Researching Rural Lives With Reciprocity

• In Event: Conducting Educational Research Within and for Rural Communities: An Exploration of Research Methodologies

Abstract

Research has power to create, disseminate and maintain representations. Therefore we feel it is crucial that researchers reflect on their own knowledge production reciprocally with the participants and reflect critically on the broader theoretical, cultural, political, ideological, and narrative contexts of their intra-action. This is especially important in rural settings which often bear a marked stigma of being of a certain kind – whether remote and left behind (Corbett 2008; Markey et al. 2008; Rautio 2010) or idyllic and romanticized (Horton 2008; Hubbard 2005). To be able to approach rural lives as also diverse, open-ended and surprising calls for research approaches that focus on processes, contexts and relations.
We base our take on reciprocity on an ethical orientation that is often referred to as “relational ethics” and contradicted with ‘procedural ethics’ (Gildersleeve 2010, Rallis & Rossman 2010, Rossman & Rallis 2010). Relational ethics refers to a perspective of research ethics as inherently situational, moment-to-moment decisions. It is something ‘becoming’, never finished, never complete but ‘done’ in the everyday practice and relationship. Procedural ethics, instead, tend to focus more on following the correct ethical procedure, in which ethics are at times perceived as ticking off boxes rather than asking the difficult and continuous question “What is ethical practice in this instance with these people?” (Rallis & Rossman 2010). Often the ethical concern of acknowledging local participants’ perspectives in dialogical knowledge production is addressed with “member checks” (Rallis 2010). Relational ethics demands that these member checks are more than just a box ticked off at the end of the research, but that they are thoroughly integrated in the research process. – Thus, knowledge is produced reciprocally.

The paper frames the studies discussed from the key ethical insight that the reciprocity of these studies yield is grounded in the Deleuze-inspired ontology of being (existing) as becoming in relation and in intra-action with other beings and things (see especially Barad 2007, Lenz-Taguchi 2011).
Researcher’s emotions in the field and with research participants are increasingly recognized as a part of the research process, but they are still often seen as if external to the research (Davies 1999, Denzin & Lincoln 1998, Lumsden 2009, Mosselson 2010). They are not commonly discussed openly, and engaging with emotions still often carries an air of ‘unprofessionalism’ in research. This is especially the case with feelings of uncertainty. As a researcher, feeling uncertainty may be interpreted as a sign that the researcher does not know what she is doing. Our perspective is that insecurity is a healthy part of research. Humility is good for research. Moreover, researcher’s emotions, be what they may, are an integral part of the research, and reciprocity begins with acknowledging one’s own emotions. When constructing ethical and reciprocal approaches we first must recognize our own fears and insecurities in order to make sure that we do not act only on their account.

Authors

• Pauliina Rautio, University of Oulu

• Maija-Liisa Lanas, University of Oulu