Introduction

This chapter is concerned with a particular methodology, based on an ontological view of reality, which was briefly introduced in Chapter 1. The aim is therefore to give more depth to what was briefly outlined earlier and frame this in terms of a psychosocial approach to research. Given the acknowledgement of issues of fluid connectivity as present and constitutive of reality as an ontological starting point for research, the aim is to outline how they can be accessed and what this says about learning as a process. In order to balance the highly abstract nature of the concepts to be outlined, examples of how these issues were reflected in the practice of research are given. Thus the chapter begins with an account of experiences in the initial phases of research and then jumps forward in time to offer reflections on the process of writing this chapter. This proved hard to give a final form to, given the complexity of material and its dynamic unbounded quality. The image of an unusual sculpture project is offered as a metaphor for this research, which may balance the inevitable reduction implied by the representational medium of words to which the book is by necessity wedded.