Now Available—Resonant Research in Uncertain Times: Reflections on Relational Research Practices During a Pandemic
New article alert! Members of the SIM Lab recently published Resonant Research in Uncertain Times: Reflections on Relational Research Practices During a Pandemic.
The paper reflects on how our interdisciplinary research team adapted a simulation-based study in response to the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The study, which involved actor-portrayed counselling sessions with social work students and practitioners, was restructured not only to accommodate these disruptions but also to respond to the relational needs of participants and team members, including the need to rebuild connections with themselves and others. The paper reads our experiences alongside Harmut Rosa’s work on Resonance and the concept of Slow Scholarship to explore how our team balanced the pressures of academia in the pandemic and the needs of participants and researchers. Conducted in the context of social work education, the study involved transitioning from in-person to online methods while centering care, containment, and collaboration among team members and participants. We detail three core practices—dedicated containment of research tasks, paid time for relationship-building, and paid reflexive debriefing—that allowed us to attend to the human dimensions of the research process.
Using a collaborative feminist reflexivity approach, we argue that ethical and rigorous research must include compensation for the unseen labor of trust-building and critical analysis, particularly during periods of social crisis.
The reflections contribute to broader calls for research as a form of relational repair, offering a model for resonant engagement within the neoliberal academy.
The article is published in the International Review of Qualitative Research.