4. Las políticas internas de conciliación y corresponsabilidad en el contexto
4.2. Un recordatorio del marco normativo vigente
As mentioned in Chapter 1, one of the main aims of my study was to understand the process of gender identity and gender relations formation through different means of learning, and their impact on the incidence of gender-based abuse in the case study setting. In seeking answers to my questions I had to consider whether and how social reality can be understood by the researcher and the researched; why some concepts/beliefs about gender and sexuality have more important implications than others; how people make sense of their experience, and how to understand it; and how power influences the research process and knowledge production. Posing these questions had further implications for the entire research process, including the design, methods, ethics, and data analysis. Central to these considerations were some of the issues posed by the participation of young people in research. The feminist research approach and its underpinning epistemologies guided me throughout the study. I begin this section by considering some of the important debates and different strands regarding the feminist approach among scholars, and then look specifically at the implications of the feminist approach for my research.
Feminist research methodology differs from traditional research in the following ways: it is not value-free – it actively seeks to remove the power imbalance between researcher and subject and “the view from above must be replaced with the view from below” (Mies, 1993: 13): this further implies that the research becomes a process of conscientization.36 The researcher is politically motivated and has a major role in changing social inequality (Eichler, 1997). In other words, feminist scholars call for research methods that challenge “the dualities between theory and ‘praxis’, researcher and researched, subject and object” (Richardson, 1997: 55).37 Thus feminist methodology is informed by feminist epistemology; in particular, who can be agents of knowledge, what can be known and how knowledge is validated, and feminist ontology; the relationship between knowing and being (Landman, 2006).
36 ‘Conscientization’ refers to learning to perceive social, political, and economic contradictions, and taking action against
the oppressive elements of reality (Freire, 1970:15).
Because feminist methodology is particularly concerned with how, or whether, knowledge produced about social life can be connected with the social realities of women, feminist researchers challenge conventional social science research approaches and make a plea for the use of new procedures. They reveal serious problems with assumptions about scientific methods: for example, they argue that quantitative research models are biased because they present distorted knowledge of the world. Eichler’s (1991) critique of the masculine positivist social science model, for example, is based on her identification of several issues that embody gender insensitivity, androcentricity, double standards and sex appropriation. Eichler further maintains that social science ignores the reality of women’s lives and that knowledge is reflected with a specific orientation in mind: that of men, and more specifically, of white, middle-class heterosexual men. While feminism challenges traditional social science research, it supports its arguments by recognizing that patriarchal values and beliefs in our social world shape both the construction and the definition of how research is carried out and knowledge is determined.In this way the male bias determines the approach to how and why research is done and shapes the interpretation of data.
While many feminist scholars reject quantitative research in favour of a qualitative approach, Harding (1987) argues that it is not the method that makes feminist research different from what she calls ‘traditional’ or ‘malestream’ research, but rather the alternative origin of the problems, which concern women in particular, recognizing the researcher as part of the research process and acknowledging that the beliefs of the researcher shape the research. She further argues that the alternative hypotheses and evidence applied to the purpose of the inquiry, which is to understand women’s view of the world and assist in their emancipation, is what makes feminist research feminist. In Chapter 1, I similarly suggested that what makes the feminist approach uniquely feminist are the motives, concerns and knowledge brought to the research process. Feminist research entails ongoing reflection on self, process and representation, critically examining power relations and politics in the research process, as well as researcher accountability in data collection and interpretation.
A feminist approach, then, provides not only a method but also a specific perspective on the conduct of research. According to Reinharz (1992), feminists use the entire range of methods employed by other social researchers but they modify them, innovating and improvising in order to create projects responsive to the principles, insights and challenges of feminism. Though Reinharz (ibid) argues that feminist research methods differ from traditional
56 approaches, she fails to address Harding’s (1987) point about the theoretical underpinnings and epistemologies that are implicated in specific methods. Suggesting that “feminists must be flexible enough to adapt their methods to the needs of each individual research situation”, Klein argues that this ability to be flexible is “one of our powers to bring about change” (1983: 96). Following Harding’s (1987) and Klein’s (1983) ideas, I want to emphasise that methodology cannot be reduced to the issue of technique: there is a vast area beyond that needs to be explored. Decisions about the specific methods one chooses and how one employs these methods depend greatly on one’s epistemological stance.
