From butcher to tightrope walker
Not all of respondents' experiences, emotions, and perceptions can be captured in my dissertation. Choices must be made about what is and isn't relevant to mention. But how exactly do you determine that?
Omitting
I feel a responsibility to respondents to write as honestly accurately as possible. But not everything they shared can be mentioned or emphasized. It's not a light decision to omit something or to exaggerate it. When I first started writing my dissertation, I felt like a butcher omitting whole storylines. I didn't yet know exactly what I was writing towards. In retrospect, I realize that I wanted to stay too close to the respondents' experiences, which gave me little room to actually write and interpret.
Tightrope walker
But once I have something on paper, I tend to want to stick with it, even when it’s sometimes necessary to write something entirely different and rework the parts that felt relatively “finished.” In this writing phase, I no longer feel like a butcher, but rather a tightrope walker, working with the newly written words while also paying attention to the larger story and argument. I approach a text now with precision and accuracy.
Whose story?
Finally, I'm left with the question: whose story is actually being told? Although the research is based on the experiences of respondents, it is ultimately my interpretation, as the researcher, that is presented in written or audiovisual form. This raises important epistemological and ethical questions about representation and ownership in research. If you are interested in this subject, continue reading the blog post “Misinterpreted?".