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1 – 10 of over 173000Orestis Varkarolis and Daniel King
What it is like to experience being the subject of the research process when you are an actor within a new social movement organization? And what lessons can be learned for…
Abstract
Purpose
What it is like to experience being the subject of the research process when you are an actor within a new social movement organization? And what lessons can be learned for researchers engaging with members of New Social Movements? Debates on engagement and the relationship between the researcher and the researched so far have taken the perspective solely of the researcher. Based on insights gained by full participation in a horizontal worker cooperative, the purpose of this paper is to contribute to the facilitation of more fruitful, mutually engaging research relations between organizational theory scholars and members of New Social Movement organizations by voicing the researched in this debate.
Design/methodology/approach
After providing some accounts from the researched point of view, the paper focuses on crafting an appropriate research process based on participatory action research (PAR) ethos and experience.
Findings
Since the research findings suggest that PAR combines elements that both trouble and inspire research participants, namely, workload/availability and relevancy/contribution in practice, the authors introduce and provide a case study of responsive action research that emphasizes adaptation and responsiveness in the research process instead of shared governance.
Originality/value
The originality of this paper lies in voicing the research participants with the aim to aid both scholars and social movements adopt appropriate research designs for the mutual benefit of both theory/action and researchers/researched (even when researchers are already active in the field).
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Clair Doloriert and Sally Sambrook
This paper aims to draw attention to a unique paradox concerning doing an autoethnography as a PhD. On the one hand, a student may feel a pull towards revealing a vulnerable…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to draw attention to a unique paradox concerning doing an autoethnography as a PhD. On the one hand, a student may feel a pull towards revealing a vulnerable, intimate, autoethnographic self, yet on the other hand she may be pushed away from this because the oral/viva voce examination process may deny the student anonymity. Through the telling of this tale the complexities concerning self‐disclosure and student autoethnography reveal are explored.
Design/methodology/approach
The tale is autoethnographic: a fictionalised account based on real events and co‐constructed from substantial field notes, personal diaries, e‐mails, and reports.
Findings
This paper contributes to relational ethics concerned with self‐disclosure and the “I” of a reveal, and highlight the possibilities for developing Medford's notion of mindful slippage as a strategy for removing highly personal and possibly harmful elements within student autoethnography.
Research limitations/implications
The paper provides a preliminary theoretical framework that has not been empirically tested and is situated within “introspective” autoethnographic research.
Originality/value
The paper takes an innovative approach to autoethnography, addressing ethical value systems specifically within a PhD context.
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In this article, research as “mass media” (Luhmann) is appraised. “Videocy” or videoed research results are examined. A form of video research with its roots in action research…
Abstract
In this article, research as “mass media” (Luhmann) is appraised. “Videocy” or videoed research results are examined. A form of video research with its roots in action research, Delphi methodology and visual anthropology is reported on. The simulacra it produces, wherein feedback loops are used to produce an effect similar to the fractali‐zations of complexity, achieves a powerful reality‐effect. But is it a “responsible” form of (research) practice?
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Jo Fletcher, Faye Parkhill, Amosa Fa’afoi and Missy Morton
Research into the literacy of Pasifika (Pacific Island) children has predominantly focused on what the children cannot do. We present a layered account as we report on the issues…
Abstract
Research into the literacy of Pasifika (Pacific Island) children has predominantly focused on what the children cannot do. We present a layered account as we report on the issues, strategies and learnings from a project that set out to focus on success. With the guidance of matai (chiefs) we drew on the traditional Pasifika approach of Talanoa to allow important stories to be told. Talanoa both supports and challenges traditional and alternative Palagi (a Polynesian word for European) approaches to qualitative research. Three critical issues for researchers are identified: group ownership and control of the process and outcomes, the importance of collaboratively sharing research outcomes with the researched and the wider Pasifika community, and the value of opportunities for Pasifika and Palagi to undertake Pasifika research together.
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This paper argues for the need to use multiple sources and methods that respond to research challenges presented by new forms of war. There are methodological constraints and…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper argues for the need to use multiple sources and methods that respond to research challenges presented by new forms of war. There are methodological constraints and contention on the superiority given to positivist and interpretivist research designs when doing fieldwork in war situations, hence there is a need to use integrated data generation techniques. The combined effect of severe limitations of movement for both the researcher and researched fragmented data because of polarized views about the causes of the war and unpredictable events that make information hard to come by militate against systematic, organised and robust data generation. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to make fieldwork researchers understand significant research problems unique to war zones.
