Performative identity and the researcher as drag: an autoethnographic account of positionality in educational research

The following article comprises an autoethnographic discussion of researcher identity in school-based educational research. The research centred on a professional learning programme in which arts/education practitioners delivered workshops for teachers that used creative, arts practice with a focus on mindful techniques to support teachers’ wellbeing during school improvement initiatives. I developed a reflexive, participatory methodology that comprised interviews with the arts/education practitioners, and observations of the workshops in order to generate data that explored how creativity was articulated through the programme. My discussion focuses on the appropriateness of the research design and qualitative, reflexive methodology to addressing the research aims, and on my values and positionality throughout the data generation activity and subsequent analysis. Finally, I discuss my shifting identity/ies in what I define as a queer/ed research space, and conceptualise my performative researcher identity as a form of drag