title: Cutting edges: deconstructive inquiry and the mission of the border ethnographer.
abstract: Research is an activity nursing 'cannot not want'. Such an imperative compels me to sketch out some theoretical borders of a hybrid postmodern methodological framework that I have called 'border' ethnography. It is a methodology suspended between a still authoritative modernity and an as yet only partially legitimate postmodernity. At one level this position is somewhat uncomfortably in a post-methodological terrain. The text that issues from such a tension-laden research space is, I argue, intensely autobiographical, inescapably ethnographic and inherently deconstructive. Ethno(autobio) graphy is a method 'on the run'; it destabilizes while it authorizes, it represents while it misrepresents, and it threatens to disintegrate as it comes into view. But, most importantly, it is the creature of a praxis-oriented endeavour not only to better understand a culture, but to actively intervene in its (re) production.
authors.affiliation: Hobart Clinical Division, Tasmanian School of Nursing, University of Tasmania, Launceston, Australia.
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Walker
mesh_terms: D000884:Anthropology, Cultural; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D006801:Humans; D008037:Linguistics; D015404:Nursing Methodology Research / Q000379:methods* / Q000639:trends*; D010684:Philosophy; D011057:Politics