How can researchers produce work with relevance to theoretical and formal traditions and requirements of public academic knowledge while still remaining faithful to the experiences and accounts of research participants based in private settings? Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research explores this key dilemma and examines the interplay between theory, epistemology and the detailed practice of research. It does this across the whole research process: access, data collection and analysis and writing up research. It goes on to consider ways of achieving high standards of reflexivity and openness in the strategic choices made during research, examining these issues for specific projects in an open and accessible style.

Particular themes examined are: the research dilemmas that occur from feminist perspectives in relation to researching private and personal social worlds; the position of the researcher as situated between public knowledge and private experience; and the dilemmas raised for researchers seeking to contribute to academic discourse while remaing close to their knowledge forms.

PART ONE: INTRODUCING OUR VOICES
Public Knowledge, Private Lives, Personal Experience - Rosalind Edwards and Jane Ribbens
Hearing My Own Voice? An Autobiographical Discussion of Motherhood - Jane Ribbens
PART ONE: SPEAKING AND LISTENING: REFLECTING MULTILAYERED VOICES
Bringing Silent Voices into a Public Discourse - Melanie Mauthner
Shifting Layers of Professional, Lay and Personal Narratives - Tina Miller
Public and Private Meanings in Diaries - Linda Bell
Theoretical Voices and Women¿s Own Voices - Janet Parr
PART TWO: HEARING AND REPRESENTATNG: REFLECTING THE PRIVATE IN PUBLIC
Hearing Competing Voices - Miri Song
Sibling Research
Reflections on a Voice-Centred Relational Method - Natasha Mauthner and Andrea Doucet
Representing Voices in Ethnography and Discourse Analysis - Pam Alldred
Re/constructing Research Narratives - Maxine Birch
Writing the Voices of the Less Powerful - Kay Standing
Research on Lone Mothers
Epilogue - Jane Ribbens and Rosalind Edward