Abstract: The HIV/AIDS pandemic is not only changing the world, it is changing the way in which we do research in and about the world we live in. This pandemic is challenging the ways in which we think about the world. In this paper we will discuss the ways in which this pandemic has influenced our research on children coping with HIV/AIDS in South Africa. HIV/AIDS defies linear intentionality in a research design and it provides no point from which it is possible to view comprehensively. Still, in this paper we attempt to signify particular tensions that have been part of our research process. They are tensions between 1) methods and theories, 2) developed and developing contexts, 3) crisis of representation and lived experience, 4) participation and observation, 5) moving from field to texts and 6) authoring and de-authoring the processes of knowledge production. This research process has considerable challenges, but the benefits include new ways of understanding the representational and conceptual complexities involved in an inquiry process that focuses on a pandemic that defies our existing paradigmatic perspectives.