Reassessing the research relationship: location, position and power in fieldwork accountsстатья из журнала
Аннотация: Abstract In this article we problematize the dualistic and binary model of researcher/researched interaction in the feminist methodological literature, which suggests that manipulation and exploitation only take place by the researcher. We contest assumptions that research participants occupy only one axis of identity, namely, 'oppressed victimhood'. Through our position as non‐white/non‐western and nonwhite/western researchers in a non‐western research setting, we were able to closely examine the operation of power as it flows and ebbs in the context of a multiplicity of potential identities of both researchers and research participants. Identities were continuously negotiated on issues of national location, age, generation and reciprocity. While we are aware of our power in the 'final product', we have explored the different ways in which research participants can also exercise power in the production of the 'product'. However, our intention is not to place the latter into another rigid category of 'oppressors' but to provide a framework for analysis of qualitative research results. By demonstrating that power resides with the research participants, we also seek to challenge the tendency within white western feminism to construct 'third world' women as passive recipients. Notes Dr Suruchi Thapar‐Björkert is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UQ, UK. She has previously been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia, Canada and has also taught at the Open University and the University of Warwick. Dr. Marsha Henry is Lecturer in Health and Social Care in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 2SP, UK; e‐mail: Marsha.Henry@bristol.ac.uk. She previously held teaching and research positions at the Development Studies Institute and Gender Institute, both at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research has been published in journals such as Feminist Review, Journal of Gender Studies, Women's History Review and Women's Studies International Forum. Much of this work has addressed cross‐cultural ethnographic research. Some work which has raised similar issues, though in different research contexts, is that of Smart (Citation1984), Scott (Citation1984) and Song and Parker (Citation1995). Smart's study is on the 'locally powerful' and moves beyond the over focused domain of researching the 'powerless'. Instead she wants to understand how positions of power are both sustained and maintained by the influential respondents. Scott's research is on interviewing one's 'peers', where through both gender and status, power is negotiated between the respondent and the interviewer. Song and Parker's s study is a poststructuralist analysis of power in the research process. They try to understand the power complexities when both interviewers are non‐white and non‐western. For example, Y asked her parents, both medical doctors, to put her in touch with all of his elderly female patients. Through the help of academic contacts, X was put in touch with respondents who worked at the local university. The father of X's host family was politically well connected and was able to arrange interviews with prominent members of the community that would have otherwise been inaccessible. X's translator also arranged interviews with women in the neighbourhood. Often this had a domino effect, where one interview might be scheduled, and it led to further spontaneous interviews arranged through the respondent's connections. On the spot summoning of others by people in positions of power (in this case the host) also resulted in non‐scheduled interviews. For example, X had an interview scheduled with a prominent scholar, which led to a referral where X was placed in front of about 40 women fieldworkers who were available for questions. We agree with Miller's hypothesis that generally the upper caste is 'predominantly composed of people in the upper class with property' and that the lower castes are 'generally unpropertied and lower class' (Miller Citation1981: 74). However, in the last two decades the picture of caste relations has been further complicated through the new parliamentary laws on reservation of seats for 'socially backward' communities. Though reservations succeeded in improving the morale of the schedule caste's, the principle of merit was debated since suitable applicants could not get professional positions because of the reservation quota. It was argued that an approach that highlighted an economic criteria and not exclusively caste identity was beneficial so that those socially and economically comfortable but in a low caste would not monopolize the system. Reservations have worked best in South India but arguably too well as with some power taken out of Brahmin hands it has led to further clamour for power and money. The lower castes despite reservations have to still overcome the socially stigmatic barriers. Y was engaged in conversations whereby a lower caste professional doctor was continually reminded of his unchanged caste status. Similarly, in X's case, a professional woman from a scheduled caste was derided by her colleagues who inferred her status as accruing from 'quota' appointments. We observed the tension between lower and upper caste people of the same professional status. The theorist Bourdieu's distinction between classes high on economic capital but low on cultural capital is particularly useful here (Crompton Citation1993: 178). The Ezhavas, small tenants, toddy tappers, and coir workers were generally considered