“Dear Diary” revisited: reflecting on collaborative journaling

Abstract

The genesis of this article was a request from the Journal of Geography in Higher Education to provide a reflection piece about our article ‘Dear Diary: Early Career Geographers Collectively Reflect on their Qualitative Field Research Experiences’ (2011) that won the journal's biennial award for 2009–2011. This request has afforded us the opportunity to reconnect as a team and, through self-directed interviews, to reflect upon how writing ‘Dear Diary’ continues to influences our current perceptions of journaling in qualitative research. More specifically, we focus here on the relationships between journaling and our approach to research, team-based collaboration, and our current teaching and mentoring practices. We all continue to keep fieldwork journals and perceive reflexive journaling as a crucial tool for qualitative methods and other collaborative ventures.

Keywords::

• reflexive journaling
• diaries
• collaborative writing
• fieldwork
• critical reflexivity