simply has but something that may be realized within a methodological approach. We, therefore, attend to depth as methodologically situated and focus our discussion on phenomenological inquiry.
Phenomenology may be understood as an approach to qualitative inquiry that aspires to depth, relative to more surface-level approaches like content analysis (Hsieh & Shannon, 2005) and qualitative description (Sandelowski, 2000, 2010). This is not to diminish how, at times, these forms of inquiry offer value to obtain summative descriptions, a rough sense, or even a lay of the land; depth is not necessarily the desired aspiration. Phenomenology, in contrast, may be described as oriented toward understanding the meaningfulness of experience as it is lived through (see, for example, Churchill, 2022; Dahlberg et al., 2008; Vagle, 2024; van Manen, 2023). These human science phenomenological traditions share a recognition that there are aspects to experience that resist simply being put into words because they have depth, linking phenomenology in qualitative inquiry to philosophical phenomenological traditions.
Of philosophical traditions, Robert Bernasconi (2020) reminds us,
The term “phenomenology” long ago lost the precision with which Husserl once invested it. The word has long since ceased to be his property. But instead of making the usual gesture and abandoning the hypostasized abstraction phenomenology in favor of a plurality of phenomenologies, I would prefer to say that there is no phenomenology, only phenomenologists. The names of these phenomenologists indicate paths of thought. (p. 2)
Bernasconi goes on to show how, shared among phenomenologists, there is a preoccupation, concern, or openness for exploring that excess from which philosophy draws: “Different philosophers name that excess differently: experience, Being, the concrete, the ethical, the trace, and so on” (Bernasconi, 2020, p. 2). In phenomenological qualitative inquiry, we may understand the focus as on developing understandings and insights concerning concrete topics through engaging with qualitative material, which speaks to this excess (van Manen, 2026). Philosophical sources may deepen such qualitative inquiry, and, in turn, this inquiry may disrupt, question, or otherwise contribute to philosophical discourse (see, for example, van Manen, 2023).
By way of example, in this paper, we draw on material from a study of adolescents’ experiences of type 1 diabetes (T1D) wearable technologies (Munch et al., 2025). The aim here is not to present an exhaustive study of T1D technologies but instead to draw on an illustrative example. This study opportunes reflecting on depth, recognizing there is a tension between a focus on the technologies themselves, the mediational effects of the technologies on human experience, and the adolescents’ experiences of living with them. As such, this study affords a layered discussion of depth whereby we may distinguish interpretative, idiosyncratic, and resonant forms of depth. These distinctions are not meant to be exhaustive since the notion of depth has many possible meanings. Still, we hope that these ways of qualifying depth are helpful for thinking more deeply about depth. Let us begin by briefly orienting to this study.
Discerning Depth: Wearable T1D Technologies as an Example
The use of wearable T1D technologies—insulin infusion pumps, continuous blood sugar monitors, and other paraphernalia—has become standard of care for adolescents with T1D (American Diabetes Association Professional Practice Committee, 2023). The integration of these technologies links glucose monitoring and insulin delivery to enable automatic adjustments in the flow of insulin in response to the measured glucose level. However, even the most advanced system still requires effort on the part of the user to account for oral intake, physical activity, intercurrent illnesses, and other factors. In addition, the user has to respond to alerts, alarms, or other messages when action is needed, such as consuming a beverage when the glucose level is low or adjusting the device position if the tubing is blocked (Mialet, 2022).
For the teenager, these devices may become part of their everyday bodily being in the world, whether in the home, at school, in a park, or some other place. If all is going well, the technologies may become like the body, taken-for-granted, passé sous silence (Sartre, 2004). And yet, this does not mean that these devices do not affect the lived experiences of their adolescent users. We may wonder: What is it like to be a young person grappling with the challenges of T1D? How do therapeutic approaches sculpt their experiences? In what ways are T1D medical devices constitutive of their embodiment? What may the experience of wearing T1D technologies be like for adolescents?
