Researching and representing wrongs, injuries and disagreements: exploring strategies for radical research

Schostak, John F. (2009) Researching and representing wrongs, injuries and disagreements: exploring strategies for radical research. Power and education, 1 (1). pp. 2-14. ISSN 1757-7438

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Abstract

It is argued that research involves the constant search for truth and that, in the context of aspiring towards social justice, this search is not merely a technical problem. Freedom as a member of a social group is essentially paradoxical: individuals want to express themselves but living with others requires the subsumption of at least some of these desires for self-expression. This is illustrated in this article with reference to several educational research projects exploring experiences of empowerment and disempowerment. The representation of people’s circumstances – and the wrongs, injuries and disagreements that permeate them – requires radical research that foregrounds the paradoxical nature of group membership. However, it should reveal more than the inevitable heterogeneity of the world. Radical research, it is argued, sees methodology itself as being founded upon irresolvable disagreements about the nature of truth.