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group, which was acknowledged to the group at the start of the course but which is not
formally acknowledged during this semester. I have many different positions.
Regarding person, I am using this to refer to the grammatical situation of the narrator. I
am of course aware of the academic convention of writing in the third person singular,
usually as ‘the researcher’ or ‘the author’. For much of the study, for example when
reviewing literature or elaborating philosophy or methodology, this is unproblematic.
However, in other parts of the study, that is, in relation to the data, the accounts of the
events of the semester, I am also a participant as I have just outlined. At times in these
parts of the study, I wish to argue that it is appropriate that I use the first person
singular. Hence, at times I will change person from third to first person and back. At
other times, I may be writing of my experience as a group member, and then I wish to
argue that I may need to write as ‘we’ and ‘us’, using the first person plural to denote
that I am writing on behalf of the group. My role as tutor may also require this when I
am writing on behalf of my colleague and myself as tutors, separate from our
involvement with the students (for example, during the consulting breaks in the middle
of sessions).
The argument for the use of the convention of writing in the third person is broadly that
it contributes to achieving the major research aim of objectivity. However, in qualitative
research, particularly where the focus of study is the professional work of the
researcher, and in participant observation, where the foci of attention include the
subjective and intersubjective experience of the researcher, it can be hard to justify the
privileging of distance from this experience. Sufficient and variable distance is needed
to allow a range of reflections on subjective and intersubjective experience, but making
this distance permanently equal to that required to permit objectivity may lessen,
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