As an opening to researching this lived adolescent world of T1D technologies, we may consider those moments when these devices are brought to conscious awareness (Adams & Thompson, 2016). Consider this short anecdote from a teenage girl:
On the train, a boy came over and touched my sensor. He was sitting there touching it, and saying to his friend, “What’s that?” as if I could not hear him or see and feel what was going on. I turned and said, “Would you kindly stop touching it. Just ask me.” (A teenage girl with T1D)
Taking the train home from school may be a routine event in an adolescent girl’s daily life. Perhaps while taking the train, she chats with friends, puts on headphones and listens to music, or simply busies herself scrolling through social media posts on her smartphone. Plainly, a teenager, like anyone else, may become absorbed in an activity such that other things drift into nothing more than a background awareness. But then perhaps, as in this anecdote, a teenager may be disturbed, confronted by someone’s unwanted touch. It is not the touch of someone unintentionally brushing up against you as they shuffle by, perhaps getting into the train, trying to find somewhere to sit. Nor is it the surprising, intentional touch of a friend who grabs a hand, arm, or shoulder in mutual affection. Instead, it is an intrusive touch, where an aspect of the body may become an object to be observed or be explored: a “What’s that?” touch.
We may wonder: How may a teenager experience being seen, let alone touched, in this intrusive way? How are the technologies present—personally, privately, intimately? What is the social meaning of T1D technologies in the lifeworld of an adolescent? In orienting toward the phenomenality of T1D technologies, we reflect on aspects of their lived meaning, or orient toward meanings that may compose an adolescent’s lived world. We may realize that a depth founds this girl’s words more deeply than what simply happened on the train.
Here, we may appreciate how depth expresses significance. It is what we aspire to as qualitative researchers because we care about the experiential life of those adolescents who live with T1D and the technologies utilized to manage their condition. So, we need to acknowledge that there is much more depth to this particular girl’s experience than what we can possibly get into here. For example, the brief anecdote tells us nothing of her past life experiences, her own relationship to her body, her personal relationship with this boy, or other aspects. And yet, the words do share a perspective, a small yet significant sense of what this experience may be like, provided that, as a reader, we do not simply pass over the words to consider the depth from which they speak. Here, we may remember the words of the French philosopher Merleau-Ponty (1945/2002), “Depth is born beneath my gaze because the latter tries to see something” (p. 472). In other words, it is how we perceive a question or explore something that impacts whether we experience depth and what this notion of depth consists of. For the girl on the train, it is when we orient toward her experience as lived—being noticed, objectified, or touched—that we may come to regard this experience as having depth. And yet, the experiential sense cannot be separated from the perceiving subject. Such depth we cannot wholly possess, know, or articulate; and yet, this depth is constitutive of her being in the world.
Depth, depthful, and deeply here refer to high degrees or measures of seriousness and relevance. And from this caring regard, we may wonder: How different this experience of being touched may have been if the girl had been sitting alone by herself on a train? What if it had been something else that the boy had noticed, like a ladybug crawling on her skin? How about if an infection was brewing at the site of the sensor, so there was swelling, tenderness, or deformity? What if this girl had a past experience of trauma, a violent touch? We raise these questions because we are oriented to the depth of an experience in its meaningfulness. So perhaps we may say that to approach understanding something deeply means not just that we aim to see below the surface. Instead, depth may reflect being touched by the possible meaningfulness of something and thus experiencing a depthful sense of it.
Forms of Depth
Interpretative Depth
Let us consider an anecdote by a teenager with T1D who recounts a night of interrupted sleep:
I go to bed sure that I can go to sleep with my current blood sugar level. But soon after, I hear the beep from my pump. I get out of bed, walk into the kitchen, and drink some juice. I am not thirsty nor do I feel like drinking juice, but my blood sugar is low. I go back to bed, and an hour later, the beeping starts again. I get out of bed, walk into the kitchen, and eat a banana. I go back to sleep, but two hours later, it starts beeping, and shortly after it beeps once again. The next morning, I wake up and I feel tired into my bones. It feels like an impossible task to wake up. It is as if I have been awake all night. (A teenage boy with T1D)
A superficial reading of this anecdote might simply suggest that T1D technologies have the unfortunate possibility of disturbing sleep. We could consider in more detail all of the different audible alarms: blood sugar warnings, low battery alarms, infusion failure signals, and how varying tones may awaken someone from sleep. Or we could describe how the technologies may cause bodily discomfort: pain at the infusion site, pressure from rolling onto the pump, increased skin sensitivity over time, and so forth. In a sense, we are starting to think more deeply about how T1D technologies may affect sleep. All of these are apt observations to draw, but are they really insightful? In what sense may these observations reflect depth?
