EBRO F-PLAN DE ACCIONES

Allen and Walker (1992) argue that a key element of feminist theory is the abandonment of positivistic notions of ‘scientific objectivity’ in favour of an honest acceptance of the researcher as co-creator of their findings. This means the researcher needs to be honest about their own identity and the way it has shaped what they have found. It is therefore necessary to consider the question of whether men are capable of doing feminist research. At first glance, it seems obvious that they are, as they can contribute to the political objective of

improving women’s lives. However, those radical feminists who have suggested men can not or should not do feminist research mean something rather different (Stanley and Wise, 1983). They argue that any man, however well intentioned, cannot escape the patriarchal structures in our society; any encounter between a man and a woman, and particularly an interview, is bound to have inequalities of power which make it one-sided. Many feminists have argued that meetings between researchers and researched are likely to have imbalances of power anyway, and this is greatly increased when the researcher is a man and the researched are women (Bordieu 1999). Furthermore, they argue that a man can never properly empathise with the life experience of a woman and will therefore be unable to establish the necessary rapport in the interview. Thus he will be unable to get a full and honest picture of her life. However well-intentioned they may be, men lack ‘feminist consciousness’. Moreover, it has been suggested that, ideally, like should research like; research on vicar’s wives should be

carried out by a vicar’s wife (Arksey and Knight 1999, 13). It is argued that this will allow the interviewer a very similar consciousness to the interviewed, and minimise the power imbalance. (Reinharz and Chase 2002).

There are a number of objections to this position. Firstly, there is a major practical problem. If the principle of like researching like was applied, it would be very difficult to research women living on a low income. The research would have to be done not only by a woman, but a woman herself living on a low income, yet anyone receiving a research grant or an academic salary is unlikely

to be on a low income. Secondly, where the link between matching interviewers to interviewees and the quality of research data produced has been

investigated, no correlation has emerged (Padfield and Proctor 1996). Padfield and Proctor’s research into the issue of gender in the interview process found little difference in how women responded to male or female interviewers on non-sexual topics. The authors argue that what is important is the attitude of the interviewer, and a willingness on behalf of male interviewers to listen attentively and to develop rapport. This is supported by Kvale’s criteria for conducting high quality interviews, in which the interviewer’s sensitivity, knowledge and gentleness are seen as central to successful interviewing,

regardless of gender (Kvale 1996). Wiggan, another middle class man researching the lives of women in poverty, has even suggested that a different background may be a positive advantage, as it ‘enables interviewees to gauge the level of information they need to communicate…more accurately and enables [the interviewer] to use an ‘outsider’ position to draw out further detail from the information initially provided.’ (Wiggan 2005, 77-78). Thirdly, the exact opposite view to the ‘like researching like’ hypothesis comes from Liberation Theology (Boff 1985, Anouil 2002). Boff argues that the liberation of the oppressed only becomes possible when some of those from the oppressing group come to stand in solidarity alongside the oppressed. Liberation theologians, themselves mostly from highly-educated, middle class backgrounds, talk of ‘awakened

consciousness’ rather than ‘shared consciousness’. An awareness of oppressive structures and a willingness to reflect on one’s relationship to them leads to a challenging of both the structures and of self. Reviewing the literature which presents the experiences of people in poverty, it is clear then even when the voices of people from poverty (including women) are fore-grounded, essential support and editing has come from academics not of poor backgrounds (WBG 2005 and 2008, Bennett and Roberts 2004, Holman 1998, McKendrick et al 2003, ATD Fourth World 1991 and 2000).

It seems then that middle class men can do feminist research on lower income women. However, specific issues remain; it is important to consciously

acknowledge the researcher’s class background and gender and to have them in mind when actually conducting the interviews and when analysing data. As Morgan has put it:

‘Men … have to work against the grain – their grain – in order to free their work from sexism, to take gender into account. The male researcher needs, as it were, a small voice at his shoulder reminding him at each point that he is a man … the massive weight of the taken for granted … conspires with the researcher’s own gender to render silent what should be spoken’ (Morgan, 1990).

In this study my gender was balanced by the many things I had in common with the women I interviewed. I am living in the area where I conducted the research study. My household income puts me on a par with some of the women I

interviewed. I am married with two young children and my daughters attend the same nursery school as some of those in the interview sample. My family also share many of the same leisure activities and shopping facilities. Finally, in keeping with the traditions of feminist scholarship (Allen and Walker 1992) I should make my political position explicit; I consider myself both a feminist and an anti-poverty activist, and I have consciously made a life-long commitment to anti-poverty work, choosing to live in a highly-deprived council estate. All these factors certainly shaped both the methodological choices I made and the way the research was conducted, and these will be further reflected on in the next chapter.

5.7 Conclusion

A number of conclusions have been drawn which explain the choice of methods made for this study. The most suitable measure of material deprivation within the household has been shown to be an adaptation of the DWP third tier measure. Drawing on this, the income measure chosen for the study was the household’s weekly income expressed as a simple percentage of the median national household income, and a simple deprivation score was used to measure the material deprivation of different household members. The exact method of measurement is discussed in the next chapter and in Appendices Two and Three.

With the exception of the income and material deprivation measures, the approach chosen for this study was a qualitative one, in order to generate answers to ‘why?’ questions which were firmly rooted in the lived experience of the interviewees. The decision to gather more open-ended accounts of life on a low income as expressed by the interviewees themselves has been explained and

justified. Underpinning this approach to women’s lives were a number of key theoretical and methodological concepts. This study is firmly feminist in its orientation. Four features of ‘feminist methodology’ have been proposed, and, with some caveats, it has been shown that all four were incorporated into the study design. Underpinning the whole PhD was an attempt to unite a

methodology for investigating the lives of women with a methodology for investigating the lives of people in poverty. It has been argued that these two things should not be seen as separate when investigating the lives of women in lower income households, but that the methodological approach to both their womanhood and their material situation should be a seamless whole; a ‘feminist- anti-poverty approach’. It is on the basis of that approach that a more detailed explanation of the research design which was developed will be made in the next chapter.

Chapter Six

Conducting the Research 2)