Reflexivity and Uncertainty in the Research Process

Abstract

In this article we provide an account of the process of doing social scientific research–in this case an eighteen month study of ‘multi-racial’ community initiatives in three different localities in the UK. Given the transience of many such initiatives and the contested meanings that both ‘race’ and ‘community’ have acquired the experience of doing research in this area is one surrounded by uncertainty. We describe the mistakes made, blind allies pursued, accidents encountered and successes achieved in the belief that this is how research normally is and that others might learn more from this kind of account than from sanitised versions of how research ought to be.