Merleau-Ponty (1964/1968) writes, “Depth is the means the things have to remain distinct, to remain things” (p. 219). So, what is the distinctness of wearable T1D technologies that makes them phenomenologically notable? Clearly, sleep can be disrupted by a manifold of events: the sounds of outdoor traffic, a buzzing household appliance, the snoring of others in the home, a lumpy pillow, humidity heat, and all manner of other things. It would seem that to interpret T1D technologies as having the inclination to disrupt sleep does not really get at their distinct thingness or their so-called thinging (to borrow from Heidegger, 1971).
If we want to explore in more depth how wearable T1D technologies come to matter in everyday life, we need to move beyond thinking about them instrumentally as tools. One way of doing so is to consider how they uniquely mediate experience. Returning to the words of the anecdote, we may appreciate that for the teenager, the technologies almost ambiguously tell something of “my” body by making a bodily aspect present to read, feel, hear, or otherwise respond to. Don Ihde (1990, 2002) would point out that there is a multistability to wearable T1D technologies involving several shifting human-technology relations. More specifically, they may mediate bodily self-awareness through hermeneutic representations that may become embodied or recede into the background, reshaping how a teenager experiences, interprets, and takes responsibility for their body. Said in even more depth, T1D technologies may be understood to represent the body by translating measured glucose into numbers, graphs, arrows, and alerts. Bodily knowledge may become readable or interpretive rather than immediate as the technologies amplify certain aspects (patterns and trends) and reduce others (subtle bodily sensations and intuition). And yet, over time, there may be a shift toward embodiment whereby the alerts may feel like extensions of bodily awareness, and the pumps and sensors may recede into the background. In Ihde’s terms, the devices may become quasi-transparent. This is quite different when insulin delivery is purely algorithmic, when the device comes to be a functional pancreas, regulating glucose in the background to silently structure bodily existence.
This human-technology relation may be interpreted in a different way. For example, Deleuze and Guattari argue that “humans are a component part of the machine, or combine with something else to constitute a machine” (Guattari, 2009, p. 91). The thrust of this statement is that technologies and humans are not distinct entities from one another in the sense of tool-like extension, material embodiment, or technological mediation; instead, “as people” and “as devices”, we are always already part of one another as productive assemblages of bodies, tools, signs, institutions, and flows. We may interpret the diabetic teenager together with continuous glucose monitoring, insulin pump, computer algorithm, and medical norms as a cyborgean metabolic machine. There is no single element in control of sleep; instead, the production of this machine happens through the coupling of component parts. On the surface, this interpretation may seem strange, but remember in the medical sciences, we are all composed of constituent parts: cells, tissues, and organs. And medicine, in many ways, is directed to addressing these constituent parts in illness: physiologically, T1D has to do with loss of functional insulin-producing (islet) cells of the pancreas, such that the T1D technologies reflect the design imperative to technically replace this defective part (our human parts that monitor and respond to abnormal blood glucose). Here, an important insight is required: What T1D devices do as component parts is not just monitor glucose and deliver insulin; they also make visible the blood sugar level and technical delivery of insulin, which creates new possibilities of actions, behaviors, routines, and so forth. In this way, a new machine is created in the Stieglerian sense that by using wearable T1D technologies, we have recreated the kind of humans we are (Stiegler, 1998). This is a deeper interpretive insight: the phenomenality of these devices shows that technologies are essential aspects of our embodied being.
So, it does not go deep enough to say that T1D devices have the potential to be distracting, or even that these technologies resist embodiment. When we start to reflect more deeply on T1D wearable technologies, we may gain understandings of their qualis. Alternatively, in a related gesture, we may consider how these technologies compare to others to try to appreciate their distinctness. For example, from a study exploring children’s experiences of ventricular assist devices (VADs), we may appreciate the phrase “imperfect embodiment” as pointing to how the current design of mechanical heart technologies poses difficulties for a smooth sensory embodiment, yet the VAD is nonetheless in part embodied (van Manen, 2017). We may also appreciate the term “mal-embodiment” to name and explicate modes of (dys)functioning in the embodying of that which is to be embodied. In comparison, the phenomenality of the TID devices is not bounded by parts. But rather, the adolescent is part of the machine. It is not a question of imperfect or mal-embodiment but, instead, to use another Deleuzian term, the “actuality” of the TID device adolescent.
