Like the feminist ethnographer Patricia McNamara (2009:162), I cannot claim that from the outset of fieldwork I was committed to distinctly ‘giving women a voice’ through my research.
Yet, once I immersed myself in fieldwork and began to recognise the inequalities that women face about alcohol consumption; this was when I realised how important it was to prioritise women’s voice and experiences and produce a feminist ethnography informed by feminist
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epistemology, ontology, theories and ethical considerations which addresses sexist imbalances of masculine scholarship (Stacey, 1988).
From this point, I began to recognise that we should not only describe women’s lives but challenge how we might ‘know’ them (O’Reilly, 2009b). Judith Stacey (1988) suggests that there is often an implicit agreement that feminist research is conducted on, by and particularly for women. As became apparent in fieldwork, there was considerable inequality, gender power relations and oppression that women faced, and so I prioritised female experience based upon these outcomes where appropriate. Nonetheless, acknowledging both men and women’s experiences was appropriate because embedded within feminist ethnography are anti-oppressive principles and empowerment practices that coincide with the arguments set out in this thesis which suggests that all young drinkers regardless of sex face discrimination, marginalisation and oppression which a feminist ethnography has the capacity to respond to (McNamara, 2009). By drawing upon a range of both male and female experiences, this research can work towards the task of making sense of the lives of research participants and explore inequalities and oppression in relation to youth drinking cultures; not just to explain it, but to transform it (Abbott, Wallace and Tyler, 2005). Such attempts of this are evident in Chapter Five of this thesis, ‘Contesting the convergence of young men and women’s drinking cultures’ which identifies different gendered relations and experiences of young female and male drinkers.
Adopting a feminist ethnography also fitted with my grounded theoretical approach because as suggested by Stacey (1988:21), feminist research tends to “ground theory contextually in the concrete realm of women’s everyday lives by focusing upon experience and language”.
This is achieved by emphasising the experiential and contextual and interpersonal factors that serve to capture everyday reality and human agency. Skeggs (2001a:431) highlights that ethnographers should be cautious about defining what ‘experience’ means to the researcher.
Using her work, I believe that understanding experience comes from capturing feelings, emotions, the personal, personality and subjectivity in a contextually located time and space to explore how and where experiences come from. Whilst this study draws upon feminist theory to support the research findings, I did not conform to a specific feminist theoretical framework as this would contradict my grounded theoretical approach. Instead, I drew upon a range of feminist theories to support the findings to conceptualise youth drinking cultures that reflects both women and men’s interests and values by drawing upon their own interpretations of their own experiences.
As well as drawing upon feminist theory to support the findings of this research, I ensured that I adopted a range of feminist methods to conduct an authentic feminist ethnography. Drawing
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upon the work of Judith Stacey (1988) and Patricia McNamara (2009), I infer that a feminist ethnographic is informed by particular values that underpin its methods, including: a focus upon feelings, emotions and beliefs; developing experientially based knowledge; sharing empathy and intuition; and developing interactions and relationships with the researched.
These principles of feminist ethnography are aligned to my ambitions of achieving “reciprocity, honesty, accountability, responsibility, equality etc. in order to treat participants with respect”
(Skeggs, 2001a:433), characterised by authenticity, reciprocity and inter-subjectivity between the researcher and the research participants (Stacey, 1988).
As well as adopting particular feminist values and principles, the major canons of feminist ethnographic methods include: reflexivity, listening, voice and ethical considerations. I prioritised these throughout the research process and write up of this thesis. Skeggs (2001a) suggests that reflexivity and attention to gender is what makes an ethnography stand out as a feminist ethnography. Reflexivity entails the researcher being acutely and “constantly aware of how her values, attitudes and perceptions influence the research process, from the formulation of the research questions, through the data-collection stage, to the ways in which the data are analysed, explained and disseminated” (Abbott, Wallace and Tyler, 2005:369).
Therefore, I acknowledged that I, like the research participants, have biases, subjectivities and personal experiences which shape the research; which in turn has the capacity to shape the representation of those under study. As far as possible, I have remained transparent with myself and the research participants so that this could be reported, analysed and represented within this thesis.
To capture authentic voice Silverman (2011:420) states, “Listening to women’s voices and validating women’s experiences remain central to the feminist qualitative research enterprise.”
Subsequently, during fieldwork in public drinking settings and community spaces I could only attempt to listen to and capture women’s voices and observe their experiences in what were often patriarchal male dominated spaces. This coincides with McNamara’s (2009:173) assertion that “patriarchy and prejudice penetrate even the most carefully constructed feminist explorations of culture and subculture”. Therefore, where possible when interviewing research participants, I actively chose to interview male and female participants separately in their friendship groups so that more opportunity was given for both women and men to speak more openly about their drinking values and practices.
Regarding representation of the voices of research participants, Silverman (2011) suggests that there is a challenge in reconstructing women’s experiences that lie beneath and beyond the talk. This is supported by Stacey (1988) who argues that the researcher must be conscious of avoiding exploiting and distorting voices, particularly in the write up of research. To address
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this power relationship where the researcher is responsible for shaping and framing voice (Stacey, 1988), I employed many strategies including: using quotes verbatim, wrote contextually so that the voices and experiences of participants were not misplaced or extrapolated, and where possible, offered research participants opportunities to review extracts of writing so that they could provide critical input. These approaches were inspired by the work of Gemma Commane (2011) who applied such methods in her research of female sexual identity in burlesque, fetish and BDSM clubbing cultures, which required sensitivity towards female voice and experience. These approaches helped retain a commitment to ethics which is a central tenet of feminist research.
Despite being strong advocates of feminist ethnography, both Stacey (1988) and McNamara (2009) argue that the approach is not without its challenges. Stacey (1988:22) goes as far as to conclude that there cannot be a feminist ethnography because the ethical contradictions that feminist ethnographies present, “I find myself wondering whether the appearance of greater respect for and equality with research subjects in the ethnographic approach masks a deeper, more dangerous form of exploitation”. However, both Stacey (1988) and McNamara (2009) suggest that ethnographic studies can be enhanced through feminist perspectives and theory, and agree that the benefits of the principles, values and methods outweigh the costs of not adopting such approaches at all. These conflicts resonated with me because I regularly encountered a number of ethical contentions throughout fieldwork, data analysis and write up of this research which made me question at times my feminist perspective and ethical standpoint. Broadly, these contentions related to my relationships with the research participants, fieldwork processes and the representation of the participants and I in the dissemination of this thesis; all of which will be examined closely in the forthcoming sections of this chapter.
Despite the contentions that feminist ethnography presents, through a close collaboration with the research participants, I was in agreement with Stacey and McNamara that ethical controversies raised is worth the output of a study which presents a grounded presentation of youth drinking cultures informed by the everyday lived experiences of the research participants. This should make a positive difference to the lives of the research participants which is fundamental to feminist research (McNamara, 2009).
2.3.4. Producing an ethnography as an ‘intimate insider’ and friend to participants