Ethics and practices of re-presentation: Witnessing self and other

Abstract

Context: The challenge of producing ethical representational practices is of critical interest to both practitioner-researchers and research theorists. For practitioners becoming researchers a central ethical question may be how to manage a relational presence in writing their research, in ways that acknowledge participants, the research relationship, and a researcher's own subjectivity. Focus: The article offers examples from practitioner research to illustrate and theorise how researcher subjectivity is managed through the use of witnessing practices as a representational strategy. Witnessing practices – translated into counselling research from narrative therapy – offer researchers a strategy to take up a reflexive, relational presence in research reports. Discussion: Researcher witnessing honours the contributions of research participants as well as making visible the shaping effects of the research on a researcher's life. Through witnessing self and other, and thus declaring presence, privilege and partiality, re-presentational ethics are made transparent.

Keywords:

• counselling research
• research ethics
• researcher subjectivity
• witnessing
• reflexivity

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to Lisa Walters, Joy Te Wiata, Gayle Chell, and Averill Waters for permission to quote from their work. Thank you to anonymous reviewers.

Notes

¹ In order to re-present Joy's text as it appears, translations for Maori words follow here: wananga – specialised (in this case) learning forum; rohe – district; Ngati Raukawa – the tribal grouping with which Joy affiliates; kaiako – teacher; kono – woven basket; harakeke – flax; aroha – love, compassion; taonga – treasure.

² ‘In my own transnational life I have experienced the rupture of moving to live and work in an Asian country for nine years and then returning to settle again in New Zealand. The dissonances I experienced, particularly on returning to New Zealand, were painful.’ (Chell, 2006, p. 2)

³ Averill was given a beautiful woven basket by one of the Pasifika mothers who was a participant in this project (see Waters, 2011).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Kathie Crocket

Biography

Kathie Crocket is Director of Counsellor Education, at the University of Waikato, Hamilton New Zealand. She teaches narrative therapy and supervision, and supervises masters and doctoral research.