Using personal experience in research

Yesterday I started a new job at a wonderful workplace I've been employed at twice before. It's a beautiful organisation filled with really passionate, kind and inspirational people and I'm really glad I've returned. It feels like coming home. Today I had a really nice conversation with the Research Manager there in the kitchen while making a Milo.

He asked about my research interests and it was so nice to have someone ask this question who actually wanted to know the answer and could hear the answer even in my muddled articulation. And even better I said something to him I didn't know I thought. I talked about a book I'd read years ago and how much it had resonated with me and how I'd love to do something along the same lines. I didn't recognise it as a lead, as a way I could learn more about what methodology I'm most drawn to until I said it to him.

The book is 'The Burden of Sympathy - How Families Cope with Mental Illness' by David A. Karp. I've come home and looked back over it again tonight. For me when I first stumbled upon it at the local bookstore and took it all in it was incredibly healing and validating that someone had captured some of what I'd been through... and not in a sanitised or sensationalised way ... just really how it was. 

From just a quick look into his approach this evening he is a sociologist who combines ethnographic research, in-depth interviewing and his own personal experiences. I really want to understand more about how personal experiences can be included in a research approach so it's nice to find (or re-find) Karp's work as an example of where it has been done really well. 

Have you done any research that includes personal experience as part of the methological approach? Or do you know of other good examples of this?  

The Wisdom of Passion

About six or seven years ago my Dad bought me a book called The Wisdom of Passion by Peter Wallman and Rachel Flower. Today I was cleaning out the cupboard in the spare room ready for painting and found it. After a bit more sorting I decided to have a break and sat down to read for a while. I skipped to the back section on points to take away and a couple of paragraphs really spoke to me and so I thought I'd share them here:
______

"The Passionate Play. It's about putting it all on the line and out on the line. It's hard to keep a passionate person down. You can tell them their passion sucks and they'll quickly and eloquently respond with 'So?' You can tell them it can't be done and again they'll say, 'So?' You can tell them it's a waste of time and there are far more important things in life. People of Passion will stand proudly on the language of their origin and calmly reply with another, 'So?' Nothing will thwart the Passionate. Neither love nor money. Torture them with the mundane and they'll triumphantly scream, 'Vive la difference!' When you taste the sweetness of doing what you love, do it. And once you jump into that river of exhilarating passionate living and flow with its current, there's only one direction worth heading. That's straight into the arms of a full and rich life" (Wallman & Flower, 2003, p. 221). 

______

I love these words. I'm looking forward to re-reading the whole book.

How I found my research topic

So the short story of how I found a research topic I feel really interested in pursuing for a while is...

I was really confused for a long time, I went to meet with different academics and discussed ideas, wrote down my thoughts, read on various topics, was really confused for a lot longer, met another academic who was interested in listening to my ideas, came up with some I thought were okay but which he kind of steered me away from and then right at the end of a meeting as an offhand comment I said I'm kind of interested in Young Carers. And he encouraged me to focus on that for a while and see if it captured my attention. And that's pretty much it. This process took me 18 months, not of concentrated effort, but of getting discouraged and then coming back to it when I found the inspiration and then being discouraged and then trying again over and over until I found it.

I initially thought that it might be like a lot of the other ideas and that after I'd looked into it for a while it would stop grabbing me or I'd find some reason why I thought it wasn't a good idea... but so far at least (it's been 2 and a half months) this hasn't happened with this broad research area.

It's so great to have got to this point. Now when I get a burst of inspiration and energy to put into my own research I know where I'm up to and the next step I want to do. And I have this really cool, awesome, wonderful (yeah I know I'm trying to become a researcher and that's my description) feeling when I read on this topic. It's just interest, passion, excitement. I'm someone who is always looking for that in life and when it's not there it is so hard to find but when you find it, it is amazing.

Because I've got five subjects left in my Master of Social Science (Policy and Human Services) I'm thinking of using the assessments to give myself a broad understanding of the area. I'm currently working on a paper for a subject I have called Policy Evidence - really cool subject and interesting tutor too which helps - where the task is to evaluate evidence that has been gathered by an organisation in an attempt to influence policy makers regarding an issue or a problem requiring a policy response. Initially I was looking at focusing on the Carers Australia federal budget submission, however, even though it's a bit older I'm now thinking I will focus on evaluating a submission from 2010 that's more focused on young carers.

An interesting observation I've noticed about myself recently is that when it comes to my own actual research, for the moment at least I don't want it to be linked to anything else but my own passion and interest. I want it to be just for me. I'm currently in the process of looking for a few extra days work and saw something a little related to Young Carers, but the idea of working in the area doesn't feel right for me. It feels like it would almost restrict me from exploring the topic at my own pace. It makes it my work and takes me into the reality and day to day politics of an area. And while of course the politics are relevant to the research, in the past with other passions I have felt that being too immersed in the day to day politics and frustration of an issue discourages me and can make me feel drained and angry. So for the time being I want to keep researching the general area of Young Carers with all of the energy and passion I've got and safeguard and protect this.