polluted within the ritualistic caste structure. They are however an upwardly mobile caste, the upper castes being the Namboordiri and Tamil Brahmins and the Nairs (Sen Citation1992: 258). For example, a respondent who managed actively to support revolutionaries is also proud that she managed the home and always cooked dinner on time for her husband. The work of Deniz Kandiyoti (Citation1988) is useful. In the context of South Asia and sub‐Saharan Africa she has argued that instead of resisting patriarchy women strike 'patriarchal bargains' with the men that ensure their economic needs as well accords them a social status. Y was born and grew up in North India, but moved to England for her graduate studies and lived there for 10 years since. To do her fieldwork, Y travelled to India after only 3 years of living abroad. During her fieldwork, she stayed with family and friends and after 1 year of fieldwork, returned to England to complete her studies. My mother Kamala Seth has played an active role in the Civil Disobedience Movement in the 1930s in North India. X was born in Canada, and brought up by Indian immigrant parents. Smart has observed that 'dress' was important in the interview process and she faced the dilemma whether to present herself as a probation officer, a solicitor or a woman academic (Smart Citation1984: 153). 'Outsiders' can be constructed as those who are resident Indians from another district as well as nonresident Indians. There is an issue that still remains unresolved. How do researchers make sense of their ethnic identities within a dominant culture and the change in their positionality as members of dominant cultures? We suggest that domestic space is not only a site of oppression as many feminists have argued, but also a site of resistance (Thapar‐Björkert Citation1997). Age and generation accord women an unchallenged status within the household. In X's case she conducted an interview with one respondent when another respondent failed to appear on time. However, the respondent arrived just at the end of the interview, and because the interview was taking place in her office, she heard the last few questions. When the second interview took place with her, she gave the exact, word‐for‐word response to a personal question that the previous respondent, and her friend, had given. This led X to doubt the respondent's answer, and question whether she had merely copied her friend's response. Both of us found ourselves in difficult situations when it came to representing ourselves to our participants. Since, as explained before, we hesitated to reveal information of our co‐habitation with European men for fear of rejection and because of this many of our respondents assumed that we were unmarried. This unmarried status allowed respondents to impose a 'daughter' status on us, which in turn widened the social distance between 'us' and 'them' (see also Thapar‐Björkert Citation1999). While travelling in India, especially in neighbouring districts, Y was accompanied by her mother, a doctor by profession. The districts were usually between 3 and 24 hours away from each other. It was often cultural and socially expected that an Indian woman from a 'respectable' background should not travel alone. The presence of her mother, and her status as a physician, provided the respect required. In addition, this mode of conducting research helped to ensure safety from potential sexual violence (for example, a woman from abroad may be assumed to have questionable sexual character and may therefore be more vulnerable to sexual advances). Her mother's presence was a symbolic gesture to the social expectation that an unmarried single woman should not travel without the protection of her family even though ideally in the Indian context the father would have been the more suitable companion. Though we agree with Stanley and Wise that the idea of only 'one type of truly feminist research is as limiting and as offensive as male biased accounts of research' (Stanley and Wise Citation1983: 26), we also realized that feminist ethnographic accounts cannot be crystallized in the same way to form a homogeneous experience of fieldwork on feminist methodology. For example, Fonow and Cook (Citation1991: 9) argue that 'the researched actively resisted efforts to be included as equal partners in the researcher's efforts'. In this way, participants may not want to be 'equal' to researchers. Additional informationNotes on contributorsSURUCHI THAPAR‐BJÖRKERT Footnote Dr Suruchi Thapar‐Björkert is Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, University of Bristol, Bristol BS8 1UQ, UK. She has previously been a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of British Columbia, Canada and has also taught at the Open University and the University of Warwick. Dr. Marsha Henry is Lecturer in Health and Social Care in the School for Policy Studies, University of Bristol, Bristol, BS8 2SP, UK; e‐mail: Marsha.Henry@bristol.ac.uk. She previously held teaching and research positions at the Development Studies Institute and Gender Institute, both at the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her research has been published in journals such as Feminist Review, Journal of Gender Studies, Women's History Review and Women's Studies International Forum.
Год издания: 2004
Авторы: Suruchi Thapar‐Björkert, Marsha Henry
Издательство: Taylor & Francis
Источник: International Journal of Social Research Methodology
Ключевые слова: Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics, Data Analysis and Archiving, Social Science and Policy Research
Открытый доступ: closed
Том: 7
Выпуск: 5
Страницы: 363–381