In the light of the changing landscape of social research, this article explores the role of the analytic imagination in the process of qualitative data analysis. It argues that while team research, secondary data analysis and the use of computerized qualitative data analysis packages may be altering the ways in which research and analysis are carried out, this need not change the processes of interpretation that are at the heart of qualitative data analysis. Here, as the article explores, imaginative acts are key to the analytical craftsmanship involved in interpretive analysis. This a process illustrated through the analysis of parent and child narratives gathered during a project about families and food.