Telling Transitions: boundary work in narratives of becoming an action researcher

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Abstract
The paper explores the handling of ‘boundary phenomena’ within modernist and post‐modernist research perspectives, via a reading of the autobiographical narratives of 10 people who have been influential in developing and promoting teacher action research. These stories of transitions — from teacher, to action researcher, to academic — address boundary issues that are rehearsed within action research itself: between theory and practice, school and academy, insider and outsider. The paper examines attempts to solve boundary problems occurring at a key transition point in these stories — the leaving of teaching. While modernist discourses seek resolutions of boundary dilemmas and transcendence of contradictions, post‐modernist discourses resist resolution and embrace ‘in‐between‐ness’. The paper considers the implications for action research of taking seriously — or even playfully — post‐modern notions of boundary work as transgression rather than transition. Vampires, cyborgs and ‘the abyss’ audition for cameo roles in this reading, which also attempts to show how deconstruction might be brought to bear on spoken texts — a relatively underdeveloped topic.

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