Reflections on a Qualitative Restudy: Twenty Years After 'Forty Years On'
Format Type
Plenary
Format Type
Paper
Start Date
14-1-2021 11:15 AM
End Date
14-1-2021 11:35 AM
Abstract
In 2001 we received research funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council to revisit and restudy a lost research project from the 1960s. The project was initially carried out by researchers at the University of Leicester, UK under the guidance of Norbert Elias. With the support of Ilya Neustadt, the original research sought to examine the 'lived realities' of school to work traditions of over 800 young people leaving school in the early to mid-1960s. Our initial investigation revealed that the data had never been analysed and that the project has ended abruptly in acrimonious circumstances. Little did we know that when embarking on this qualitative restudy, it would be a profound research journey changing our research practices, interests and us as researchers. In this paper, we reflect on these impacts, the genesis of the restudy and consider what we have learnt. To do this use three sensitising themes to explore our autoethnographic accounts of the research and to analyse a previously unpublished interview with us about the restudy. The sensitising themes we use are reorientation of research practices; things left unsaid (or the stories we couldn't tell); and connections and extensions. We conclude the paper by restating the need for qualitative researchers to return to 'past studies' and offer some suggestions as to how it is possible to overcome the analytical complexities of doing so.
Keywords
Restudies, Research Practice, Reflections
ORCID ID
0000-0002-6061-865X
ResearcherID
B-1771-2012
Reflections on a Qualitative Restudy: Twenty Years After 'Forty Years On'
In 2001 we received research funding from the UK Economic and Social Research Council to revisit and restudy a lost research project from the 1960s. The project was initially carried out by researchers at the University of Leicester, UK under the guidance of Norbert Elias. With the support of Ilya Neustadt, the original research sought to examine the 'lived realities' of school to work traditions of over 800 young people leaving school in the early to mid-1960s. Our initial investigation revealed that the data had never been analysed and that the project has ended abruptly in acrimonious circumstances. Little did we know that when embarking on this qualitative restudy, it would be a profound research journey changing our research practices, interests and us as researchers. In this paper, we reflect on these impacts, the genesis of the restudy and consider what we have learnt. To do this use three sensitising themes to explore our autoethnographic accounts of the research and to analyse a previously unpublished interview with us about the restudy. The sensitising themes we use are reorientation of research practices; things left unsaid (or the stories we couldn't tell); and connections and extensions. We conclude the paper by restating the need for qualitative researchers to return to 'past studies' and offer some suggestions as to how it is possible to overcome the analytical complexities of doing so.