Representing Feminist Educational Research with/in the Postmodern: Stories of rape crisis training

Abstract

This article is 'about' the types of research practices we might invent as feminists with/in the postmodern, and how these might enable us to represent and know empirically generated materials differently. It uses evocative ethnographic writing techniques to 'show' rather than 'tell' how the nature of our research conceptions and practices may change, particularly our notions of 'giving voice'. Much of the article takes the form of a multilinear 'layered account' arising from electronic hypertext generated from qualitative interview materials. This scripts some of the common themes that are important in forging an understanding of women's experiences of rape crisis counsellor training, yet always retains an awareness of the significant differences between these tales. This account seeks to interweave the different voices of the researcher and the research subjects throughout the text. Taken-for-granted meanings are questioned and the reader is invited into the text to fill the empty spaces that are deliberately left for her to construct her own interpretations.