Portraiture as Pedagogy: Learning Research through the Exploration of Context and Methodology

In this reflective essay, five members of a research team involving graduate students and a faculty member offer individual "studies" of specific moments in the field in which lessons about methodology, the research context, and the researcher herself/himself crystallized. The article highlights the pedagogical possibilities of portraiture for introducing graduate students to qualitative research methodology. Each "study" illuminates how different kinds of boundaries are negotiated: whether it is the boundaries of access to a research site; the boundaries of personal or professional recognition; the boundaries of the body and physical space; the boundaries of racial identification; or the boundaries of the interior and exterior