Thanks for linking to that blog post and for answering my question. I certainly don’t remember reading it at the time but who knows? I think we can ask others questions (that they are not obliged to answer) without knowing what is best for them. Qualitative researchers know the partial and provisional nature of their understandings and rarely come up with prescriptions. The question of who can tell whose story is an interesting one. I think that even when we tell our own story, we are inevitably including our interpretations of others’ stories. Participation and checking back our interpetations are good things to do but not a complete solution. The concept of acts of violence is very useful across the range of more and less participative research and practice. There are some good reasons seek qualitative data about things we haven’t or couldn’t participate in I think. I found some refs to share with you by email.
Another power issue that struck me and prompted my question about the limits of CAE is the issue of funding. I’d love to see a study on the distribution of funding in educational research and the nature of research funded. I know about some of the Learning Analytics funded projects, and the now completed Code Acts in Education project but I can think of relatively little qualitative research (unfunded – various MOOC CAEs by you and others, work done by Jenny Mackness, me and Mariana Funes and some by Lesley Gourlay but unsure of funded status) in comparison with very visible funded research in Learning Analytics.