Writing collaboratively

Debbie Horsfall, Judy Pinn

    Research output: Chapter in Book / Conference PaperChapter

    Abstract

    Our desire as social researchers has been to self-consciously involve ourselves in the spirit of people's lives as participant-observers in order to effect personal, organisational and/or social change. The work we have done together has had a political intent and is firmly located within the critical paradigm of qualitative research. By that we mean that, to paraphrase Marx, the reason we seek to understand the world (or a phenomenon) is to change it. And, to be even bolder, we want change to happen as part of the research process. We realise at this stage in our lives that this is a rather grand, maybe arrogant, claim. Nevertheless, this was our position. The type of research we have done has usually been collaborative and participatory, where we have striven to be inclusive and democratic in both the doing and the writing about the doing of research. Researching this way raises all manner of interesting epistemological questions: Whose and what types of knowledge counts? Whose interests does the research serve? Who designs the research questions? Who asks the questions and how? Who answers, who interprets and how? Who writes and how? Who decides the answers to these questions? In this chapter we begin to explore these questions by using three different stories illustrating both our successes and mistakes in collaborative research and writing practices.
    Original languageEnglish
    Title of host publicationWriting Qualitative Research on Practice
    EditorsJoy Higgs, Debbie Horsfall, Sandra Grace
    Place of PublicationNetherlands
    PublisherSense
    Pages207-215
    Number of pages14
    ISBN (Electronic)9789087909086
    ISBN (Print)9789087909062
    Publication statusPublished - 2009

    Keywords

    • group work in research
    • academic writing

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