Proceedings of the 8th World Conference on Qualitative Research

Research practice within schools is a complex undertaking wherein the researcher identity is not fixed but instead part of a fluid process. How does being a ‘liquid researcher’ affect the documentation of data on field and the associated writing processes? This question is explored in context to research in schoolscaping practices of teachers in suburban Mumbai, India, with specific focus on Environmental Education (EE) artefacts and activities. The methodology presents the ‘go-along’ approach which foregrounds movement in qualitative research, while the researcher accompanies participants in areas familiar to them. As the researcher oscillates between multiple identities, the key findings are presented through vignettes of how the researcher is invited to become the judge of a poetry competition, co-artist for wall painting activity, fill-in teacher, provider of ‘research expertise’ for projects and excursion-facilitator for student-walks. The discussion elaborates on how the go-along method is relevant for exploring school teachers’ practices beyond the classroom. Challenges of the method are discussed in terms of navigating effects of researcher presence, power hierarchies among school members and inducing momentary defamiliarisation of habitualised environs for teachers. Main contributions to the field of qualitative research are offered through detailing how researcher positioning and field text production might be explored considering the processual nature of schoolscapes and the perceptions of school staff regarding Environmental Education. Adding to extant scholarship on the impact of 'where' the research is taking place and 'who' are the research participants, this paper contends for careful inclusion of the role of ‘what’ the research is about in shaping in-situ forms of qualitative ethnographic inquiry.