The Ties That Bind: Interrupting Familial and Personal Performances of Whiteness

• In Event: The (Non)Invisible Researcher

Abstract

This paper describes my journey as a simultaneous researcher and research participant, examining the ways my extended family members and I perform, reproduce, interrupt, and transform whiteness. My research design is based upon grounded theory, inspired by the work of feminist and indigenous scholars, and utilizes my own cultural intuition. I use a modified, postmodern, feminist coding practice based upon oral storytelling. I literally let the voice of the data speak to me. By attentiveness to tone, pitch, breath, silences, and contextual noises, I contest the this oral method of coding is as legitimate as the coding of a paper transcript.

Author

• Veronica E. Bloomfield, Chapman University