Methodological imperatives and perplexities for literacy research in uncertain times

Abstract

When we began the journey to edit this special issue on methodological imperatives and perplexities for literacy research in uncertain times, it was the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. At the time, we recognised that methodological approaches we held dear required rethinking, but we could not see far enough ahead to appreciate how profoundly methods and reflexivities would transform, shift, and even face a reckoning of sorts. Two years into the pandemic, it is clear now that comfortable research practices like ‘collecting data’ and ‘entering the field’ are not only unhelpful constructs but are also riddled with ethical perplexities. Haraway’s notion of ‘staying with the trouble’ (Haraway, 2016) may be helpful here in that, as literacy researchers, we need to stay with the trouble of the moment to recognise where it moves us and how we must change and shape our methodological orientations and practices around the contours of trouble, uncertainty, and reckonings. Sensitising ourselves to the reality that the world is not, cannot, should not be the same after George Floyd was murdered; after wildfires enveloped communities across the world; after the multitude of deaths due to Covid-19; and after governments have been toppled and threatened by insurgents. Given these changed and changing global circumstances, we need to interrogate and reimagine how we do literacy research, who we are as literacy researchers, and the role of literacy research in troubling how literacy is defined and understood, as well as its interface with precarity. These challenges – methodological and epistemological, but also ethical, emotional and deeply personal – lie at the heart of this special issue. The vivid instances of ethical moments set out within the articles we bring together in this special issue collectively signal ways that we as researchers must raise our heads above university and institutional parapets, to intensify our gaze onto ethical imperatives and think long and hard about contemporary research methods and methodologies. From the opening article, which explores the boundaries and processes of justice-oriented literacy research as a conduit to healing, the special issue moves through some of the healing work that needs to take place. The articles challenge us as researchers to interrogate the ways in which literacy practices – and, indeed, INTERNATIONAL STUDIES IN SOCIOLOGY OF EDUCATION 2022, VOL. 31, NOS. 1–2, 1–4 https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2021.2008806