Negotiating insider research through reactive collaboration: challenges, issues and failures
ISSN: 1443-9883
Article publication date: 11 July 2022
Issue publication date: 22 November 2022
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to highlight the ways in which reactive researcher collaboration helps to manage some of the challenges present in insider research.
Design/methodology/approach
Employing (auto)biographical reflections from across two different case-studies, the authors explore the ways in which reactive collaboration is enmeshed with issues associated with researching the familiar in a marketized university environment.
Findings
The authors develop the term “reactive collaboration” to explore the ways in which insider research projects have to deal with a range of challenges from within their own research community. Reactive collaboration is as much about insider research solidarity as it is with reacting to anticipated and unanticipated events during the research process (and how inside researchers do and do not deal with them). Reactive collaboration highlights the successes as well as the failures of insider researchers negotiating complex research situations.
Originality/value
The authors show how reactive collaboration occurs in challenging research environments, including the joys, sorrows and failures. The authors argue that the challenges and benefits of insider research can be helpfully crystalised through reactive collaboration.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors thank Bridge: A Mindsport for All (BAMSA) project for enabling the writing of this article to take place. The authors also thank the participants for sharing, challenging and enabling the authors to participate in the worlds of bridge and Camphill. Miriam Snellgrove would like to thank Prof. Thomas Osborne and Dr. Sveta Milyaeva for helpful comments on earlier drafts. The authors thank the anonymous reviewers. BAMSA's research projects are funded by crowdfunding from players, bridge clubs and bridge organisations (https://bridgemindsport.org) and the authors are grateful to all national and international donors.
Citation
Snellgrove, M. and Punch, S. (2022), "Negotiating insider research through reactive collaboration: challenges, issues and failures", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 22 No. 4, pp. 548-558. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-11-2021-0116
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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