Intersectionality, positioning and narrative: exploring the utility of audio diaries in healthcare students’ workplace learning

This article explores how audio diaries enable researchers to make sense of issues pertaining to intersectionality, positioning and gender in workplace learning narratives. Literature supports the utility of audio diary methods as they offer researchers a unique lens to explore interactions between verbal and non-verbal cues to investigate intersecting identities and positions with participants. In this paper, the author combines the richness of audio diaries with intersectionality and positioning theories to explore how identities are negotiated over time. This paper presents a narrative case study that examines intersectionality, gendered identities and professionalism in the context of male- or female-dominated healthcare environments. The case sheds light on how audio diaries embrace complex qualitative data that can be utilised as a tool to cross disciplinary boundaries in the social sciences. The article demonstrates how underpinning audio diaries with feminist theory empowers participants to make sense of their intersecting identities, whilst nurturing an intimate dialogue between researcher and participant to explore tensions between language and identity. Further discussion considers how reflections are facilitated using audio diaries, with a focus on how theory and time can enable and strengthen the quality of the research process, data and analysis between researcher and participant.