Reflections of a black woman practitioner-researcher

ABSTRACT

Poetry as a tool for research reflectivity is used in this article to explore the individual and personal experience of a black woman researcher-practitioner, working and studying in two white male-dominated organisations—the British Prison Service and a university institution. The discussion will trace how she reconciled her multiple identities and how these identities shaped her perception of her gender-racial group, prison culture, and university culture. An interpretive creative poem that reflects the author’s attempt at capturing the essence of her experience as a prison service employee is presented. The author then examines an excerpt from her journal alongside an in-depth qualitative interview extract and discusses her interpretive comments. The article discusses the issues related to the author’s outsider-within position, a result of her gender and racial minority status, and highlights how poetry allowed her to articulate the anxiety and tension caused by her multiple identities.

KEYWORDS:

• Defense mechanism
• gender
• gender racialisation
• intersectionality
• poetry
• practitioner-researcher
• race

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Marcia Morgan

Marcia Morgan completed her PhD at the Open University, England, as a part time research student. She plans to convert her thesis into an academic book. The thesis is entitled Defining our experience: a psychosocial analysis of the racial, gendered and subjectivity of black women employees in the British Prison Service. She also works full time for Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service as a senior manager.