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Knitting Teacher: A Narrative Inquiry of a Researcher Who Has Been Researched

Heydon, R. — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 10:50:05 PST

From the vantages of a teacher who has been researched and an educational researcher who has researched teachers, this inquiry constructs a knitted narrative from journals, letters, and stories written about my time teaching English studies in a remote First Nations’ community and articles written about me when I was a research participant in a study concerning White women teaching in the Canadian north. The goal of this narrative inquiry is to explore the ethical and methodological issues, including issues around representation, which arise during the course of studying and writing about other people, particularly teachers who are doing border work.

Trans-representation

Kaufmann, J. — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 15:58:49 PDT

The article discusses a specific incidence that occurred during a study undertaken by the author that analyzed transsexual representation: "I made one of my participants cry. Jessie, a self-identified male-to-female transsexual, was dismayed after reading a completed study in which I examined the narrative construction of her gender. Wiping tears from her eyes, she said, "You have taken away the identity I have worked all my life to build . . . Who am I if you take this away?" I was pained, for my desire was to deconstruct gender, not erase her identity. Yet, Jessie appeared diminished, slumped in her chair, shoulders crumpled, and tears on her cheeks. How did I make such a mess?" In this article the author discusses four modes of transsexual representation that have emerged since the first recorded sex reassignment surgery in the 1920s to the present—hermaphroditic, sex-gender misalignment, queer, and material embodiment. The author then rereads Jessie’s narrative through these forms of representation in order to explore how each might function in emancipating gender from heteronormativity and Jessie from analytic erasure. The author concludes by rethinking the tension between Jessie and her narrative using Deleuze and Guattari’s idea of content and expression.

The Methods and Meanings of Collaborative Team Research

Houston, S. D., Hyndman, J., McLean, J., Jamal, A. — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 09:08:03 PDT

Team research enables the collection of multiple, sometimes conflicting, stories of migration, family, and belonging. Using common qualitative methods within a team research context can stretch these research techniques in productive and instructive ways and proffer new insight and meaning. Therefore, the authors suggest that team research offers an important avenue for both extending qualitative methods and expanding interpretative lenses. To illustrate these points, the authors draw upon their study of the settlement and migration patterns of East African Shia Ismaili Muslims in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, and discuss their experiences with focus group effects, the simultaneous household interview strategy, and postinterview dialogues. The article highlights how these three techniques and effects enacted in the team research context helped the authors explicitly locate contradictions, ambiguities, and paradoxes within the narratives of first- and second-generation Ismailis.