Design/methodology/approach
This research was guided by the postmodernist mode of thought which challenges standardised research traditions. Fieldwork experiences in Cabo suggest the need to use the composite strategies that rely on the theoretical foundation of integrative and creative collection of data when doing research in violent settings.
Findings
The fieldwork experiences showed that the standardised, conventional and valorised positivist and ethnographic research strategies may not sufficiently facilitate understanding of the dynamics of war. There should not be firm rules, guidelines or regulations governing the actions of the researcher in conflict. As such, doing research in violent settings require reflexivity, flexibility and creativity in research strategies that respond to rapid changes. Research experiences in Mozambique show the need to use blended methods that include even less structured methodologies.
Originality/value
Fieldwork experiences in Cabo challenges researchers who cling to standardised research traditions which often hamper awareness of new postmodernist mode of thought applicable to war settings. It is essential to study the nature of African armed conflicts by combining creativity and flexibility in the selection of research strategies.
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Maria Kmita and Lynnette Mawhinney
With particular reference to qualitative humor research, this paper aims to look at fieldwork from a new angle. The purpose of this paper is to address humor research foci by…
Abstract
Purpose
With particular reference to qualitative humor research, this paper aims to look at fieldwork from a new angle. The purpose of this paper is to address humor research foci by completing a fusion autoethnographic analysis of how lead author used humor to interact with the participants. This analysis outlines the two examples of joke-ability; specifically self-deprecating humor and more generally attempts to blend in.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper draws on fusion autoethnography where Author 2 actively worked to help Author 1 push deeper into her use of humor and its historical context within her life. This created a dialogue to deepen the self-analysis on Author 1’s humor methodology.
Findings
The use of humor, by humor researchers, may be of particular importance if the researched groups, society, or nation values humor in both formal and informal contexts. Researcher’s humor can be a spontaneous and dynamic way of learning and engaging with the researched environment.
Originality/value
This paper aims to be a starting point for the discussion about the understudied issues of place and role of the use of humor by a humor researcher, and the challenges of conducting humor research within an educational context. The innovative fusion autoethnographic analysis helps to reflect upon researcher’s role and behavior. The study contributes to humor research methodology by exploring the effects of researcher’s use of humor on both the researcher-participant relationship and the data.
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Roland Yeo and Sue Dopson
The purpose of this paper is to draw on the direct experience of a practitioner undertaking real-time research in his organization to offer insights into the dual role of…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to draw on the direct experience of a practitioner undertaking real-time research in his organization to offer insights into the dual role of practical insider and theoretical outsider. The duality helps the researcher to live “in” and think “out” of the research context to develop a theory for practice and then transpose it to a practice for theory through the collaboration of an external theoretical insider.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a theoretical account of the reflexive experience of the practitioner reintroducing relational ethnography, where the researcher regards processes and spaces as the objects of analysis rather than bounded groups and places. It emphasizes the relational significance of the researcher, researched, and theoretical insider in exploring the structures of relations and meanings in the field of professional practice.
Findings
The paper argues that understanding the complementariness and paradoxes of the dual role helps the researcher to identify knowledge gaps and contest commonsense knowledge in search of critical knowledge and theoretical insights. The transition between the bounded (restrained) and unbounded (unrestrained) selves occurs in the holding space of research, influencing the position from which the researcher views himself, his subjects, and his social world.
Originality/value
The paper extends the dimension of ethnographic research, which de-centers the authority and control of the researcher to that of the relationship between the researcher and informants, by focusing on the relational significance between the researcher, researched, and theoretical insider. This perspective gives rise to a deeper understanding of relational ethnography, seen largely in sociological research, as relevant to organizational research, where structures of relations and actions explored in real time could account for the configuration, conflict, and coordination of work practices.
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Narrative accounts of subjective consumer experience are, in one form or another, an essential of qualitative market research. Ethnographic research and ethnographic poetry have…
Abstract
Purpose
Narrative accounts of subjective consumer experience are, in one form or another, an essential of qualitative market research. Ethnographic research and ethnographic poetry have obvious connections with the literary form, yet this form has had limited application. Based on the assumption that poetry as a craft is a somewhat limited narrative in ethnographic studies and specifically in studies that attend a consumer vulnerability agenda, this paper aims to contribute to a literary-based perspective. This paper advocates for ethnographic poetry as a consideration of disseminating qualitative data for those researchers immersed in ethnographic research with diverse and vulnerable populations.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper draws on a range of extant literature to draw out the distinguishing features of ethnographic poetry, in which to situate ethnographic narratives of two studies of consumer vulnerability. To assist in this, scholarly discussion in the paper is interposed with a series of interludes written in the ethnographic poetic style. These interludes are intended to epitomise merits of such an interpretive research approach.
