Apart from gender, there seemed to be very few similarities between me and the Tibetan Buddhist nuns I studied. First, there are socio-economic and political differences on the macro level: I live in an independent, democratic, industrialized and rich Western country;
44
the nuns came mainly from poor and rural Tibetan communities which have officially been part of Communist China since the 1950s. Second, cultural and ideological differences – from eating habits to family life and religion – profoundly separated our lives and experiences. Whereas I belong to a society where competing ideologies (such as Protestant Christian values, secularization, pluralism, individualism and equality) shape the ideas and practices of people, the nuns’ lives were still largely determined by the Buddhist religion, as well as traditional customs and ways of life. Third, at the individual level I could be described as a “white, Western laywoman” living a rather “worldly” or secular urban life. The mostly uneducated nuns, on the other hand, made a lifelong commitment to celibacy and a certain degree of asceticism within the context of Buddhist monasticism. Given the profound differences in our backgrounds, lives and realities, how is it possible for me to interpret and understand the choices and life histories of these women? (See also Härkönen 2010b.) Methodological choices are closely related to epistemological questions which concern the nature and limitations of knowledge (Moore & Sanders 2006, 1). Thomas Hylland Eriksen, for example, asks whether and how anthropologists can be entirely certain that we understand an alien or foreign society and culture at all from our own cultural backgrounds, concepts and values. His answer is that we cannot, because it is not entirely possible to overcome the gap between the emic and the etic perspectives. (Eriksen 2001, 36.) Quoting Hans-Georg Gadamer, René Gothóni (2002) argues that we can never be sure that our interpretation is absolutely correct, because any judgment we give is historically conditioned (see also Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 233). At best, our interpretation might be authentic, in that we make the best reflective use of our prior understanding or prejudice. (Gothóni 2002, 159–60.)
Hammersley and Atkinson ask if we even need to get beyond all of our cultural assumptions in order to understand people from other cultures. We can never get access to reality. The “reality” that ethnographers document is a construction of accounts which are produced by the people we study. In fact, the neutrality and objectivity of qualitative research have been questioned since the mid-1980s. It has been noted that research is never conducted in a vacuum, but that data are shaped and constructed by the researcher, his or her subjects and the research situation. Consequently, the aim of qualitative research is not to gather “pure” data free from potential bias. Rather, the ethnographer should be aware of how the data are produced and constructed. (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 13, 15, 177, 232, 236; see also Davidsson Bremborg 2011, 311.)
According to Carol Warren, the epistemology of the qualitative interview is more constructionist than positivist. According to her, “interview participants are more likely to be viewed as meaning makers, not as passive containers for recovering information from an existing vessel of answers.” Those involved in research participate from varying standpoints, including gender, race and class. (Warren 2001, 83–84; see also Rastas 2010.) It is thus inadequate for analysis to present interview material as if it provides direct evidence about the events that are recounted. Instead, all accounts must be examined as social phenomena occurring in, and shaped by, the particular contexts in which they were produced. (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 102, 120, 170.)
In fact, it has become more common that qualitative, and even ethnographic, research relies exclusively on interview data. Hammersley and Atkinson (2007), for instance, argue that the differences between participant observation and interviewing are not as great as has sometimes been suggested. This is because in both methods, context and the role of the researcher must be taken into consideration. As a matter of fact, interviewing may be seen as a potentially very important source of data by allowing scholars to produce information
45
that would be impossible, or at least very difficult, to gain otherwise. (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 102–103, 109.) Anna Davidsson Bremborg is also of the opinion that qualitative interviews result in rich data. She argues that the structured form of an interview is even preferable because it maximizes “mutual ethical agreement for the conversational frame” (Davisson Bremborg 2011, 310–311).
According to James Spradley (1979), qualitative researchers make cultural inferences from three sources: what people say, the ways they act, and the artifacts they use. Taken together, these sources for him constitute “ethnography.” Yet, Carol Warren (2001) notes that the “cultural inferences” that the qualitative methods of ethnography and interviewing provide give us slightly different lenses onto the world: while the ethnographer’s lens is that of lived experiences set in an “eternal present,” the lens of the interview is that of what people say and mean, and its temporal range is biographical. (Warren 2001, 85.)
While participant observation and qualitative interviews provide us with different kinds of data, the question is not about their validity or invalidity but the conclusions which can be drawn (Hammersley & Atkinson 2007, 177). Drawing cultural inferences or conclusions from the data – either on the basis of interviews, participant observation, or both – is closely related to the task of qualitative research: describing and explaining the phenomena studied, and finally reaching an understanding of them through the process of interpretation. Feminist epistemology and the philosophy of science are interested in the ways in which
gender influences our conceptions of knowledge and the knowing subject, as well as
practices of analysis and validation (see King 1995, 19–20). Feminist epistemologies challenge the ultimate assumption of the fundamental organization of knowledge, its claims to universality, objectivity and value-neutral detachment. Accordingly, contemporary feminist thinking calls into question the assumption that it is possible to present one “correct,” non-biased and realistic interpretation.62 The assumption that a female scholar
could grasp the experimental world of the women she studies merely because she is a woman has also been contested (see Oyĕwùmí 1980).
