Being in Relation: Blurred Boundaries Between Mothering and Researching

• In Event: Moscone Center North Roundtable Session 11
  In Roundtable Session: Probing the Paradox: Illuminating the Ecology of Education Through Portraiture

Abstract

In any research relationship, tensions and contradictions are woven together with points of connection, convergence, and understanding. Portraiture reminds us that these relationships are central to the research endeavor, and that as scholars, we owe it to ourselves, our participants, and readers of our research to make transparent how these relationships are entered into, nurtured over time, and eventually, exited from (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 2012; Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). Yet published descriptions of methods and data collection often gloss over the nuanced, complicated decisions researchers make as we explore the phenomenological perspectives of our participants and probe the social, political, and cultural contexts of their worlds. Drawing from the first six months of fieldwork for a study on immigrant mothers, belonging, and schools, this component of the session will illuminate the often porous line between research and family life (Brown & Dreby, 2013).

Through this presentation, I strive to deepen conversations about relationships with participants in educational research in general, focusing in particular on how shared identities as mothers can engender moments of care and empathy while also highlighting divergent experiences of privilege, oppression, and power. I work to reveal the complexities of developing meaningful, ethical relationships as women and mothers, drawing on feminist scholarship that emphasizes blurred boundaries, counternarratives, and intersectional identities (Anzaldúa, 2012; hooks, 2008; Yuval-Davis, 2011). The project is ongoing, and in its early stages; I use data from weekly participant-observation of three school district programs for parents, interviews with ten mothers as of this writing, and observation at two schools serving many of the district’s immigrant families.

By sharing brief narratives from and about my research, I will probe the complications and benefits of doing research in a community one is enmeshed in and shine light on the shared experiences my participants and I have as mothers. I also investigate the stark racial, linguistic, economic, and legal status differences that profoundly shape our choices and identities. I find that portraiture’s emphasis on voices in dialogue and authenticity, rather than replicability, as a metric for validity are powerful tools for negotiating the complicated terrain of these relationships, especially when both researcher and participants are also deeply immersed in the work of motherhood in the same place. Another critical learning from this work is that place matters; the unique geographic, social, and political features of the city my participants and I call home provide an important context for the ways in which we engage each other and our work as mothers.

This presentation contributes to our methodological toolkit as researchers of the ecology of education by echoing portraiture’s call to find the universal in the particular (Lawrence-Lightfoot & Davis, 1997). In closely probing the particular dynamics of research relationships in my study with immigrant mothers, I hope other scholars will find useful reflections and refractions that can help us all more productively examine the blurred boundaries between our work as parents and family members and our work as researchers as we build relationships with our participants.

Author

• Sarah Bruhn, Harvard University