Trabajar en un empleo de alta cualificación y en un sector de alta tecnología

It is important to note that prior to embarking on doctoral studies I was not an ‘objective’ applicant (Denscombe, 2010: 88). At the time of applying for this studentship I was working as a social worker in a youth offending team. I had also experienced peer mentoring as a social worker in a charity tackling child sexual exploitation. It was these experiences that motivated me to study. Having worked for a number of months with young people who had been sexually exploited, I had the opportunity to support a peer to peer intervention. In one of the most emotional and memorable hours of my life, I supported two young women as they had a conversation about their experiences of forced prostitution. I watched in fascination as through tears, laughter and traumatic honesty the younger of the two dropped some of her shame and self-hatred and the elder grew in stature and compassion. The conversation was an experiment, a ‘pilot’, yet it had such a profound impact on both parties that peer mentoring was implemented on a broader scale across the service. I recall this history to be clear about my own starting point and bias as a researcher, but also to be clear about the need for reflexivity as I conducted the research. I was aware that my first impression of peer mentoring had been favourable, I was also aware that I had witnessed peer mentoring in practice on a one to one basis, yet would not be doing so in this study. I therefore needed to separate out my own impressions and assumptions from how respondents were actually describing their experiences and in order to do so I would need analytical tools, which would remain close to respondent narratives

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discourse analysis and Gilligan’s listening guide were helpful here and will be discussed

more fully below. Before doing so however, it is also relevant to note that this personal history was not just a possible influence to be managed, but also a helpful research tool. I was a relative ‘insider’ when approaching voluntary sector criminal justice agencies given I had worked in similar settings myself. I was therefore familiar with the ‘habitus’ (Bourdieu, 1980: 53) or durable dispositions common to this field. I was ‘uniquely positioned to understand’ the workings of these settings, to gain access and to engage with gatekeepers in the field (see Kerstetter, 2012). However, there are very few cases ‘in which someone can be characterized as a complete insider or a complete outsider’, rather:

The ‘space between’ is usually characterized as a multidimensional space, where researchers’ identities, cultural backgrounds, and relationships to research participants influence how they are positioned within that space (Kerstetter, 2012: 101).

This was a complexity I identified with as I went about the business of managing my

identities within the various research settings. When speaking with professional

gatekeepers and gaining access to prison settings I drew upon dispositions and knowledge that I had learned as a social worker, with mentee respondents, however, this professional stance had the potential to be a barrier. I therefore needed to be clear in these exchanges that whilst I did used to work in youth justice, I was not connected in any way to the projects being studied. There were points when this convergence of roles and norms was tested however. A major test was leaving behind the social worker habitus when faced with a respondent’s distress. One of my earliest interviews, for example, was with a young woman who was tearful for much of the discussion. Whilst some of this emotion was

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communicated as sadness at years wasted following an exploitative introduction to heroin as a child, much of it was loss and frustration linked to her perception that her mentoring relationship had been too hastily terminated, at a time when she felt the support was most needed. The young woman went as far as to say it made her feel like committing a crime again to get the support. As a social worker, my immediate response to such a narrative would have been to reflectively listen, to explore alternative problem-solving skills and consequential thinking, to educate the young woman on her rights in relation to accessing support and to advocate on her behalf for a more staged and supported ending. Indeed as a researcher this was the process of responses I could hear being played out in my head as she spoke. As a researcher, however, I had also more recently been schooled in the importance of non-directional listening and therefore felt a real inner conflict about how to respond. I uneasily settled for reflecting on the content and feelings and for information sharing:

I would like you to ask could you have some support, maybe not at the level you had – but just to bridge that gap until you go into detox… I don’t think there’s anything wrong with picking up a phone to a manager and saying: ‘can I just give you some feedback for how I’m feeling?’ You never know what might happen, you’re not saying anything bad about anybody who you’ve worked with, I’m not hearing that. What I’m hearing is that you’re feeling like you want something else and the manager just seems like the right person to go to (Researcher).

Following the interview, however, my inner conflict did not subside. Had I said and done enough to ease this young woman’s distress and assist her in securing the service she desired at such a crucial time in her recovery? Had I said and done enough to prevent her

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acting on her temptation to offend again? Should I speak with the coordinator about my concerns or would this unnecessarily breach confidentiality? Alternatively, had I already said too much, potentially influencing this young woman’s response to the service and in turn their performance of endings whilst I was still only in an early stage of my fieldwork? I dealt with my struggle by speaking with my research supervisor and agreed to feedback my concern about ‘end points’ more generally at the end of the first batch of interviews, thus maintaining individual confidentiality. I also had to accept that my role in this setting was not to effect individual change or advocate on an individual basis.