The notion of researcher as research instrument is a central one to most qualitative inquiry. This is a blog and readings I posted after giving a presentation to the QI SIG at RMIT in May 2009.
Thanks for this Bex, it's always good to get references to this sort of material. I have had a research blog since Nov 2008 and see it as a way to strengthen 'the researcher as research instrument' that is me. I wrote a guest post on thethesiswhisper.wordpress.com blog a couple of months ago on social media and the phd and there are a few more references in that. See http://thethesiswhisperer.wordpress.com/2010/08/31/social-media-and-your-phd