Researcher as First Responder: The Methodology of Community and Care for/by Women of Color

• In Event: Methodologies of Resistance, Research of Care: Research as Healing Practice for/by Women of Color

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how the metaphor of researcher as first responder captures the relationship which extended beyond my study of the experiences of African immigrant girls with ethnic identity negotiation, moving me as researcher into the role of mentor. This paper pushes the field to consider the notion of community embedded within the South African concept, Ubuntu (the belonging to a greater whole), and its implications for the researcher-as-mentor.

Theoretical Framework
Traditional research practices encourage the concept of “research and run,” in which the relationship with the participant concludes with researcher acquisition of the data, but an endarkened feminist framework encourages the moving away from the traditional metaphor of “research as recipe” to a more useful research metaphor- research as a responsibility, answerable and obligated to the persons and communities being engaged in the inquiry (Dillard, 2000; 2006). An endarkened feminist framework raises an important question: “How does spirituality impact the frameworks we choose for examining African ascendant women’s lives?” The spiritual and epistemological stance of endarkened feminist epistemology is one in which the concept of individual well-being is predicated on the wholeness of the community (Dillard, 2006; Dillard & Okpalaoka, 2011).

Methods/Data Sources
As a methodology within qualitative inquiry because of its “use of stories as data” (Merriam, 2002), narrative research aided my investigation of how the girls made meaning of their experiences of ethnic identity construction. Participant narratives were gathered through personal and group interviews and participant journals. I made my personal narrative a part of the study by helping the girls make a connection between their experiences with ethnic identity negotiations and mine as an African immigrant researcher, mother, daughter, and scholar.

Results
Study results revealed that the researcher-participant role can be reconfigured in the continuing role of mentor-mentee. Mentoring as methodology rejects the detached position of the traditional researcher and engages the community in which the researcher works during and after the study. The study found that employing such methodology determines the questions we ask as researchers and what we do with the responses we get. An endarkened feminist view of the connections I made with the participants during and after the study directs our attention to “the powerful and omnipresent role of community” (Dillard & Okpalaoka, 2011, p.159) by placing community at the center of my work with the girls as evidenced everyday mundane tasks such as serving as college and career referee as well as more serious obligations like mourning the transition of a loved one.


Significance
The study challenges researchers to seek a “higher moral responsibility” (Dillard, 2006) that transcends our pursuit of career advancement, and which causes us to reach back and bring others alongside of us. The product of a research study is only beneficial to the extent that the researcher assumes a posture that is caring, engaging and committed to the community. Only then can the researcher and the community lay claim to the wholeness and belongingness to a greater whole that is inherent in Ubuntu-I am because we are.

Author

• Chinwe Linda Okpalaoka, The Ohio State University