Tracking Experience Over Time: Epistemological Issues and Methodological Challenges

Early career researchers are of increasing interest, regardless of national boundaries, given both policies to enhance international competitiveness, and concerns about individuals turning away from academic careers. As a result, there is a growing literature documenting how early career researchers navigate their journeys and decide to stay or leave. Our research is situated within this literature, yet is distinct in using a longitudinal qualitative team-based approach that has led to the conception of identity incorporating both the continuity of stable personhood over time and a sense of ongoing change. The scholarly contribution of this work is to articulate a contrasting perspective to the structural or systemic one common in examining early career researcher experience. Our goal in this chapter is to make transparent the decisions and actions underlying our approach and, in so doing, demonstrate the potential of researching the construction of identity in this way.