I was at a crossroads. Well, one of many.
I was finishing what could be considered the ‘data collection’ portion of my dissertation. I had spent 18-months at an after-school program, exploring the ways in which young people engaged with pedagogical sites of health and fitness (Tinning, 2010). This involved spending two to three afternoons a week, in various capacities – learning about the site, learning about the youth who attended the program, and learning about myself. Along the way, some of us had created artifacts (e.g., scrapbooks) and engaged in shared moments (e.g., pedagogical encounter) that, even as they were happening, began to stand out and led to further inquiry and writing (Safron, 2020).
Whether or not I had planned it, this research – my doctoral dissertation – had become an embodied process (Ellingson, 2009). From my fieldwork in the weight room, to the facilitation of a scrapbooking project, to the memo writing (see writing as inquiry blog) and data organizing (see (un)coding blog), the research had become a part of me.
Yet, I had reached a point, as perhaps most researchers do (Fitzpatrick, 2019), when it was time to pack up and say ‘final’ goodbyes to the young people who had participated in the project.
As a doctoral student, I think I thought NOW was the time to analyze and write up the data. That was the next step in this linear process – wasn’t it? And, in this linear process, maybe it was also suggested that particular terminology (e.g., the primary researcher) and writing styles (e.g., third person) be used in such representation – to fulfill academic (or scholarly) expectations, of course.
This is the crossroads that I opened with and will explore in this entry. I hope some of you – whether you are in the midst of your dissertation, an early career scholar or a more established mentor – let it sit with you.
Throughout my dissertation research, I had taken on various roles. I worked out with young people in the weight room. I attended events not directly related to the project. I engaged in conversations and interviews. We (the youth and I) played around with different visual and arts-based methods. And, I took great care with the data – as I organized field notes, memos, artifacts and interviews transcribed word-for-word, by me, into binders.
So, when I was faced with the expectation to now analyze, write up and represent my dissertation using particular terminology (e.g., the primary researcher) and “traditional academic prose” (Ellingson, 2009, p. 34), I grew weary… even anxious about it. While such language may be seen (by some) as more rigorous, reliable or valid, its use did not feel right in this case.
At a crossroads.
On the one hand, I was fortunate to engage with qualitative approaches. Most of my formal education was in nutrition and exercise physiology. I was not aware qualitative research was a ‘thing’ until a year into my doctoral program.
On the other hand, I felt a need to recognize myself as part of this process – from beginning to ‘end.’ And, I felt strongly this would not be possible if I had to write as ‘the primary researcher.’ Instead, in this role, it seemed like there was a wall between the person who was now supposed to be looking at the data in a particular (academic) way and the person who had experienced the actual research process.
We were both the same person but, with three words – ‘the primary researcher’ – a distance was created.
As I sat amongst my data (at this point sprawled on the floor of my apartment), it was instinctive to add details, thoughts, questions and comments in columns of a transcript or to my researcher notebook. It was natural to write myself as part of these notes because I was the one who had experienced all of this, with the participants. I was the one rereading and remembering particular moments. It was not natural, including when thinking with theory (see theory blog), to refer to and write about myself as ‘the primary researcher.’ There was the wall again. I could not reconcile this term with the rest of my research process.
So, at this crossroads, I began to take – or try to make – paths that made sense for this project.
I started to bring myself back ‘into’ the research process.
But, what did this mean? And… what did this look like?
I began with tentative steps, exploring what felt right for the data. Based on some unexpected advice, I brushed the dust off my own scrapbook I had created alongside the young participants and wrote a memo. In this memo, I started to consider my own scrapbook as ‘new’ data. I began to explore its production (in parts and as a whole) – in relation to my positionality, the young people, their work and the data we had ‘made’ together (Tinning & Fitzpatrick, 2012).
These tentative steps then became somewhat bolder (if I can ever use that word). Building on the memo in which I brought my own scrapbook back into the research, I continued writing, working through analyses and reflecting on representation by remembering – I am always part of this process. I turned to scholarship that acknowledged the influence of researchers’ backgrounds and experiences at all points within their work (Ellingson, 2009; Fitzpatrick, 2013; Kuby, 2014). More specifically, a short memo (see writing as inquiry blog), the possibility of playing with poetry (see poetic transcription blog) and connections to theory and methods were just some of the things that provided further confidence to move in different (non-traditional) directions.
I was fortunate at this crossroads.
Each of these ‘steps’ began to add dimensions within the research process that had not previously existed. This ‘new’ engagement with my dissertation data produced my first paper, the publication in Sport, Education and Society, which I have been drawing upon throughout this blog series. It enabled me to break through the wall and the linear (academic) expectations of data collection, analysis and representation. I was able to write my dissertation in first-person. And, I have tried to continue to embrace such approaches – with doubt and a reflexivity of discomfort (Pillow, 2003) – at least with my dissertation data.
Still, was this really necessary? Why did three words (‘the primary researcher’) and a writing style (third person) become a non-negotiable point when it was time to write my dissertation?
