The Chimera: Multiple Selves, Conflicting Desires, and Fluctuating Power Relations in Qualitative Research

Authors

Su Jung Um, Gyeonggi Institute of EducationFollow

Abstract

In this article, I (re)constructed and (re)presented a dialogic inquiry among my chimeric selves engaged in a study which I conducted from 2013 to 2017 to examine teaching experiences of graduates from a social justice-oriented preservice program. I interrogated the roles of my different, disparate, and discontinuous selves in the research process – as a former teacher, a former instructor of my research participants, a researcher with particular academic and political opinions, and as a foreigner working toward a doctoral degree from/in a U.S. higher education institution. In this article, I demonstrated how my chimeric selves with conflicting desires and agendas merged and clashed in the research process. I also portrayed how my chimeric selves added layers to the complex relationship between the participants and me and, accordingly, how power relations in the research were momentary and uncontrollably shifting.

Keywords

ethnography self-reflexivity, researcher subjectivity, power relations, poststructuralism, postcolonialism

Author Bio(s)

Su Jung Um is an associate research fellow at Gyeonggi Institute of Education, Gyeonggi, South Korea. She has completed her Ed.D. in education in 2017 at Teachers College, Columbia University in the U.S. Her research interests include postfoundational analysis of ex/inclusive schooling cultures and practices, teacher education for “social justice,” and qualitative research methodology. Please direct correspondence to sujung0911@gmail.com.

Publication Date

5-27-2021

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 International License.

DOI

10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4705

Recommended APA Citation

Um, S. (2021). The Chimera: Multiple Selves, Conflicting Desires, and Fluctuating Power Relations in Qualitative Research. The Qualitative Report, 26(5), 1693-1704. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2021.4705