Disclaimer: Just in case I change my mind about this topic next week or next month or in a few months... my stance is that this is a process and I'm enjoying it and so there! Very mature:)

Searching

I have had a really round about journey to the realisation that I wanted to pursue a research career. However, when I did start noticing that 'research', whatever that meant, sounded interesting, I began to notice qualities about myself that I'd never been particularly self-aware of previously.

The main quality that seemed to have new relevance was a determination to find answers to questions that I had... and a never ending amount of questions. I love trying to figure things out. Well actually when I say love - it is probably a little bit more like love / hate. Because while I love the figuring things out part, the searching part is not necessarily enjoyable. It is driven by sometimes intense frustration at not knowing or not being able to locate what I am looking for.

Tonight I feel that same kind of frustrating searching feeling. There is something I desperately want to know. However, I have learnt over time that there are some things that you can't find the answer for 'out there', you can only figure it out inside. I want to know what I should do about a particular situation. However, there is no real answer to 'what I should do', there is what I can do and what I end up doing.

Not really a research masochist after all

So it's not true. I'm not really a masochist after all. I definitely love research and actually want to be doing it a lot of the time... but I am gradually learning how to be a bit more realistic. I've always been a bit of an 'eyes are bigger than my stomach' sort of person. I love life and I get excited about my next steps and what I want to do. So inevitably at the beginning of a new year or new semester I start with very high hopes and then feeling quite embarrassed change track just before the census date when I realise I've done it again.

I've decided to drop back to one subject this semester which means no PhD next year as I won't have finished my masters. Even though it seems ridiculously obvious in hindsight, this was a really hard decision for me to make.

I considered deleting this blog. It doesn't seem such a good beginning to publicly declare my goals then back down from them within the first few posts. But my decision is still based on doing my best to establish a research career and I can learn from this that if I'm establishing a research career for 'me' then I need to do it my way... take my time to finish my masters if I need it.

The bonus for me of this change is that I will have a bit more time to focus on learning how to get work published and explore the topic I'm considering focusing on in my minor thesis.

Inspiration for finishing the last 5%

I just read an article on The Thesis Whisperer a brilliant blog that always seems to have one of the best responses to my frequent Google searches on how this whole academic pathway works. I was looking up working hours for academics (the articles is: Why do academics work so much?) as I'm currently working on a Sunday evening on a project because I want to get it published but it's related to my paid research assistant role and being new to this field it feels odd to me to be doing work I won't get paid for.

I really like the term used in this article 'landing planes' which is described as finishing off the last 5% of a project; all the fiddly details like organising references, polishing the text and submitting to journals. This is where I'm at in the project I'm working on at the moment. I've just finished writing the body of the text and am about to proof it, edit it and then write up the conclusions, recommendations and methodology section. I love reading posts on The Thesis Whisperer because they help me to realise that behaviour that I have always thought made me odd is very common in this field: the idea of being able to be hyper-focused and then not being able to focus at all; and having a very specific order for the way I like to approach tasks.

I actually attend RMIT University in Melbourne where Dr Inger Mewburn, the editor of The Thesis Whisperer, worked until recently. The reason I am now working as a research assistant is partly because of an amazing research strategies class I had with Professor Pavla Miller in 2011 which, although this sounds rather dramatic, has change the trajectory of my life. She is one of the best teachers I have ever had and I know that if I continue in this career path I will often think back to things that she said. The reason this class came into my mind is that it was during this experience that I had this profound feeling of belonging and recognition. Pavla invited me to attend a research conference and I loved it. There were all of these other people who were strange in the same way as me.

I feel this post is getting a bit jumbled and I might sound like a bit of a 'Pollyanna' (I really don't agree with the term Pollyanna as a criticism - there is a good view on this expressed in a book called '365 Thank Yous' by John Kralik) however, I find it nice to have this space to focus on the fact that I am loving doing what I am doing - because even though I'm loving it - I'm also finding it very hard in some ways.

It'd be interesting to hear your experiences of what attracted you to do research or who has inspired you so far?

Long weekend

We have a long weekend in Melbourne this weekend with a public holiday on the Monday for Labour Day. It's a welcome bit of extra space to get myself organised and figure out what my next steps are. I've spent today doing non research other life stuff like taking the mower in to get fixed and buying groceries. Now that the ridiculous heat we've been experiencing for too many days in a row here has dulled for the day I can do some thinking.

So here is a list of things on my mind that I need to attend to:

1. sort out my fees for uni this semester;
2. do a bit more work on a piece of work I'm hoping to get published soon;
3. figure out when all my assignments are due this semester and work out a plan for when I'll work on each of them;
4. research PhD scholarships for next year and application deadlines;
5. do some more reading for uni and begin my Social Policy assignment which from what I can tell is the only one I have enough information on to make a start just yet; and 
6. line up a time with the librarian at uni to learn a bit more about setting up searches for some of my more longer term research ideas. 

I didn't actually write these in order of priority. I'll focus on number 2 tonight and tomorrow and then put that aside and focus on 3 and 5 on the public holiday on Monday. It's great to have this list written down and out of my head. 

Okay, well time to finish this and get to it. Happy Saturday night and hope you are doing something you enjoy:)