Professionals becoming researchers: Collective engagement and difficulties of transformation

Abstract

This paper canvasses some of the dilemmas faced by a cross-disciplinary group of researchers influenced by post-structural, feminist, and queer studies questions. Our research centred on our professional practice in the areas of youth violence, educational psychology, counselling ethics, and geography teaching. Each of us was committed to exploring possibilities for 'transformative' research relevant for our practice, but questions about its purposes and possible transgressions contributed in different ways to a collective sense of unease. We reached some consensus about transformative research as being attuned to political sensitivities, often including a Foucauldian critique of disciplinary knowledges, and leading to a reflexive engagement with ethics as well as a commitment to collaborative process. The paper indicates aspects of this collegial work in our quest for new insights into the complexities of research that purports to be transformative while at the same time sensitive both to its specific location and to wider ethical implications.