Between old and new: Cognitive dissonance and the politics of research

Abstract

In what ways does academic dissonance influence the conduct of research? Or rather what does it mean to convert from a research tradition that valorizes realism to one that emphasizes the rhizomatic, the postmodern, the (inter)subjective? In this narrative, I critically reflect on the challenges I encountered in transitioning as an academic from Ghana steeped in linguistics and education with an avid emphasis on post/positivism to becoming a doctoral student of interpretive inquiry as practiced in the humanities of an American university. The narrative draws inspiration from a recent pilot study I conducted to explore interactional rituals used among student editors of a college news bulletin. Based on a lessons-learnt approach, the paper is a modest contribution to studies on the politics of research, the objectivity/subjectivity debate, and research in cognitive dissonance