Researchers’ reflections on interviewing policy makers and practitioners: feeling conflicted in critical research

Abstract

This article provides a reflective account of these complex power dynamics in a UK-based study, exploring the emotional labour of conflicting agendas in fieldwork for the Brain Science project. The core concern of this research was to critically investigate the extent of the power of biologised claims about social disadvantage among practitioners and policy proponents. This article addresses the researchers’ reflections on interviewing participants who were deeply committed to a biologised model that researchers sought to critically interrogate. The authors explore their own roles and reflect on the emotional labour of knowledge relations. We begin with an introduction to the aims of the project, followed by a review of how issues of knowledge relations and researchers feeling conflicted have been treated in critical research, before discussing our two groups of participants: sincerely committed practitioners and policy proponents who were critically prepared for opposition to the discourse. Ultimately, we argue that the contribution to the broader discourse that arises from such discomfiting research is vital, and our unsettling experiences are a reminder of the value of research that reveals that which is not settled.

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ORCID for Rosalind Edwards: orcid.org/0000-0002-3512-9029

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