ABSTRACT
This chapter charts my journey as a researcher, particularly my work exploring women and leadership. Through personal stories and reflections, I map my efforts to, firstly, do, then write, and finally, be, in research, different. I show how I’ve felt excluded, and then wanted to differentiate myself from, what I’ve increasingly seen as gendered, often oppressive, understandings of the templates, processes and purposes of ‘good’ research. My teachers in learning to do and write research differently have been research participants, colleagues, students and readers, as well as feminist and critical writers, each challenging me to rethink who and how I want to be as a researcher. The chapter is written personally because it is the only way that now feels tolerable and authentic. But I hope it also enlivens the text for you, the reader, sparking memories, resonances or imaginings of new ways of doing and being in research.