From a Deleuzian view, the diabetic body is not a fixed object but a field of metabolic potentials: blood glucose rises and falls; insulin sensitivity fluctuates; food, stress, sleep, and exercise all modulate flows (note: nor is it understood as fixed from an Ihdean perspective, but instead attention shifts to how wearable technologies mediate perception, action, and bodily experience in everyday life). Instead, wearable T1D technologies continually actualize this virtual metabolic field by sampling glucose at a specific time; translating it into a number, arrow, or alert; triggering an intervention like insulin delivery or user action. Each reading is an actuality—this glucose level, in this body, under these conditions—such that the T1D technologies do not just represent the body, they participate in producing its actuality. So, we do not understand T1D as mere devices, so much as a particular part of a cyborg machine, which is active even in non-activity, which never really sleeps. The point is that a phenomenological interpretation of T1D technologies uniquely shares aspects with other medical devices, but it is toward its singular qualis that interpretation is oriented. It is because of depth that things have meaning. In this way, interpretative depth resists triviality and superficiality: “a resistance which is precisely their reality” (Merleau-Ponty, 1964/1968, p. 219).
Idiosyncratic Depth
There exists a tension in some forms of phenomenological inquiry with respect to an orientation to the individual compared to something intersubjective, communal, or what otherwise transcends. We could say that for our above interpretations of T1D technologies, we have lost those idiosyncratic aspects that compose a teenager’s lifeworld of living with T1D, as we have descended into writing about technological mediation and component parts of a machine. It is as if in the depths of the deep, we no longer see what was visible in the shallows. In this way, we may say that what is idiosyncratic needs to be held in tension with an interpretation. In part, we may understand depth as realized from an orientation toward the idiographic, understood as the individual, the biographic, or even the singular. Returning to T1D technologies, we may say that to approach the meaning of these devices in the lifeworld of adolescents requires understanding something about what it may mean to be a teenager. For in the shallows of depth, there is description.
But what details are needed? And how can we engage these details thoughtfully? For surface-level depth may include so many particular aspects: where someone was born, their interests, who lives at home, their social challenges, what school they attend, how they fit in with the friends they have, their grades in school, who are their heroes, their dreams, their fears, and so much more. When the focus is on attending to meaningful aspects of a recognizable experience, some details are crucial, and perhaps others lesser so. What is needed to offer a sense of an adolescent’s experience? What does it mean to recount a moment in the depth in which it was lived through? What depth is needed to show an experience?
Consider the following anecdote from a younger teenage boy:
Yesterday, my mother came into my room and said, “You’re running a bit low, I’ll fetch you some juice.” She stood in the doorway, watching as I drank the cup dry. Other days, she might say, “You’re running a bit high.” Then she comes in to adjust my pump, to give me insulin. And then, there are those times when I am at school. She will text me that I should take some insulin or take some sugar. She always seems to know my blood sugar. Sometimes, when I am sleeping, she will even come in and adjust the pump. I do not always even know she is there. (A teenage boy with T1D)
From this account, we may appreciate how teenagers with T1D may benefit from the caring, steadfast attention of their parents or other family members. And we may also appreciate that an adolescent may experience feelings about their parent entering physically and/or virtually into their spaces, whether at home, school, or other places. This may affect adolescence as a time of growing independence: the need for private spaces, to try out new things, to test out limits, to take risks, or to otherwise work out who one is. In this way, adolescence can be a challenging time for a teenager and their parents. This is perhaps all the more true for adolescents with T1D, although not necessarily in a uniform or negative way, but rather, a phenomenologically recognizable way.
So, how much depth is needed to show meaningful aspects of this experience? Is the gender identity of the teenager of consequence? Does it matter if these events happened in the morning, afternoon, or evening? How about how long this child has lived with T1D? We ask these questions given how usual it is to read qualitative studies which list demographic information in a so-called “Table 1” that risks identifying an individual without necessarily enriching the work (Morse & Coulehan, 2015). And yet, to appreciate the meaningfulness of T1D for adolescents, we may appreciate how certain aspects would not be seen if the anecdote lacked profile concreteness, texture, richness, or other aspects of depth.
