Reflexivity is not a new concept; however, the researcher's reflexivity on caste and gender preconception in the South Asian context is an understudied area in qualitative studies. We know less about how a researcher's prejudice can unconsciously exclude Dalits and females from their research. In this critical autoethnographic study, I extend the…

This paper aims to foreground the persistent ethical conundrums within the process of engaging children labeled with intellectual disabilities in the research process. I consider what happens when researchers are embedded within and committed to sustaining relationships with disabled children? I explore the possibilities of the enactment of…

Researcher positionality is widely accepted as a phenomenon to be understood and used to strengthen the qualitative research process. However, consideration of white researchers' positionality has largely centered on situations in which they are "outsider" researchers in spaces that do not reflect their own racial identities. To build…

In this collaborative autoethnographic piece, we present voices through critical incident technique replaying the same event at an academic conference, all seeking to understand how and why the disruption of voice occurs and what to do to counter it. We contextualize these experiences in the ideal of "sustainability of qualitative…

The aim of this article is to call for qualitative researchers in education and other human sciences to grapple with recent developments in trauma studies and engage in reconceptualizing their research practices so that they pay attention to the catastrophic effects of colonialism on individuals and communities. Joining other critics who have…

This article explores the methodological and ethical challenges of doing qualitative fieldwork in an authoritarian state. Drawing on a long-term project conducted in China, I discuss how my interaction with the participants was mediated by the pervasive state power. This phenomenon adds a new layer to the question "can the subaltern…

Centering the research process on building, rebuilding, and maintaining relationships, this multi-vocal article highlights the need to revisit practice. We consider research conducted in a city where all public schools are charter schools and discuss tensions between the implementation of our research approach and the university as we trouble the…

The concept of "spirit-murder" reminds us that the violence Black girls and women suffer in academic spaces travels beyond the mental and emotional; it manifests on a spiritual level as well. Consequently, spiritual healing is a priority for Black girls and women to traverse the world whole and worthy. This paper intends to first,…

This chapter recounts the story of how I came to design a Research Apprenticeship Course at UCLA--what we call the RAC. I lay out the origin story of the RAC dating back to early collaborations with Arturo Madrid of the Tomas Rivera Policy Research Center and the Ford Foundation Family of Fellows in the mid to late 1980s. These collaborations…

Broadly, this article details the imbrication of a Black feminist qualitative researcher's onto-epistemology and data (meta-) analysis process. I theorize "Black feminist memory work," then apply this method by returning to data I collected for a completed research project and meshing those data with a curated selection of thematically…

With waves of fake news, many see the truth in decline. The resulting "post-truth" panic provokes methodological defensiveness, heightening scrutiny over what qualifies as qualitative research. At the same time, post qualitative research rejects qualitative research to imagine new possibilities. These debates involve a reassessment of…

Combining autoethnography and disability studies in education, this article is an autoethnographic study of the different ways the author was positioned as abled and disabled by her institution's review board when reviewing her qualitative research proposal. The author talks back to the prevailing understandings of disability and conceptions of…

This paper explores the experience of researching food in schools. Food is personal. It is an ingested symbol of culture, family, tradition, ethnicity… What does this mean as a researcher? How do we navigate food relationships? How is this relationship shaped by the rules of the school? This paper examines how I went about doing food research in…

In this article, I examine an ongoing qualitative and ethnographic research project in a transnational, multilingual setting. I am not primarily a queer scholar, nor do I study queer issues, gender, or sexuality, as a primary focus in my research agenda or career. However, I am the primary research instrument in these projects, and I am also a…

In this essay, I reflect on and detail some of my experiences navigating the question of what it means for white scholars and white researchers to critically engage their own whiteness within the context of educational research. Considering my current academic role as a faculty member who works primarily with graduate students in educational…