Positionality, Ethics and Narrative Course Correction... A Reflection
As a researcher you're told to consider your positionality in relationship with ethical guidance and in relation to the people, the organisations and/or the institutions that you're researching. You spend a lot of time journaling and thinking about your own research practice and you're warned about gatekeepers. But I don't think anything quite prepares you for the experience of discovering that people begin to see you differently. Inside you're the same person you always were. But I learned there's a naivety to that because what others see is someone who has changed in status, someone who has grown in power and someone who has the potential to do considerable harm which, from their position of being researched, is a frightening realisation.
("You've Changed" by Michael-Albert Herrera is licensed under CC BY 2.0.)
The thing is, I can pinpoint the memory of when I realised that people see me differently. I was at home and I contacted someone to ask if they were willing and able to help with my research. "Yes, sure, no problem", was the reply. But when I explained the nature of my research, the only expression I can find to describe my experience was, ... it was like being ghosted academically and professionally. Now this didn't happen just once and I don't know why it took me so long to cotton on to what was going on. But this was the one instance that left me in no doubt that they wanted nothing to do with me or my research.
I didn't press the issue because ethically I didn't think it would be right to do so. I can't remember the paper I read but it said that, as a researcher, sometimes you have to recognise that no response is a response. But I find myself struggling with an ethical dilemma that's not really of my own making. You see, I can't resolve the tension between knowing that the experience of teachers is under-represented in the academic literature and social policy while facing gatekeepers that prevent the voice of teachers from being heard at all. So while respecting the power of gatekeepers is a challenge for researchers, what do you do when those gatekeepers effectively silence and invalidate the experience of others?
None of this is simple because I also understand that gatekeepers are themselves ethical agents who are similarly charged with the responsibility of protecting others as well as protecting themselves. Moreover, as a researcher, I'm perfectly aware that there are means of circumventing such gatekeepers. But I don't want to harm my research, damage my reputation or that of the research community by engaging in unethical practice. In fact I started this research from the perspective that teachers had lost their sense of togetherness, their sense of community and, despite being back on campus after covid, the sense of isolation persisted and I wanted to do something about it. My aim was to produce research that gives FE professionals at all levels the tools to support community building. The aim of my work was to rebuild broken connections. So, if at any point the aim of my research has been misunderstood I hope this blog puts things right and maybe opens doors for future collaboration.
But the main reason I wrote this post was because I found myself kind of wondering how people might get the impression that I might want to cause harm. Reflexively I found myself wondering whether I should have been more open about my research, my aims, my values etc. Or had I given the impression I had some kind of axe to grind? I was surprised how it hit me on a personal level. That's why I had to step back and really think before writing this. I'm starting to understand what people meant when they told me the EdD journey was both an academic and a personal journey. This one kind of hit home in an unexpected way.
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