We may reflect on how those depthful aspects that speak to T1D devices in adolescence are crucial features. For example, an important detail is that the device itself is not simply read by the child but also by their parent and that there are relational aspects to having “my” body data available to a parent physically and/or virtually. In other words, part of the phenomenology of the device is that the blood sugar of the child may be accessible by the parent by virtue of the technology that not only links the glucose sensor to the insulin pump but also the child’s T1D devices to the parent’s devices (e.g., smartphone) if permission is given. And this, in turn, affords interpretative questioning: How may we understand the significance of T1D devices that share bodily data between child and parent? How does this shared visibility affect the lived experience of both, shaping their sense of connection, care, and personal boundaries?
From the above account, we may say that T1D devices afford parents a particular monitoring kind of caring for their child, both in their physical and/or virtual presence. In the above scenario, we can appreciate how a parent may both monitor and anticipate their child’s needs. This may be underscored when children refer to their parents essentially “standing guard” during the night, managing alarms to spare them the disturbances or otherwise take care of them. And yet, sometimes children may not even recognize just how much their family is doing for them.
Idiosyncratic details such as how a parent may be present through the machine are important for a depthful study of T1D devices. We only begin to see such aspects if we explore a phenomenon in depth by exploring idiosyncratic moments of living with these technologies. However, we may wonder in reading and reflecting on experiential material whether some details are not needed, particularly when they fail to distinguish, show, or otherwise express experiential aspects. We may also appreciate that idiosyncratic depth is achieved by attending to something carefully and contemplatively to ensure the possibility for reflective noticing to occur. Said differently, the aim is for depthful attention that requires a certain depthful understanding of an individual’s narrative to begin to reflect on those meanings that compose them. This may be hard to tell in the course of completing an interview, observation, or other activity oriented toward gathering qualitative material, such that we may err on exploring as much concrete material as possible. In other words, idiosyncratic depth is something we can evaluate by reading about something (i.e., did the author offer an in-depth account of a particular event?). And yet, there is a depth that we experience when we get into a text through which a particular way of being comes into view and remains available for reflection.
Resonant Depth
By the light of an anecdote, an experience may be represented to invite readerly reflection (van Manen, 1989). An anecdote may stand on its own to communicate understanding, and yet we may also appreciate that writerly reflection may help the reader to near an experience of which a text speaks.
Returning to the context of care of T1D, we may recognize that changing the physical interface between T1D technologies and the body (i.e., the insertion site of an insulin pump or the sensor site of a glucose monitor) may become a routine experience for teenagers. For some, they may need a parent to support them to complete the task: to gather and prep the materials needed to insert a new infusion set or insulin sensor. “Mom, we are out of alcohol swabs,” may call for help or a trip to the store. “I put more in the cabinet under the sink,” may answer the need. For other adolescents, they are independent. They do not need, let alone want, their parents’ help to decide which bodily site (abdomen, upper arms, thighs, or butt) to use for a sensor or a pump. “You put it on your stomach again?” a father may rebuke. “It’s my body,” his daughter may respond, “I do not need everyone to see it.”
Consider now the following anecdote where a teenager recounts changing insertion and sensor sites,
There are days when I have to change both. It was last Saturday. I changed both the insertion and the sensor. I was completely free from it all. I did not have anything on me. It felt a bit strange. I always tell my mom, “Now I’m free of diabetes.” Just for those 15 min, a quarter of an hour . . . then you put it back on, and you are back into it. It feels . . . well, I do not know? I would not say it is a relief to have it off for a short period. It can also be a bit uncomfortable not to have it on. Because now I have had it for a couple of years. I don’t know. I am always wearing it. Because it is not something, that I am used to not wearing. (A teenage boy with T1D)
When old pump insertion and glucose sensor are removed, it is not merely that an adolescent may see the small puncture site, adhesive markings, skin irritation, or other physical aspects. The change may also reveal something of an experience of habituated dependence, where a teenager’s embodiment of a technology is normalized with time: “I am always wearing it. Because it is not something, that I am used to not wearing.”
