How Does it Feel to be My Research Problem?: Moving Toward An Agenda for Restorative Validity

• In Event: Research as Restorative Practice: Reparative and Recognitive Approaches to Critical Participatory Inquiry

Abstract

In this paper, I reframe validity as a stance rooted in restoration and healing. Drawing on examples of critical participatory inquiry alongside Indigenous and racially minoritized groups, I demonstrate how research can be a means to reclaim and restore the humanity of researcher and researched alike, and the research process itself (Stanfield, 2006). This work honors and is founded in one of DuBois’ (1903) critical questions – “How does it feel to be a problem?” (p. 2) – where he asked Black Americans to consider their double consciousness. As a critical theorist, I reframe his question as “How does it feel to be my research problem?” – further questioning the methodological and axiological implications of the oppressive superstructures fortified in research. I imagine how it would be to pose this question to participants, asking how it feels to see their own worlds through researchers’ eyes: Their lives measured against neoliberal metrics and validated constructs, spurring intellectual debate but with little benefit in the way of peace, justice, or healing.
Inspired by the words of DuBois, I argue this socialization – i.e., of creating research problems – has created an environment where validity has historically been weaponized to shut down conversations that engage in the complexity and multiplicities behind the who and why of knowledge creation. I briefly trace the politicized history and genealogy of validity across paradigms (Guba & Lincoln, 1989; Huber, 1995; Messick, 1989), arriving at a series of models that draw on various interpretations of justice as they explore validity (Hopson, 2014; House, 1980; Lather, 1986; Stanfield, 1999, 2006).
In extending these justice-oriented interpretations, I begin with my own view, in which I go back to the etymological root, validus, derived from valeō, which means ‘I am strong’, ‘I am healthy’, ‘I am of worth’. After reviewing the theories behind the restorative validity agenda, I illustrate how our tacit theories and cultural knowledge systems were woven across disciplines – from methodology (primarily critical qualitative, mixed methods, and evaluation theories), critical pedagogy (culturally relevant and sustaining pedagogies), and peace, rights, and justice studies – to create an agenda that requires a (re)orientation toward relationships, justice, and liberation (Author, 2024). As I review these three research orientations, I cover how each is comprised of several themes, which were co-constructed through countless hours of discussion among our collective and a systematic literature review of academic and community-based resources. All this was done through a shared purpose: Disengaging from deficit-oriented inquiry masquerading as discovery/creation, while (re)imagining a space that seeks to reclaim and restore the humanity of researcher and researched alike. After this conceptual mapping, I will review a series of reflexive questions for those interested in addressing the potential and real harms in/from research. As points of reflection, I ask:
- When was the last time researcher and researched truly felt strong, healthy, or worthwhile (i.e., valid) as an outcome of a project?
- How can we reorient our inquiry toward restoration and healing, improving the strength and health of all those involved?

Author

• Giovanni P. Dazzo, University of Georgia