Journal Title
Title of Journal: Qual Sociol
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Abbravation: Qualitative Sociology
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Authors: Andrea Doucet
Publish Date: 2007/12/18
Volume: 31, Issue: 1, Pages: 73-87
Abstract
Drawing on a provocative metaphor from an awardwinning novel this article argues that reflexivity can be conceived as three gossamer walls through which researchers construct knowledge from within three sets of relationships including relations with oneself and the ghosts that haunt us with research participants and with one’s readers audiences and epistemological communities On the other side of a first gossamer wall are relations with our many selves as well as with ‘ghosts’ deeply buried across time and space that may come back to haunt us when we are physically and emotionally invested in our research Behind a second gossamer wall are the multilayered relations between researchers and research respondents relationships that can involve oral audible physical emotional textual embodied as well as shifting theoretical and epistemological dimensions Finally a third gossamer wall lies between ourselves and our readers and audiences as well as the epistemological or epistemic communities wherein our work is located read reviewed and received Rooted in an ethnography of Canadian primary caregiving fathers the article contributes to current discussions of reflexivity in qualitative research practice by expanding dominant understandings of reflexivity as a selfcentered exercise towards a consideration of other critical relationships that are part of how we come to know and write about others The metaphor of gossamer walls combining the sheerness of gossamer and the solidity of walls provides for creative ways of conceptualizing reflexivity in temporal and spatial terms as well as to consider the constantly shifting degrees of transparency and obscurity connection and separation that recur in the multiple relations that constitute reflexive research and knowingFor insightful critique and feedback I am grateful to four anonymous referees and to Javier Auyero the PhD students in the 2005–2006 tutorial at Carleton University ‘on knowing’ Renuka Chaturvedi Darryl Leroux Tara Lyons Lindsey McKay Riva Soucie and Kevin Walby and to Natasha Mauthner and Wallace Clement
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