Feminist Research in Dialogue

• In Event: 29.090 - Roundtable Session 9
  In Roundtable Session: 29.090-26 - (Fem)Powered!? Inquiry Together

Abstract

Purpose and Objectives
This paper focuses on the dialogic nature of feminist research. The purpose is to explore the problems of “reaching conclusions,” “claiming results” and “articulating findings” from a feminist research perspective. Korth (2002) argued that research can be an opportunity for consciousness-raising and this is one way in which dialogue, rather than results, continues the opportunities for change. As all researchers harbor social, political, religious, and cultural experiences involved in their interpretations of life, it is important to consider what it means to "have findings" in feminist research. Such outputs are only really perspectival engagements intended to be queried and contested, not taken up for granted. One of the most basic critical aspects of feminist inquiry is the refusal to take knowledge for granted, most particularly the knowledge it produces. A unique aspect of research that aligns itself with feminism is the engagement of participants in egalitarian collaboration so as to explore the experiences and effects of social life from a diversity of perspectives toward better understand one another. The idea of engaging what we learn through the process is not to STOP the process, but rather to perpetuate its dialogue so that a feminist-entered struggle involves careful, active listening which honors the narrative and visual elements of experiences. Through our "findings" we open the conversation rather than close it down. This paper will illustrate why conclusions are an inappropriate endpoint to feminist research. By sharing what we have found through our own collaborative research project, I will demonstrate the powerful conversation that is inspired and how the analysis process is influenced by this goal.

Perspectives and Theoretical Framework
Our work draws on feminist theory as challenged by women of color and queer theorists (Hesse-Biber, 2014). This framework is critical in orientation and requires researchers to ask “whose knowledge?” “For what purpose?” “At whose expense?” This particular paper both draws on and interrogates a feminist theoretical framework.

Methods, Techniques and Modes of Inquiry
Using a qualitative collaborative approach, the paper emerges as a reflection on the initial “findings” articulated as class engaged in collecting and analyzing data related to questions of the meaning and influences of “feminism” and “patriarchy in our own experiences.”

Dialogue Points
To exemplify the argument made in the paper, the authors will discuss dialogue points raised through the analysis and demonstrate how this approach differs from “drawing conclusions.” The controversies of a fluid conceptualization of inquiry and knowledge will be explored.

Scholarly Significance
Researchers have long talked about the significance of their work on the ground and, also, have discussed how scholarly significance should be conceptualized with answers ranging from using external validity as a criteria of significance to Lather’s idea of “catalytic validity”. Instead of reporting on the scholarly significance of the argument, made in the paper, the authors will address the problems of the idea of “scholarly significance” in its demand for the production and evaluation of “results” and “conclusions.”

Authors

• Melissa McNabb, Indiana University - Bloomington

• Barbara Dennis, Indiana University