Research Identities: Reflections of a Contract Researcher

This paper examines the institutional identity formation of contract researchstaff in the context of the Taylorisation of research knowledges. The author hasbeen a contract researcher for many years, after initially training andpractising as a Probation Officer. She makes links between her social worktraining, and her current practice as a qualitative researcher. Drawing on herexperience of working on a variety of different projects, at a number ofdifferent institutions, and providing illustrative examples from projects insociology, social policy, health, and education, she reflects on theimplications of the current social organization of academic research both forprofessional research practice and for researcher identity. There is a paradoxin the way that contract research staff accrue a wealth of experience of howresearch is organised and conducted in different contexts, a repertoire ofskills, and a vast volume of various kinds of ‘data’, whilst remainingvulnerable and marginalized figures within the academy, with few opportunitiesfor professional development and advancement. She outlines a number ofstrategies she has employed in the preservation of the ‘research self’, andconcludes by suggesting that the academy has much to learn about the effectivemanagement of ‘waste’, as embodied by researchers’ selves and their data,consequent upon the Taylorisation of research work.