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Chapter Eleven – A Critical Reflection on the Study – Page 323
I need to acknowledge that many may find this proposition unacceptable. Why did I not
undertake corroboratory interviews with my fellow participants, given that this would
have been practically possible? I remain in contact with six of the nine students and my
colleague even now, and could probably locate the three students of whose whereabouts
I am unsure. Put briefly, as acknowledged above, my restricted focus stems from my
interest in Hollway and Jefferson’s notion of the defended subject (2000). The idea that
people can only have a limited awareness of their motivations and impulses leads to a
tempered view of the value of first hand accounts.
Feedback from outsiders
Other than in supervision (monthly for the six years duration of this project), during
presentations to colleagues, and when seeking comments from readings of all or part of
the thesis by colleagues, this was not sought formally. I think that the complexity that
follows from the range of roles that I had in this project led me to keep a close and
relatively personal focus. This followed my appreciation of Wolcott’s (1994) notion that
anthropological doctoral study is inevitably an isolated activity because one is going to
new places, and the task of originality involves some withdrawal from the world rather
than contact with it.
Again, I need to acknowledge that many may find this proposition as unacceptable as
that in relation to respondent validation. In my mind, I imagine a response of writers
such as Hammersley (2007). This is my version of how they might conceivably
respond. I can see there might be expression of concern that, in a flourish of post-
modern reflexivity, I have largely substituted my own voice for that of anyone (or
indeed, everyone) else, and hence have potentially done violence to a pervasive
commitment to the primacy of a multiply-voiced community. In my defence, I wanted
consciously and purposefully to write an almost solely personal account, reflecting the