The Personal, Professional and Political in Comparative Ethnographic Educational Research

Education ethnographers have long recognised the significance of the researcher's self upon the research process (Burgess, 1984; Walford, 1991; Troman, 2000; Russell, 2005) This chapter attempts to define and examine the relationship between the ‘Personal’, ‘Professional’ and ‘Political’ dimensions of ethnographies and the researcher's self set within the institutional and societal context. We argue that these three aspects form an important part of ethnography, implicitly or explicitly. However these are variously presented depending upon how the ethnography is experienced by the researcher and the researched. The Personal, Professional and Political are often closely related and can at times be difficult to distinguish. The importance that the researcher attributes to each of these aspects and the level of significance they have on the ethnography varies.