As a reader of these reflective words, we may appreciate a depth to the teenager’s possible experience of T1D technologies to wonder: What precisely is an adolescent free of, or free from, when they remove their insulin pump and continuous monitor? What is it to live life constantly having these devices on? Can we regard adolescents with T1D as ever free from their diabetes? What happens when a device is used so routinely that it becomes strange to no longer use it? It is neither interpretation nor idiosyncratic depth that permits such questioning. There is instead a depth to the text, what we may call resonant with readerly sensibilities.
We may turn back to Gaston Bachelard’s The Poetics of Space, where Bachelard () shows that words can strike us with deep resonance because they touch us “to the very depths of our being” (p. 12). In fact, a text may be so deeply resonant with our understanding that it opens up a sublime chasm of deeply anchored meaning. If you ask, where is the depth? The answer is that such depth does not inhere solely in the text, but in ourselves as it resonates and reverberates with us:
The resonances are dispersed on the different planes of our life in the world, while the repercussions invite us to give greater depth to our own existence. In the resonance we hear the poem, in the reverberations we speak it, it is our own. The reverberations bring about a change of being. It is as though the poet’s being were our being. The multiplicity of resonances then issues from the reverberations’ unity of being. Or, to put it more simply, this is an impression that all impassioned poetry-lovers know well: the poem possesses us entirely. (Bachelard, 1957/1994, p. xxii)
This is a profoundly important observation for qualitative inquiry because it points to how there are aspects to the writing and reading of a text—whether it be poetic, literary, or qualitatively evocative research—that may bring about awakenings, understandings, or insights in us. It is as if depth resounds in echoes as the work reverberates and resonates: stirring us from the very depths of our primal sensibilities. With resonant depth, we may appreciate analytic idiosyncratic significances in their profundity and truth because in a sense, we have already heard the deep reverberation of magnificent insights before we have even fully registered their meaning. Bachelard (1957/1994) writes,
After the original reverberation, we are able to experience resonances, sentimental repercussions, reminders of our past. But the image has touched the depths before it stirs the surface. And this is also true of a simple experience of reading. The image offered us by reading the poem now becomes really our own. It takes roots in us. It has been given us by another, but we begin to have the impression that we could have created it, that we should have created it. It becomes a new being in our language, expressing us by making us what it expresses; in other words, it is at once a becoming of expression, and a becoming of our being. Here expression creates being. (p. xxiii)
We may find that qualitative research, and specifically phenomenological inquiry, may aspire for this kind of depth. This means that our research should evoke a readerly response of the experience itself, of the phenomenon. We need to be aware of the kind of writing that qualitative inquiry demands (see van Manen, 1997). Conversely, we may acknowledge certain forms and presentations of qualitative inquiry that aim for a surface description of study findings and thus risk leaving the reader deaf to such reverberations, such as those that would tend to fall under Sandelowski’s (2000, 2010) portrayal of qualitative description. Similarly, we could say that hasty summarizations of interviews, observations, or other material gained from empirical-based methods in abridged paragraphs, tables of evidential quotations, and so forth do not create a textual space for a reader to experience depth. If a phenomenological or other interpretive study aims for this deep form of depth, then the writing itself needs to become part of the method, in addition to what material is gained from empirical-based methods. In this way, we appreciate there needs to be attentiveness to the writing of a text, in and of itself.
Further Reflections
We hope that what has become apparent in this paper is that depth is not necessarily a unitary phenomenon and that it may be challenging to express depth in our research discourses. And yet, depth is what many of us try to achieve. In this paper, we have drawn distinctions between interpretative, idiosyncratic, and resonant depth, recognizing that these dimensions do not occur in isolation. For example, idiosyncratic aspects may support an interpretation that benefits from being presented in a way to resonate with the sensibilities of the reader. It may be in the bringing together of these sensible dimensions that depth turns deep.
