methodological dilemmas

 

Nolan (2005) suggests that perhaps the academy is not quite ready for alternative forms of representation [and knowing] since most researchers still write about non-linear and arts-based forms of representation rather than through them.

 

Representation is not just about how to show and share research. It is also an effect of the ontological and epistemological places from which the research and writing emerged. To write through the ways of knowing embedded in this hypertext meant that I needed to: (a) think differently about what counts as data (see Lather, 2001), and (b) disrupt many of the discourses that dominated my thinking, including those that defined what counts as legitimate knowledge and research/representation. Throughout, I constantly bumped up against the commonly held idea that explanatory linear text is the preferred form of research re-presentation, an idea which is constantly reinscribed through both the reading and production of much academic work. In the context of this reinscription, the processes of putting this dissertation together demanded ongoing resistance to my own resistance to letting go of dominant discourses of what counts. It also required recognizing that notions of what counts can often be quite specific to particular locations, individuals, academic institutions, and fields of study (Kuntz, 2005).