At this point in the discussion it is useful to explore some of the main perspectives that methodologies applied in feminist research strive to incorporate. As I go on to examine other methodological paradigms employed in my research it will become apparent that they share some common characteristics. In identifying those aspects I use Shields and Dervin’s (1993) summary of the following factors: experience, gender, emancipation and reflexivity.
As I have explained above, feminist research rejecting positivism is based on women’s
experience of their social and personal world; it treats women’s experience “as a scientific
resource” (Harding, 1987). It is actor-centred; feminist scholars can bring their own subjective experience to the project researched. Jackson (2006) observes that feminist research does not only encompass the experience of women: it also acknowledges the voices of the powerless, vulnerable and silenced, such as young people and children. In my own case, adopting a feminist approach to my research helped me to recognise and involve young people as experts and authorities on their own experience. From the outset I was genuinely concerned with the lives of girls and boys and with the socio-cultural structures and processes that affect their everyday experience. Including the participants’ perspectives and voices in all aspects of the research process can be achieved through a participatory approach. Later in this chapter I discuss the aims and assumptions behind participatory research and the participatory aspects I draw on in this study.
Another perspective that feminist research recognises is that of gender and gender relations as social constructions. In my search for the right methodology, the feminist approach was appealing as it aims to illuminate the fact that human experience is gendered and to analyse the role and meaning of gender in women’s lives and in society (see Chapter 4 for different approaches to gender and gender relations in the case study community).
In their quest “to seriously and self-reflexively “deconstruct” our practices so that we can “reconstruct” them with fewer negative consequences” (Richardson, 1997: 118), feminist researchers have striven to develop innovative methodological approaches. Reflexivity, or reflective practice,38 according to Ramazanoğlu and Holland (2002), is a practice of recording the narrator’s life and the act of self-interpretation by the researcher that are parallel because both are the products of persons reflecting one another and thereby influencing and changing one another. From the late 1960s reflexivity emerged as a central concern as anthropologists began to question their powerful position as ethnographers representing other people’s lives. This was partly the consequence of post-colonial understanding of earlier anthropologists’ neglect of the outcomes of colonialism, both on the people they had studied and on the process of research itself. It was also an ethical concern because anthropologists may have played a part in perpetuating colonial oppression. Post-modernism brought a general questioning of ethnographic practice and the validity of anthropologists’ representations of the researched (Caplan, 1986). As a result some anthropologists began to be more reflective when producing ethnographic texts in order to give space to those being studied (see for example, Fabian, 1996).
In my case, reflective practice was a helpful method of finding the right and more creative methodological procedures when addressing particularly difficult questions. In other words, feminist research places the researcher on the same plane as the researched – the self- reflective process is an essential outcome of emancipatory research, as I discuss later. Reflective practice attempts to “make explicit the power relations and the exercise of power in the research process” (Ramazanoğlu and Holland, 2002: 118). An extended period of fieldwork paved the way for my interest in reflective practice. Drawing on the feminist approach I had to openly and honestly recognize my “conceptual baggage” (Kirby and McKenna, 1989: 32) and consider the implications of power in the research process. Reflective practice also encourages other voices to question the researcher’s knowledge and notion of power. As I go on to discuss, power relations in the field are complex and the researcher is not always the ‘powerful’ one. Through reciprocal sharing of knowledge, participants become collaborators in the research project and different possible interpretations of knowledge are made possible, as I observed in my research. In my effort to deal with power relations I maintained reflective practice that helped me to recognise how relationships
38 In my thesis I use the term ‘reflexivity’ and ‘reflective practice’ interchangeably: however, I find Naples’ (2003) use of the
58 in the field blur, and to address ethical dilemmas linked to these issues. In particular it helped me to deal with friendships; the motives and responsibilities they involved were not always straightforward. I recall being bewildered, challenged and at the same time fascinated by the sense of somehow being a totally different person as I worked with different groups of people. The different ways that people ‘saw’ me and treated me clearly altered the way I saw myself. In the second part of this chapter I describe some of the different roles I took on as well as those I was prescribed by different people in the field.
