Research Methodology Arturo Tejeda Torres

There is an old well-known lithograph, made by M. C. Escher, where a couple of hands are
drawing one another, even though the image has become a terrible cliché, it still works to reflect
the question we are hoping to develop here: which place does the writing take within the academic
matter? We can rephrase: what is the meaning of our letters face to the task of capturing reality?
Just as the hands, we find ourselves writing over ourselves trying to realize the implications of an
act at the same time it’s being performed. This is, to run after us.
As the terms on which we will be discussing are those coming from the academic field, it
is important to set the direction/assumptions we pretend to follow: 1) It is through our writing that
we get to reflect and uphold ourselves as individuals rather than researchers; 2) Content gets as real
(plausible if “real” is too strong) as the person who writes the letters that build it. For this, we can
consider two specific research paradigm issues that get touched under this dimension: voice and
reflexivity; both, taking us to a certain epistemological and ethical perspective.
For Lincoln, Lynham and Guba (2011), voice appears as the concrete way a researcher gets
to express about/on/with the reality: “[from] more participatory forms of research, voice can mean
not only having a real researcher–and a researcher’s voice–in the text, but also letting research
participants speak for themselves” (p. 123). This could be contrasted with a more positivist
approach where, as Lather (as cited in Lincoln et al., 2011) let us see, “voice [comes] from
nowhere” (p.123) leaving us with the attempt of an objective representation−whatever that could
mean. Thus, voice can be understood as the way we present ourselves and the others within a
narrative −although, we might say that the voice itself, in a high extent, determines the narrative−
that is embodied through the choices we make over our writing. Thereby, contrary to the positivist
stand, in the use of the pronouns, for example, “I” or “We”, we take a different place before our
work, considering ourselves as active agents within the boundaries of the research. Even stronger
implications could be assumed from the “We” position where, beyond a shared writing, what arises
as evident is a shared experience: researcher, participants and even the reader.
Face to our latter considerations, reflexivity, defined as a “conscious experience of the self
as a both inquirer and respondent (…) coming to know the self within the process of research itself”
(Lincoln et al., 2011, p.124), gains its own field where to be developed. If we accept our place as
insiders rather than outsiders through the writing process −the voice determination over our
narrative−, letters become no longer a final result but the place where we create and re-create
ourselves. Contradictions, assumptions and postures get manifested through the process of
gathering all the voices.
An example about the implications of this stand regarding writing meaning can be found in
the epistemological assumptions of Deconstructionism. As Munslow (2006) mentions, while
discussing different approaches to historical knowledge, rather than accept a re-presentation of
reality, we can be “particularly aware of the figurative character of our own narrative as the medium
by which we relate the past and written history” (p.27). Thus, to build knowledge is not a process
where we write what happens outside our letters, but is through them that we understand, as
intertwined processes, realities.
One last consideration we can extract from these notes displays on the ethical character of
writing. While we find ourselves face to the words that build us and the narrative surrounding us,
we create or retake meanings, perspectives, voices and sights, no longer from a neutral or
impersonal posture, but from the claim of awareness or responsibility as we get to identify
ourselves as part of the “object” within the text itself. A clear example of this can be found through
anthropologist Zoe Todd (2016) article, where she expresses her stand within an “ethical
rationality” not just as a concept but as live discussion among the whole text and her life interlacing
one to another. Simpson (2009) shows a similar case, presenting herself beyond the researcher role
 Research Methodology Arturo Tejeda Torres

all along her writing. Hence, to research appears as no other thing than dialogues placing ourselves
in the crisscross of other’s lives while meanings get build.

References

Lincoln, Y., Lynham, S. and Guba, E. (2011). Paradigmatic controversies, contradictions,

and emerging confluences, revisited. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage Handbook
of Qualitative Research (4th ed.; pp. 97-128). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Munslow, A. (2006). Deconstructing History, 2nd Ed. (Chapter 2 – pp. 19-38). London:
Routledge.
Simpson, L. (2009). As We Have Always Done (Chapters 1 & 2 – pp. 11-37). Minneapolis,
MN: University of Minnesota Press.
Todd, Z. (2016). An Indigenous feminist’s take on the ontological turn: ‘Ontology’ is just
another word for colonialism. Journal of Historical Sociology, 29(1), 4-22.