The Research Experience from an Insider Perspective

Abstract

At the time of writing I was working towards my PhD, which I have now completed. During the PhD process I learned as much about myself as the individuals I was interviewing. This chapter discusses the complexities of research through the shared lived experiences of both myself and my respondents. Through a series of discussions with several ex-prisoners, I discovered there were many parallels between their experiences of self-transformation and my own. As a result of this my study became more emotional than I had expected and psychologically difficult, which in social science research is rarely discussed. Despite many attempts to re-integrate during the late 1990s, I found myself trapped between my old world and the new world I was attempting to transition towards, which I later learned is called liminality. This is because the former identity of being an ex-prisoner can never be erased and therefore carries stigma which then creates barriers. Even the transformative benefits of education, employment, relationships and friendships were not able to shield me from the painful and prolonged experiences of social and psychological liminality. It was a ‘looking glass self’ experience whereby my interviews became a two-way mirror image narrative which made me question why such experiences are rarely talked about. It caused me to question if being an ex-prisoner gave me access to some of the more complex aspects of research through my own insight into what was not being said as well as what was being said. It was only through probing I learned that I was in a very unique position. There is no real end to the desistance process which is at the core of my study journey, but in fact an endless journey of re-negotiating identities, stigmatisation, rejection and identity conflict which results in a series of existence between two worlds.