ABSTRACT
Qualitative research methods are about engagement with people, not with paper, in order to make sense of their perspectives, actions and orientations towards the world. They seek to read and interpret the contexts and predicaments of ordinary life. This chapter reflects on the author's experience of the tensions and dilemmas sometimes experienced quite acutely by ‘contract researchers’. It presents the selected highlights of some fourteen years of what is known in the academic world as ‘customer-contract’ research. The chapter provides an arbitrary selection of memories from the contract work undertaken by the author. Contract research is not always so clearly ‘independent’ as more prestigious research activity; contract researchers, when located in academic institutions, often experience tensions between the expectations of academic colleagues and those of sponsors; ultimately, rather like actors, contract researchers are only as good as their last performance.
