ABSTRACT
The title of this chapter reflects my focus on the estrangement that many working class women such as myself experience when they move beyond their class boundaries into the academy where they often conduct research with women. In this chapter I recount and analyze a series of “life” and “research” stories constituting my sixteen years of literacies research with women and the popular fiction they read (Christian-Smith, 1990, 1991, 1993). “Story” refers to a succession of events organized in some coherent manner (Hatch & Wisniewski, 1995, p. 7). These stories represent my reflections on the personal, practical, political and ethical matters when undertaking research with women. These stories also constitute a series of discernment processes through which I examine who I am as a researcher, how my background shapes the focus of my research, the questions I ask, the interpretations I construct and the ways I attempt to translate theory into practice through my involvement with social justice movements. I begin with a description of the intellectual frameworks that shape my personal and professional lives, especially my research.