To speak about sensible dimensions may lead us to further reflect on the sensibility of deep depthfulness that supports insightful understanding. Heidegger (1927/1962) might say that a text which is deep also offers phainesthai, the possibility for a genuine disclosure that simultaneously tends toward concealment. He describes how phenomenology must deal with that which
for the most part does not show itself at all: it is something that lies hidden, in contrast to that which proximally and for the most part does show itself; but at the same time it is something that belongs to what thus shows itself, and it belongs to it so essentially as to constitute its meaning and its ground. (Heidegger, 1927/1962, p. 59)
And yet, we may wonder whether an aspiration toward meaning is in some sense groundless: for it is in the depthfulness of depth rather than its ground from which depth is derived. In other words, paradoxically, we may say that deep meaning is ungrounded. To call a text deep not only grants a certain significance to the text, but it also may evoke a reserve of meaning that is somehow “dictioned” to permit a dwelling, feeling, or resonance. By dictioned, we mean that a word, an expression, a story can be deep in the sense that its reading offers profoundly deep meaning. In comparison, a space may be so profoundly deep that it is boundless, unending. So, truly, that is why the dictionary defines depth as the extensional qualification of the noun deep. Pure dictionary’s depth has great extension downward, is dug downward. The saying says, “Still waters run deep.” Such meanings may be felt to be ungrounded—something so deep that it requires pure thought, reflection, and analysis to be understandable. It is a depth that takes meaning down deep. It suggests a complexity and importance beyond what is immediately apparent. A deep disquiet, a disquiet depth.
Returning to the broader field of qualitative inquiry, perhaps it is not surprising that among the commonly used frameworks meant to assist with assessing the quality of qualitative research—such as the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ), the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR), the Critical Appraisal Skills Programme (CASP)—none refer to the depth of findings (Critical Appraisal Skills Program, 2023; O’Brien et al., 2014; Tong et al., 2007). Unfortunately, as Janice Morse (2021) noted, “They do not address the originality, the substance, the contribution, and the potential results to the actual topic—which is after all the purpose of the project itself” (p. 819). Should we not aspire to depth? While it may be challenging to appraise depth, we may wonder how a manuscript that is without depth, without a deep dimension, and without a depth in which to dwell, reason, contemplate, or wonder could be considered publishable?
And yet, we would like to be careful that, depending on the substantive area of research, perhaps depth is not always what is needed. We recognize there are areas where our current understanding is literally just on the surface. And in such areas, sometimes even a fairly surface-level study may make a contribution. We also need to be cautious in conflating theory with depth. Paradoxically, the theoretical framing of a study or theorizing in a study may not achieve depth but instead abstraction. We may think of those studies where authors, rather than getting into something, drift into generalities. It is as if they theorize theory, reiterate existing theory, or otherwise engage in abstract theorizing without deeply exploring a phenomenon. Therefore, it may be useful to draw a distinction between interpretation and explanation. While both share features of sense-making, not all interpretations aim to explain in the sense of formulating a theory but rather aim to get at something, insights—in the sense of its whatness—or what makes it what it is. Said more plainly, we explain to someone while we interpret something ourselves. Surely, qualitative meaning can be semantic, illustrative, exemplary, existential, indicative, interpretive, or analytic as a depthful dimension associated with a certain qualitative inquiry framework.
To conclude, how we understand depth may vary within and between different qualitative methodological traditions. While appreciating that qualitative depth may be challenging to achieve, ultimately, it is often those texts (of depth) that are enduring in their significance. For phenomenological inquiry, to “go” deep, then, is less a matter of digging for more than it is of how we attend, dwell, and remain with what comes into view. Depth has its roots in us, transcending mere analytical thought and residing in the profound, often elusive resonances that shape and enrich our understanding. As van den Berg (1961/1983) writes, “We are continually living a solution of a problem that reflection cannot hope to solve” (p. 169). Depth has its roots in us, transcending mere analytical thought and residing in the profound, often elusive resonances that shape and enrich our understanding.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
The qualitative material in this paper comes from the article, “‘Walking in their shoes’: How does externally worn diabetes technology mediate with the lifeworld of adolescents with type 1 diabetes” authored by Lene Munch, Malene Missel, Malene Boas, Annette Korsholm Mouritsen, and ourselves (2025). The authors are gracious to these colleagues for this work, as well as the adolescents that participated in this study who openly shared their meaningful experiences and valuable perspectives.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The qualitative material in this paper was drawn from a study supported by a Research Grant from Steno Diabetes Center Sjaelland and the Children and Adolescent Department, Zealand University Hospital.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Role of Funder/Sponsor (if any)
The funders had no role in the study design, data collection, data analysis and interpretation, writing or the decision to submit this article for publication.
Clinical Trial Registration (if any)
Not applicable.