El cuerpo del maestro: una perspectiva desde las tecnologías y el

The human experience is multifaceted. Gender roles and responsibilities, social markers, symbols of status, and even how gender is performed, varies between cultures, and can be modified over generations. Qualitative research is a means to unearth and explain social phenomena such as the social construction of gender. To do this, researchers decode the meaning and interpretation of words and circumstances within specific social and geographical contexts (Liamputtong, 2008). The intention is to gain an understanding of the situation from the perspective of those being studied (Liamputtong, 2008), which is often a marginalized community, for example young women in sport (e.g., Brady, 2005; Chawansky, 2011; Hayhurst, 2011, 2013; Meier, 2005; Saavedra, 2009).

My project was qualitative for two reasons. First, the research design was based on similar projects where the researcher explored social change through sport (Brady et al., 2007; Brady and Banu Khan, 2002; Forde, 2009; Hayhurst, 2011; Jeanes, 2013; Spaaij, 2011, 2013). Second, I drew from Yin’s (2009) case study design, because in his argument, a qualitative design is appropriate if the researcher seeks empirical findings, the location of the research is a natural setting, and the topic being researched concerns a phenomenon occurring congruently with contemporary events. Through the “subjects' own perceptions” I strove to analyze a social shift in gender relations that coincided with the program offered by the local SDP organization (Kvale and Brinkman, 2009, p. 2).

Despite progress in anthropology and sociology demonstrating the importance of qualitative research (e.g., works by Zora Neale Hurston and Erving Goffman), this

research methodology is questioned and criticized for researcher subjectivity (Denzin and Lincoln, 2011; Liamputtong, 2009; Madden, 2010). The researcher’s role is complex as their motivation and vision “is inevitably shaped by our theoretical climate, the people and questions that interest us, and our own experiences, predispositions and foibles” (Madden, 2017, p. 93). The researcher takes a great deal of time preparing for the research and makes sacrifices in her or his own life to become immersed in another community; they are to demarcate invisible boundaries and maintain reflexive journals to prevent “going native” and bias. The position of the ethnographer is contradictory (Dweyer and Buckle, 2009). We are to find belonging in the community being researched in order to record and represent voices of the people being researched, thus “violat[ing] the canons of positivist research [to] become intimately involved with the people we study” (Bourgois, 2003, p. 13). We are also to be unbiased critics of said community.

An adaptable and committed researcher is indispensable in the process of making sense of the complexity of the human experience. For example, in In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in the Barrio, ethnographer Bourgois (2003) describes the social and economic dependency of the Latino and African American communities on illegal drug sales in East Harlem. His work demonstrates the critical nature of qualitative research, particularly as 20 to 40 percent of men within these communities are unrecorded by the government census (Bourgois, 2003). Without a qualitative approach, these men’s stories would be unheard and the realities of their social situations unknown. Along a similar vein, the author of Chasing the Scream (Hari, 2015) applied ethnographic methods to explain the language and racist tactics that sold draconian drug policy to the American public. These are two examples of how statistics and numbers alone are insufficient

measures to answer questions of extent, meaning, and significance (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2010).

In their texts, both authors exposed the importance of context and human emotion, critical elements for understanding the internal logic of social systems. They did so by living among or working closely with the ostracized. Experiencing everyday mundane interactions and putting faces to statistics allow us to move beyond stereotypes. Moreover, social class, race and gender are entangled. Navigating their meaning and interrelation necessitates a strategy of immersion; one that requires the researcher to be a part of the daily routine of those being researched (Brewer, 2000; Yin, 2009).

Through interaction and reflection, the researcher becomes the research tool and intermediary (Pachirat, 2009). They develop an explanation of the processes that led to the situation under investigation from the people who are “silenced, othered, and marginalized by the dominant social order,” and then translate these findings into themes, stories, and theories for a broader audience (Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2005, p. 28; Liamputtong, 2009). Qualitative research then becomes imperative for policy creation and for a more reasonable documentation of human history. Omitting qualitative research is to recognize our world as monolithic; it further separates the privileged voices from an already pervasively voiceless population.

Like the literature addressed above, fear, stigma, and access were common issues in my project. I questioned if young women’s participation in sports programs located in disadvantaged communities could transform gender relations. I sought voices of marginalized Colombians; many of whom were internally displaced by conflict. I wanted to know what gender means to people who have always lived in a society where men and

women tolerate and reinforce gender discrimination and what it means for young women in this society to participate in a physical activity or sport. To know this, I needed to immerse myself—to physically and emotionally be there—to laugh and play, to feel fear and discomfort, to read people’s expressions and listen to their words, said and unsaid. To understand the puzzle pieces, how they fit together, and the series of images that the puzzle belongs to, I needed to go to Colombia.

Colombia continues to combat a stigmatized reputation internationally. To conduct six months of ethnographic research in Colombia, I had to wholeheartedly invest myself. I became dogmatic in this pursuit: I fought my university’s ethics committee; in Australia, I hired and personally paid a Colombian tutor to teach me colloquial Spanish; and once in Colombia, I spent one month living with a Colombian family. Beyond personal investment, I needed willing and open interview participants.45