Under Construction @ Keele 2016 Volume 2 Issue 2 | Page 13

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researcher, is recognised as an important aspect of methodological issues.1 When working
with participants, this includes consideration of the power dynamics between the researcher
and the researched. However, it goes beyond this into considerations about collaboration or
the co-creation of research, the representation of participant ‘voices’ in the text and the way
in which the research text itself is constructed.2 As I am writing about my own life, and the
lives of others, there is a need to develop what John McLeod calls ‘reflexive self-awareness
of one’s own position around class, race, gender and other sources of inequality.’3 Indeed, if I
am not doing this, I am almost certain to be operating with some level of unconscious bias
influencing the way I conduct my research.
In this piece, I explore first my struggle to ensure that I work ethically with research
participants who have identified themselves as disempowered in childhood, as we explore
together their remembered experience of childhood emotional neglect. In the second part, I
describe my struggle to find my place in a research world which is still heavily influenced by
the positivist values of the natural sciences, using a personal experience method that is
sometimes deemed not rigorous enough to be called science.4 I have chosen to write mostly
in the present tense, as I am still engaged in these ongoing struggles, and I want you, the
reader, to feel that you are in these struggles alongside me.
Power and Research Participants
Autoethnography is associated with empowerment of the disempowered,5 so it is of great
importance that I strive to work ethically with participants. One aspect of this is gathering the
data I