The Writing on the Wall: Doing a feminist post-structural doctorate [1

Abstract

ABSTRACT The growth of post-structural theories means constantly different writing practices, disruptions of old ways of researching, innovative and critical analyses, revelations of what has been unsaid, claims for positions within philosophy for outsiders, and the speaking of other forms of knowing. This article deconstructs the writing and production of a PhD thesis relating these issues to women and girls. It considers some implications, for postgraduate students, supervisors and examiners, of researching as a feminist post-structuralistin the social sciences. To do so, it employs some different writing strategies. At the same time, it describes a woman's access to higher education. Examples and descriptions from the thesis and its data illustrate the issues, showing how doctoral processes and products blur. The research is from a longitudinal project focusing on primary school girls, subjectivities and language. The writing on the wall is both the schoolgirls' and the researcher's.