ABSTRACT
This chapter argues that emotional engagement is both necessary and inescapable for the psycho-social researcher, and that it can be both burdensome and beneficial, both problem and solution, as L. Finlay notes, and to be mindful of this can better help in the preparation, conduct, and management of psycho-social research projects. It reveals the process of navigating one’s way through the clear waters, when things appear to be going swimmingly and where the way forward seems brightly apparent. One of the essential elements of W. Hollway and T. Jefferson’s psycho-social methodology is a recognition that anxiety is inherent in the human condition and, as such, capable of producing both a defended research subject and a defended researcher. To approach the psycho-social interview as an “objective” researcher opens oneself up to, among others, questions of authority, credence, and integrity.
