‘Relationshipwork’ in youth justice research: weathering the storm

Little has been written about the enabling relationships that precede and permit quality research to take place. Introducing this concept of ‘relationshipwork’ as an integral part of the research process, this paper argues that development of strong relationships between members of the research team as well as between the researchers and the project stakeholders is an important precursor to research. The funded project described here provides the context for this argument and considers
how the educational experiences of young people incarcerated into the youth
justice system can be improved. The authors outline the significance of the positive interactions with people that make it possible for this research to be undertaken and add their concept of ‘relationshipwork’, to the three terms ethnographer John Van Maanen (1988, 2011) uses to describe the components of research: ‘fieldwork’, ‘headwork’ and ‘textwork’.