The Chimera: Multiple Selves, Conflicting Desires, and Fluctuating Power Relations in Qualitative Research

Abstract

In this article, I (re)constructed and (re)presented a dialogic inquiry among my chimeric selves engaged in a study which I conducted from 2013 to 2017 to examine teaching experiences of graduates from a social justice-oriented preservice program. I interrogated the roles of my different, disparate, and discontinuous selves in the research process – as a former teacher, a former instructor of my research participants, a researcher with particular academic and political opinions, and as a foreigner working toward a doctoral degree from/in a U.S. higher education institution. In this article, I demonstrated how my chimeric selves with conflicting desires and agendas merged and clashed in the research process. I also portrayed how my chimeric selves added layers to the complex relationship between the participants and me and, accordingly, how power relations in the research were momentary and uncontrollably shifting.