Discovering researcher identity through action research : a transformative journey across two cultures

Having been introduced to Action Research in my home country of China, I was awarded substantial funding to study in the UK, and use knowledge gained to the benefit of my university. Whilst in England, I was inspired by the rich array of research methodologies that were used in academic research, and was excited about the possibilities of presenting new ideas to my colleagues. As a consequence, the initial question guiding my doctoral research was to investigate how I could transform the research culture of my home university, using Action Research as the methodology. Unfortunately, due to factors beyond my control, I was not able to continue with that initial plan, and it appeared that my research project had collapsed. However, Action Research is about learning from failure as much as from success, and from the apparent wreckage, new possibilities arose. Introducing autoethnography as a method, I engaged in a narrative account of my experience, which included an extensive revisiting and analysis of the factors that had led to my present position. In the process, I discovered that, throughout the enquiry, my identity as a researcher had been evolving, the nature of which was influenced by transformative learning experiences, both personal and professional, across two very different cultures in the UK and China. As a consequence of these experiences, and the opportunity to explore them through the lens of Action Research, I have been able to establish a theoretical and experiential understanding of what it means to develop an identity as a researcher. At the core of this understanding is a transformed epistemology of how 'research' can be constructed. My contribution to knowledge is this new understanding of the relationship between doing 'research', researcher identity, and the ways in which knowledge is constructed in personal and professional research contexts.