It was while we were attending the Third Congress of Qualitative Inquiry at the University of Illinois, Urbana/Champaign in 2007 that the idea of hosting a Qualitative Symposium at the University of the West Indies (UWI), Mona, was conceived. Although as a School of Education we had made much progress in accepting the qualitative approach as an acceptable way to do research, there was still a sense that those who used qualitative methods were operating in isolation. We wanted to find a way to highlight the fact that many of our students and colleagues were producing high quality, credible research with qualitative and mixed methods. We also wanted to showcase that qualitative research was taking place in other faculties of the UWI campuses. We felt it was time to create a space where researchers could meet, share their work and begin to network. So we extended invitations to colleagues and students who were working with various research genres in the qualitative paradigm to make presentations and to stimulate discussions about various aspects of qualitative research. We also wanted to enhance the academic and social identity of the qualitative researcher in the Caribbean.