Mary Jo Neitz (2011) names three different approaches to the basic epistemological and ontological questions underlying the production of knowledge in feminist research: feminist
empiricism, the feminist standpoint, and radical constructionism or postmodernism.
Feminist empiricism follows positivism and believes in the existence of a world outside of one’s personal experience. According to the postmodern or radical constructivist view, on the other hand, knowledge is socially constructed. (Neitz 2011, 55–56.) Of these positions, I find the feminist standpoint approach most useful for my research, as it takes different power relations into consideration.
Feminist standpoint epistemologies assert that all knowledge is partial and located – in other words, shaped – by an individual’s social and physical world. This means that, depending on their location, people have different access to various discourses and varying possibilities to understand or express their interests. It is also assumed that those in locations of relative power have an interest in maintaining their position. Feminist standpoint epistemologies thus offer tools to study power in more detail. This is because intersectional matrices of oppression are important today in theorizing location. (Neitz 2011, 54–55, 59, 61–63, 67.) Furthermore, the feminist standpoint argues that researchers cannot be neutral and objective when studying relations of power. The sensitivity to power relations also extends to the
62 Epistemological self-reflection has, for example, challenged the universal concepts of “gender” and “equality,” as well as binary oppositions such as “men/women” and “culture/nature” (see MacCormack & Strathern 1980).
46
research process itself. A key issue for researchers, then, is reflexivity about one’s subjects and one’s own interests. Understanding the research process as reflexive means seeing the researcher as part of the research process. (Neitz 2011, 54, 55, 60, 67.)
Fieldwork has been an important area in which feminists have tried to minimize or eliminate power differences between the researcher and the research subjects. According to Sandra Harding and Kathryn Norberg (2005), in fieldwork there are three contexts in which such questions arise. The first is that the researcher and the research subjects usually bring different kinds of power (class, race, gender, ethnicity, urban or rural background, etc.) to the research situation. Second, research processes themselves produce power differences when it comes to defining the research project and the relationships between the researchers and the research subjects during data collection processes. Finally, power differences are created when the research is written up and represented. (Harding & Norberg 2005, 2012.) The researcher can never become identical with the people she studies. Even if the interviewer and the respondent are both women, they do not necessarily share the same standpoint (Warren 2001, 95). Different standpoints and unbalanced power structures between me and my research subjects had various consequences for the research material. Charlene Makley (1999) noted that most Tibetans she interviewed, regardless of status, were wary of her tape recorder and refused to work with it. Makley first assumed that they refused due to fear of recrimination from authorities (e.g., if criticism of the state reached the wrong ears). However, she later realized that tape recorders were also associated with recording the words of people with religious authority. Thus, for an illiterate layman or woman to record his/her opinions about religion and ritual was potentially very embarrassing. (Makley 1999, 44.)
While none of my interviewees rejected the use of the tape recorder and it did not seem to have an effect on the topics they chose to talk about, some of the younger nuns in particular were brief when telling about their life. Most of the informants were inexperienced as research interviewees and many did not regard themselves as having the knowledge or authority to talk even about their own lives.
Anna Rastas (2010) writes about how certain unequal positions can also lead to some expectations toward the researcher on the part of the research subjects. Most of the expectations toward me were financial, but sometimes also political. A few times it also happened that the interviewee had her own visible “agenda,” according to which she constructed her story and, in fact, the whole interview. Once, for example, during the whole interview a young nun listed different illnesses that she and her family suffered from in order to receive a donation. Another time in India, a refugee nun asked me why the U.N. was not doing anything for the Tibetans and wondered if I could tell the “U.N. office” about the situation in her country. I found these requests justified, but I also had to convey that all I could probably do to help was to write their stories and let their voices be heard.63
In spite of the different standpoints and the apparent power hierarchy between me and the nuns, the hierarchical positions were not fixed or absolute. Many of the nuns saw themselves as my teacher: I was a novice who was learning about Buddhism, Tibetan culture and Tibetan language. I was someone who was asking them silly questions, but who could also from time to time surprise them with her knowledge and understanding of their religion and culture. While I shared a certain position with the Tibetan laywomen I interviewed, I also shared a certain independence with the nuns. I also shared with many of them an interest in studying
63 I donated a small sum of money to each of the nuns I interviewed. I also donated some money to the nunneries I visited.
47
and understanding Buddhism. Despite our different standpoints, it should also be noted that my inquiry is by no means value-free. First of all, I am sympathetic toward the plight that many Tibetans face under the Chinese rule. Second, I appreciate Tibetan Buddhism as an important and valuable worldview. And third, I am not indifferent toward oppression – be it based on gender, nationality or any other aspect – or the oppressed themselves.
In order to interpret and understand the oppression and opportunities of my informants, some epistemological issues thus need to be taken into account. The first concerns the nuns as agents, as well as the varying contexts and complexities of their socio-cultural realities. I believe that these aspects can best be addressed through “thick description,” in which the focus is on the different intersections of power. Second, these descriptions need to be linked to the processes by means of which they are produced. The ethnographer is the main research instrument of her study, and therefore the nature of the relationship between her and the research subjects is essential. (See Härkönen 2010b.)