Ethical and political dimensions of strategic risk taking in research

Research is a risky business. Those who choose to work as researchers find themselves continually brokering interpersonal relationships, institutional imperatives and social influences that impact upon, and are embedded within, the actions of the research. Through this brokerage, the risk-taking in research beocmes strategic becaue it involves an estimation and evaluation of both immediate and longer term consequences of decisions made and actions undertaken. Thus strategic risk-taking sees researchers functioning as brokers between the multi-dimensional complexities fo contextualised past and present influences on the one hand and the potential future consequences of their decisions and actions on the other. This chapter explores both the ethical and the political ditnensions of strategic risk-taking in a research project that was situated within the Australian vocational education and training system and the work of a cohort of 23 adult literacy teachers within that system. Through a profile of the research design, the explicit relationship among theory, methodology and data collection and analysis is explained and justified. Within this context, the ethical dilnension of strategic risk-taking is considered through the complex notions of researcher roles, realities and emotional labour in research. The political dimension of strategic risk-taking is interrogated at the research project's data collection and analysis sites. Strategic risk-taking is a proactive response to the inevitable uncertainties encountered in any research project and it is a response that fosters researcher knowledge, confidence and independence.