The Possibilities in and out of Feminist Research as Reflexive Researchers

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

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of reflexivity in which graduate students were both participants and researchers in a Photovoice project. (Wang, 1999). Collaboration among fellow graduate students reinforces feminist epistemological underpinnings of the emancipatory intent of praxis-oriented research (Lather, 1991) and unearths the complexities of power, privilege, and bias through reflexivity as we continually reposition ourselves in a collaborative and a critical way. Feminist research particularly emphasizes the recognition of power and authority that occurs between the researcher and researched (Hesse-Biber, 2014). Additionally, knowledge is influenced by the “social conditions under which it is produced and that it is grounded in both the social location and the social biography of the observer and the observed” (Mann & Kelley, 1997, p. 392). Thus, reflexivity acknowledges these power structures and is exemplified through the processes in which students grappled with and furthered their commitment to social transformation through critical understanding of their own biases to understand the inter/intra-subjectivity in feminist methodology.

We draw upon standpoint theory (Naples, 2003) as embodied through social location and social experience, which is relative to the interrelational co-construction of community as a site to begin inquiry. This embodied social experience, “as a privileged site of knowledge about power and domination” (Hesse-Biber, 2014, p. 27) provides insight into the diversities and commonalities of lived experiences of women. Furthermore, we acknowledge Jaggar’s (1989) feminist standpoint framework in which a standpoint is different than women’s specific experiences or viewpoints, but rather is achieved as a result of a self-reflective analysis in conjunction with a specific social actors, groups, and locations. Finally, we invoke a systematized reflexivity building from an emancipatory social theory, with respect for the experiences of people in their daily lives in an attempt to illuminate these experiences and guard against theoretical obligations (Lather, 1991).

The multiple layers of data collected and analyzed provided a more profound understanding of the participants’ viewpoints, and thus exposed a vulnerability and reflexivity within the data that pushed our understandings as researchers and participants. We also emphasize two Bahktian concepts, answerability and chronotope, which enables us to consider our shared experience in a critical sense (Bahktin, 1981).

As participant researchers, we were able to experience the tension and contradictions between the personal relationships we had with the data and the commitment to explain the lives of our classmates while accurately portraying our own lives. The dialogue surrounding the multiple data points constantly shifted between roles and fostered a multi-layered, self-understanding that critically examined the constraints and intricacy of our research, which ultimately acknowledged how our value commitments impact both theoretical and empirical constructions (Lather, 2007).


The complex nature of the dual realities of participant/researcher and the essential nature of a systematized reflexivity that problematizes one’s preconceptions surrounding research (Lather, 1991) and relations of power and authority (Hesse-Biber, 2014). Our work confirms feminist methodology as “always moving, shifting, and changing in relation to the world both inside and outside of normalized contexts” (Childers, et al., 2013, p. 608).

Authors

• Alycia M. Elfreich, Indiana University - Indianapolis

• Zulfukar Ozdogan, Indiana University