Becoming Who We are…
Who’s Who
I used to think nurses
Were women,
I used to think police
Were men,
I used to think poets
Were boring,
Until I became one of them. (Zephaniah 2024)
I recently delivered a presentation at the International Postgraduate Conference in Translation and Interpreting (IPCITI) at Heriot Watt University and started my presentation with a focus on my development and growth as a doctoral researcher. As my research is mainly about identity, it has caused me to reflect on my own identity as a person and particularly as a researcher.
I started this blog with a poem. I did this, firstly, to pay tribute to Benjamin Zephaniah, and secondly because it is relevant to what I am discussing here and my views on becoming a researcher.
Am I a Researcher?
I used to think that research
was what clever people did.
I used to think that research
was difficult and boring.
And then… I started researching.
Once I started researching, I realized that it was a process of ‘becoming’. That is, identity as ‘’becoming’ as well as of “being’’ that ‘belongs to the future as much as to the past’ and that undergoes ‘constant transformation’ (Hall 2015 :395).
I always felt that research was something done by others, those who are of a certain status. It’s perhaps part of the assumptions we all make for certain roles in life. We assume only a certain type of person does a certain type of activity. Perhaps this is also about representation: who are the people represented in research roles?
I started my doctoral research in February of 2021, as a part time student. The research process has caused me to reflect not just on research, but on my identity as a researcher. It has caused me to consider how this researcher identity has developed over the years. Some of my initial questions have centered around ‘Am I a researcher or can I call myself a researcher?’ and ‘Who is a researcher?’
A ‘researcher’ has been defined as “someone who studies a subject, espeically in order to discover new information or reach a new understanding” (Cambridge Dictionary, 2024). So why has this not occurred to me in the past?
My research journey has been a beneficial one and contributed to self-development which I perhaps knew about but did not apply to myself. I am not saying that I did not have the skills, but more so that I have been able to develop them further and learn new ones along the way. Therefore, studying a subject to discover new information and reach a new understanding has not just pertained to the topic but to me as a person.
Yes, I have learnt a lot about research philosophies and finally managed to figure out how to pronounce and spell Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis. I have also learnt and reaffirmed the fact that I am a researcher in progress. Yes, I am ‘becoming’ a researcher.
I now realise that this research journey is one of growth and self-reflection. Reflecting on my development I have made use of visual portraits used in the work of authors such as Busch, Botsis and Bradbury, Kusters and De Meulder, Coffey, amongst others. Making use of this technique provides an avenue to visually express my development and who I am becoming… i.e. a researcher in the making.
In essence, it is therapeutic and helps me to consider how this new identity of ‘researcher’ is becoming embodied.
Figure 1: Visual Representation of becoming a researcher. (Taken from Pratt S. Nov 2023 IPCITI presentation).
To elaborate further on the visual representation in Figure 1, I am starting to think and see myself as a researcher, I have illustrated this by showing the colour getting darker as the years go on. Considering the body portrait as a vessel, I have added colour to show the idea of ‘filling up’ with this identity of researcher. I have added it to my hands because I use my hands to research — typing, reading, signing, following information with my brain and hence the colour in my head.
So, what has this journey taught me? I can make decisions, I have grown in confidence in my ability to research, it has assisted in shifting some of the ‘imposter’ syndrome, it has brought an awareness into my teaching techniques and developed my study skills.
So, in starting your own research journey, perhaps make use of this visual portrait and ask yourself at the start — who am I in this research world? We may reflect on what the research has helped us achieve or do. It is important to consider, as you go along, what has research helped you to become? How does it assist you in opening your mind? How has research become a part of you? How does research becoming a part of you assist your research? How do these changes enhance your research?
There are so many questions we can ask ourselves, whatever our background or stage of research. Benjamin Zephaniah was once asked in an interview: “What is the role of the Black British poet today?” He replied — “to write poems” he then talked about how issues needed to be aired and poetry being a platform for that (Doumerc, 2004). We can employ the same idea here. What is the role of Black British researchers today? (as well as whatever community you belong to) — yes, to research and write, but also to develop ourselves, express ideas and to inspire others.
Sandra Pratt is a Senior Lecturer in Deaf Studies / Interpreting at the University of Wolverhampton, is a Registered British Sign Language Interpreter, and is part of the Institute for Community Research and Development research community.
References:
Botsis, H. and Bradbury, J. (2018): Metaphorical sense-making: Visual Narrative Language portraits of South African students, Qualitative Research in Psychology, DOI:10.1080/14780887.2018.1430735.
Busch, B. (2016) Biographical Approaches to Research in Multilingual Settings: Exploring linguistic repertoires. In Researching multilingualism (pp. 60–73). Routledge.
Cambridge Dictionary (online) (2024) ‘Researcher’ Available at: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/researcher?q=researcher+ (Accessed: 12th February 2024).
Coffey, S. (2015) Reframing teachers’ language knowledge through metaphor analysis of language portraits. The Modern Language Journal, 99(3), pp.500–514.
Doumerc, E. (2004) An interview with Benjamin Zephaniah, Kunapipi, 26(1), 2004. Available at: https://ro.uow.edu.au/kunapipi/vol26/iss1/15
Hall, S., (2015) □ Cultural Identity and Diaspora. In: Williams, P. and Chrisman, L., Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory (pp. 392–403). Routledge.
Heriot Watt University (no date) IPCITI 2023. Available at: https://ipciti.site.hw.ac.uk/ (Accessed: 19th February 2024).
Kusters, A.M.J. and De Meulder, M. (2019) September. Language portraits: Investigating Embodied Multilingual and Multimodal Repertoires. In Forum: Qualitative Social Research (Vol. 20, №3, p. 10). Institut fur Klinische Sychologie and Gemeindesychologie.
Zephania, B. (2024) Rhymin Available at: https://benjaminzephaniah.com/rhymin/talking-turkeys-5/URL (Accessed: 8th December 2023).