Findings
This is a research paper seeking to draw attention to, and develop a relatively neglected research approach, ethnographic poetry. Researcher reflections, drawn from two ethnographic studies, suggest some tangible consequences of this research to generate further discussion of consumer vulnerability.
Research limitations/implications
The overall aim is to extend discussion of the particular qualities of ethnographic poetry that might contribute to better serve qualitative research approaches, when conducting ethnographic research.
Practical implications
The paper advocates a stronger focus on ethnographic poetry to liberate the imagination of researchers and readers alike to enrich and compliment the analysis of narrative forms of qualitative data drawn from an ethnographic approach.
Originality/value
This paper addresses the concept of ethnographic poetry, stemming from narrative-based qualitative research, which will be entirely new to many researchers and practitioners. It suggests tangible benefits that this new perception could bring to ethnographic research.
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The article aims at analyzing narratives discourses to project dialogic storying as relevant in a mode of narrative research in English language education.
Abstract
Purpose
The article aims at analyzing narratives discourses to project dialogic storying as relevant in a mode of narrative research in English language education.
Design/methodology/approach
As an English language teacher and researcher, the author adopts narrative analysis as the research method for doctoral study, so this article delves into narrative research methods, especially in the context of English language education. The author found various existing notions on narrative research from Clandinin and Connelly (2000) and Barkhuizen et al. (2014), who contend that narrative is a mode of processing experiences and events in the form of a story. The author corroborated various notions on narrative research in English language education as an argument that narratives can be a strong data source in English language educational research. Since it has been a research focus for English language educators, the author explored seven dissertations that were submitted to a Nepalese university in 2017, 2018 and 2019.
Findings
The article aims at analyzing narratives discourses to project dialogic storying as relevant in a mode of narrative research in English language education. While examining the dissertations, the author found that the subjective and ideological exploration of narratives is in practice; however, they need further in-depth analysis under a specific framing. The author argues that the concept of dialogic storying can be strong narrative research in English language education.
Research limitations/implications
It has examined prospective applications of the dialogic storying process using dissertations submitted to a University in Nepal. In terms of conceptual discussions on narratives and narrative analysis, it is more interpretive.
Practical implications
It provides an initial framing to get into narrative research in English language education. It allows academics to go further into subjective and ideological inquiries in order to discuss more categorical elements in narrative research.
Originality/value
It is a more thematic and interpretive discussion so it discusses existing and appropriate practices in narrative research methods to defend the dialogic storying approach. It has not counter argued the existing knowledge; however, it provides insights to clarify dialogic storying as a research approach.
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Nilupulee Liyanagamage and Mario Fernando
How do females with multiple sources of identity deal with intersectional identity tensions and perceived lack of access to social power? The study focuses on how social…
Abstract
Purpose
How do females with multiple sources of identity deal with intersectional identity tensions and perceived lack of access to social power? The study focuses on how social relationships form and develop in masculinised settings between construction workers and a petite female researcher through perceived notions of equality and inequality. Through autoethnographic tales, the study examines how an academic home comer navigates between conflicting professional and cultural identities, in their native country.
Design/methodology/approach
Using collaborative autoethnography, the study examines how the intersections of being a young petite female and a “partial” insider in a male-dominated construction industry influences the researcher's identity work process and her quest for social power.
Findings
The findings suggest that to access referent social power, the researcher covers stigmatised intersectional attributes and reveals a more favourable identity. The fieldwork journey of the young petite female researcher highlights that identity work is a situational process that evolves with respondent relationships, respondent assigned roles, perceived notion of access to power and struggles of cultural versus professional identity. The reader is also taken through the collaborative autoethnographic journey of a female researcher and her doctoral studies supervisor.
Originality/value
This paper makes several contributions. First, it contributes to the academic literature on intersectionality of identity, especially concentrating on the intersectional attributes of petite physical stature, gender and perceived lack of access to social power. Second, this paper theorises identity work processes as an indirect strategy of social power in researcher-and-researched relationships. Last, through collaborative autoethnography of female researchers' fieldwork journey, this study contributes to the body of knowledge on academic home comers as “partial” insiders in their native country.
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