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 language | English |
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Title of host publication | Writing Qualitative Research on Practice |
Editors | Joy Higgs, Debbie Horsfall, Sandra Grace |
Place of Publication | Netherlands |
Publisher | Sense |
Pages | 207-215 |
Number of pages | 14 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9789087909086 |
ISBN (Print) | 9789087909062 |
Publication status | Published - 2009 |
Keywords
- group work in research
- academic writing