Well, for me, it just did not feel right to detach myself from the process I had experienced, and this is what such language, along with a ‘traditional’ approach did.
Let’s go back to my apartment, with data (as well as additional papers and notes) sprawled all over the desk and spilling onto the floor.
This time – bringing myself back ‘into’ the research process – I felt possibilities. I leaned into scholarship that connected with my experiences. I relied on Ellingson (2009) who, in describing the importance of researchers’ bodies throughout the entire research process, suggested that we embrace our subjectivity and write in “first person” (p. 159). I found reassurance from St. Pierre (2011) when she explained subjectivity as “the ongoing construction of human being, human being in flux, in process…” (p. 46). I discovered potential in Pillow’s (2003) reflexivity of discomfort as she advocated for “an ongoing critique of all our research attempts” (p. 192).
Such readings (and other support) helped me figure out my instincts at this crossroads were warranted. I did not have to label myself as ‘the primary researcher’ – separate from other aspects of my dissertation. Instead, I could acknowledge my researcher subjectivity (or positionality) as continually constructed in relation to others, within specific contexts and at particular moments in time (Ellingson, 2009; Jackson & Mazzei, 2012). For me, one way to do this was to “show up” (Ellingson, 2009, p. 159) in my work by writing in first-person – from beginning to ‘end.’
I am not saying this was (or is) easy. Even now, as I try to finish this blog entry, I find myself wondering what advice could be helpful – because I am still not sure what specifically helped in this case! All I can say (or write) is that, if you find yourself at a similar crossroads, feeling something is just not right with a more ‘traditional’ research process, let that feeling become something you pause with, challenge and question. Be inquisitive and discover ‘new’ paths (through people, advice, readings) to take you in different directions. If it suits your work, do not settle into what Ellingson (2009) calls the “disembodied voice that characterizes traditional academic prose” (p. 34).
As I sit again with this crossroads, I am reminded of a quote from St. Pierre (2011) in which she critiqued what she refers to as conventional humanist inquiry:
“Importantly, in all this, we see the notion that there is a researcher who exists ahead of the research—which is out there somewhere—a self-contained individual who moves right through the process from beginning to end, whole, intact, and unencumbered, already identified and secured in the subjectivity statement” (p. 47).
When I first sat down with my data, as a doctoral student, attempting to write a dissertation to fulfill (academic) expectations, I was never unencumbered from any part of the project. I tried (and struggled) to write a subjectivity statement, acknowledging my positioning in terms of race (white), gender (female), class (middle-upper) in relation to the Black and Latinx youth who were part of the research project. Yet, the singular statement seemed to fall flat. My engagement – with the young participants, our scrapbooks, additional readings and changing contexts – was (and is) dynamic. The statement, no matter how much I worked on it, was too static. So, while I could certainly acknowledge things about myself in that statement, I also do not exist ahead of the research – at least not fully. That is what St. Pierre (2011) recognizes in her quote above (as well as her chapter). I have had to discover – again and again – that the research process influences me as much as I influence it. As such, it (or I) can never be uncovered in a singular statement, paper or blog. Even as I continue to write about it – still in first-person – two years later, things are left out. But that is a crossroads in which I can pause.
References (for further engagement):
Ellingson, L. (2009). Engaging in crystallization in qualitative research: An introduction. Los Angeles: Sage.
Fitzpatrick, K. (2013). Critical pedagogy, physical education and urban schooling. New York, NY: Peter Lang.
Fitzpatrick, K. (2019). The edges and the end: On stopping an ethnographic project, on losing the way. The Lost Ethnographies: Methodological Insights from Projects That Never Were, 17, 165–175.
Jackson, A. Y., & Mazzei, L. A. (2012). Thinking with theory in qualitative research: Viewing data across multiple perspectives. London: Routledge.
Kuby, C. R. (2014). Crystallizartion as a Methodology. In R. N. Brown, R. Carducci, & C. R. Kuby (Eds.), Disrupting Qualitative Inquiry: Possibilities and Tensions in Educational Research (pp. 129–151). New York: Peter Lang.
Pillow, W. S. (2003). Confession, catharsis, or cure? Rethinking the uses of reflexivity as methodological power in qualitative research. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 16(2), 175–196.
Safron, C. (2020). Health, fitness, and affects in an urban after-school program. Sport, Education and Society, 25(5), 556–569.
St. Pierre, E. A. (2011). Refusing human being in humanist qualitative inquiry. In N. K. Denzin & M. D. Giardina (Eds.), Qualitative Inquiry and Global Crises (pp. 40–55). London: Routledge.
Tinning, R., & Fitzpatrick, K. (2012). Thinking about research frameworks: Richard Tinning and Katie Fitzpatrick. In K. Armour & D. Macdonald (Eds.), Research methods in physical education and youth sport (1st ed., pp. 45–53). London: Routledge.
Tinning, R. (2010). Pedagogy and human movement: Theory, practice, research. London: Routledge.