Finding Subjugated Knowledge: Personal Document Research

This article describes personal document research and proposes its use as an alternative research method that includes the voice and experience of the research participant. By juxtaposing the personal diary and case record of a welfare mother, the qualitative data generated challenge the icons of professional objectivity, case record accuracy, and factuality. The exclusion of the woman's voice by research design or statistical abstraction disqualifies an alternative version of facts from being known or from entering into public policy debate over such serious social policy issues as poverty and child neglect. Personal document research bridges the gap between practitioner and researcher by offering a research method more in line with social work's traditional clinical values and social activist concerns.