Adopting a reflective approach to the difficulties, practicalities and methods used in the data collection and its analysis was particularly effective. The reflective process facilitated openness and transparency about the choices I made and it made me consider the methodological, epistemological and political influences, contradictions, and complexities at all the stages of research (Naples, 2003). During my research I realised that reflective practice is not straightforward when it comes to data analysis. There is an assumption embodied in various data analysis methods that the researcher, the data and the method are separate entities rather than reflexively interconnected and interdependent. As I state in the second part of this chapter, reflective practice affects not only the research process and the role of the research but also the writing process itself.
However, the process of reflexivity is not exclusive to feminist research: it is also recognised by other research paradigms, notably ethnography. In ethnographic practice reflexivity is grounded in the idea that “social researchers are part of the social world they study” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007: 14). Reflective practice addresses the process and conventions of writing ethnography – I return to this when discussing the challenges and possibilities of reflexivity in ethnography.
Praxis: the aspect of ‘action’ in feminist research
In my research I draw on praxis,39 which the feminist approach shares with other action- oriented paradigms such as participatory research. Praxis, understood as ‘acting’/’action’ challenges the theory-practice relationship and raises problems associated with value-free science. Praxis not only removes the boundaries between theory, methodology and practice in the field (Lal, 1996): it also ensures the dialectical process of collective reflection and action (Israel et al., 1994; Kirby and McKenna, 1989). In doing so, praxis integrates theory and
39 The term ‘praxis’ originates from the Greek word ‘prasso’, meaning ‘doing’ and ‘acting’ in contrast with the theoretical
action so that each is informed by and changes through its relation with the other (Ristock and Pennell, 1996).
When planning my research I did not anticipate ‘action’40 as the consequence of the activities that I facilitated or I got involved in. In retrospect, I acknowledge that action can facilitate building knowledge to change the conditions of the powerless and vulnerable (Jackson, 2006) both individually and collectively. However, this is possible only through reconstructing the notion of power (see Chapter 4). In my research the aspect of action became a part of the methodological framework that enabled me to critically engage with and understand participants’ multiple perspectives. It led me to work toward inclusion, sharing, participation and action while confronting the underlying assumptions in the research process (Reid, 2004). I also recognise that praxis was the way for reflexive practice to involve a particular way of looking at the world and of thinking about the research and the participants. Considering the effect on my fieldwork and directly on the participants, however, action brought a number of challenges. I learned that action is a dynamic process that varies according to context: people’s social and cultural backgrounds as well as the political and economic situation, and also that action can take place on both the individual and the collective level. As I describe later, through action students were able to validate their experience and understanding of their lives (Gordon, 2001). It seemed that during the research process some of the young participants became conscious about certain issues concerning themselves and the world around. In this way action can be an integral part of reflective knowledge and can be conceptualised as speaking or attempting to speak to the participants. In the second part of this chapter I present some examples of the activities where action was initiated and discuss different forms of action that became a part of my research: curriculum development, policy, counselling and activism, which I initiated or became a part of throughout the fieldwork.
As discussed above, one of the most important strengths of the feminist approach to research is its ability to make researchers think differently, and more critically and self-reflexively, about their theories, assumptions and practices. Reflective practice is also an attempt to make explicit the power relations and the exercise of power in the research process. I have also mentioned that reflective practice “opens up possibilities for negotiation over what knowledge claims are made, for whom and within what frame of reference” (Ramazanoğlu
60 and Holland, 2002: 119). In other words, it suggests that researchers need to become more critical of truth claims and more cautious about using certain categorisations and concepts in an essentialist way, including the central feminist concept of gender. In ethnography, reflexive practice “acknowledges that the orientations of researchers will be shaped by their socio-historical locations, including the values and interests that these locations confer upon them” (Hammersley and Atkinson, 2007:15). Many feminist scholars have identified ethnography as ideally suited to feminist research. In the following section I consider the possibilities and challenges inherent in ethnography.