A bricoleur approach to navigating the methodological maze

For the novice researcher navigating through the myriad constructs of research processes is akin to finding your way through a maze constructed of tall hedges. At first all pathways look similar, some appear to provide a shortcut or easy way out, while others appear convoluted with twists and constant switchbacks. Sometimes you feel you are lost, wandering in the maze. Eventually though you find your way out of the maze, but only after exploring many pathways, some dead ends and occasionally cutting a hole in the hedge to join two previously separate pathways together. During my doctoral journey I found myself trapped in the methodological maze. I was researching a nebulous and esoteric concept that had as many definitions as misconceptions. The problem I faced was finding a methodological pathway through the maze to an elusive destination outside the maze. My solution came in the form of a bricoleur approach to my research. The bricoleur uses whatever is at hand to complete a task. The researcher-as-bricoleur uses “whatever strategies, methods, or empirical materials … are at hand” (p. 3) to produce a bricolage, a construction whose pieces harmonise and fit together to make a cohesive whole. As a bricoleur I could take advantage of serendipitous opportunities to further the research goals. The researcher-as-bricoleur stance enabled me to manoeuvre between and through pathways in the methodological maze and make meaning for my research project; it was the tool by which I cut holes and joined pathways in the maze hedge.