scholarly journals ‘If you Had Balls, You'd be One of Us!’ Doing Gendered Research: Methodological Reflections on Being a Female Academic Researcher in the Hyper-Masculine Subculture of ‘Football Hooliganism’

2012 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 67-79 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma Poulton
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Image Management ◽  
Presentation Of Self ◽  
Academic Researcher ◽  
Field Of Study ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
Female Researcher

This article reflects upon being a female academic researcher in the hyper-masculine subculture of ‘football hooliganism’. With this subculture being a male-dominated field of study, the article argues that gender blindness has prevailed in most studies conducted by male researchers, with a failure to consider the positioning, practices and performances of the gendered self in the gendered field. Nor has this been a consideration of the rare female researcher working on the phenomenon. This article breaks this gendered silence by drawing on my own fieldwork experiences with (‘retired’) football hooligans to identify the methodological challenges specifically (re)negotiated as a female academic throughout the gendered research process and offers some strategies and field tips to future researchers faced with gendered incongruence with their informers. The key concerns for me were: first, gaining access to a hyper-masculine subculture; second, entering and developing rapport within the subculture; and third, ‘doing gendered research’ in the hyper-masculine field. Central to negotiating these challenges was a very conscious and performative presentation of self, often for self-preservation, during the research process. In practice, this sometimes required demonstrating that I had the (metaphorical) ‘balls’ in terms of my (gendered) image management. The article argues for consideration of the performativity of social research with a need for wider disclosure of the complexities and ‘messiness’ of qualitative research practices and the emotional labour required.

Social Support and Motherhood

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann Oakley
Keyword(s):  
Social Support ◽  
Public Policy ◽  
Health Services ◽  
Social Science ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Academic Researcher ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Academic Knowledge

Drawing on vast experience as an academic researcher and writer, the author develops a sociology of the research process itself, telling the story of how a research project is undertaken and what happens during it, to both researchers and those who are researched. The book focuses on a topic of great importance in the provision of health services — caring and social support. Setting neglect of this topic in the wider context of an ongoing crisis in gendering knowledge, this book is now reissued for a contemporary audience. It has much resonance for social science researchers and others interested in the experiences of mothers, and in the relations between social research, academic knowledge and public policy.

Critical Approaches to Qualitative Research

2014 ◽  
pp. 164-178 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kum-Kum Bhavnani ◽  
Peter Chua ◽  
Dana Collins
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Ethnography ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Situated Knowledges ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter reflects on critical strategies in qualitative research. It examines the meanings and debates associated with the term “critical,” in particular, contrasting liberal and dialectical notions and practices in relation to social analysis and qualitative research. The chapter also explores how critical social research may be synonymous with critical ethnography in relation to issues of power, positionality, representation, and the production of situated knowledges. It uses Bhavnani’s framework to draw on Dana Collins’ research as a specific case to suggest how the notion of the “critical” relates to ethnographic research practices: ensuring feminist and queer accountability, resisting reinscription, and integrating lived experience.

“I’m Not a Musician, But…”: Negotiating the Research Process in Examining the Lives of Musicians

2014 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 80-93
Author(s):  
Michael Ramirez
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Life Course ◽  
Identity Politics ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Presentation Of Self ◽  
Future Studies ◽  
Research Tradition ◽  
Different Populations

Identity politics have been of considerable interest to the qualitative research tradition as researchers have speculated on the extent to which identity and positionality matter in the field. In this autoethnography, I analyze private writings I composed while studying musicians’ life course trajectories in musical careers, paying particular attention to the methodological implications of my fieldwork decisions. I concentrate on: 1) issues of access, 2) identity politics, and 3) the ethics of relationships in the field. I analyze the extent to which I negotiated several (sometimes conflicting) ways I presented my identity in different settings and among different populations. My presentation of self-strategies – sometimes intentional, other times haphazard – allowed me successful entrée to the music world, though I remained an outsider within. I conclude with methodological implications highlighting the ways researchers’ identities may influence the research process and suggestions for qualitative researchers to consider in future studies.

Qualitative Research in the Field of Popular Education

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Torres Carrillo
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Latin America ◽  
Qualitative Methodology ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Popular Education ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Critical Distance ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Research Strategies

Popular Education (PE) is an educational movement and pedagogical current that emerged in Latin America in the seventies. It was a result of Paulo Freire’s pedagogical proposals in a context of radicalization of popular struggle and cultural and intellectual movements. During the past five decades, hundreds of groups, practices and projects have identified themselves as part of the PE movement. As a pedagogical current, PE is understood as an educational perspective and practice, which is critical of institutionalized education and identifies with emancipatory political perspectives. Its purpose is to help populations that experience oppression or discrimination to strengthen their capacity to change their conditions, relationships, practices and ways of thinking and feeling by means of cultural, educational, dialogical, participatory, interactive and expressive practices. With respect to the history of PE in Latin America, its social contexts and educational practices, four stages can be identified: 1. The liberating pedagogy of Paulo Freire at the end of the sixties. 2. The foundational stage PE in the seventies. 3. The re-foundation and expansion of the PE in the eighties and nineties. 4. The reactivation of the EP in the current context. During these periods, a constant interest in PE has been producing knowledge from and about its contexts, themes and practices. From its origins, it has created and incorporated qualitative research strategies in coherence with its political and epistemological options. As evidenced in each historical phase of the PE, the use of a qualitative methodology predominated: thematic research in Freire’s pedagogical proposal; participatory action research (PAR) in its foundational stage; collective reconstruction of the history and critical ethnography in its expansion phase; systematization of practices since the 1990s; and the emergence of innovative and aesthetic strategies at the present century. A set of methodological principles derive from this historical path of qualitative research in PE: 1. Maintaining a critical distance from institutionalized research modes in the scientific world, acknowledging their subordination to hegemonic powers. 2. Assuming PE to be both critical and emancipatory. This option is identified with values, willpower, and projects that involve new meanings of the organization of collective life. 3. Recognizing the place of the cultural and the intersubjective, both in social phenomena and in social research processes. 4. Linking it to emancipatory organizational processes and collective actions. 5. Not subordinating it to the institutional logic of disciplinary research. 6. Promoting group and organization participation in research process decisions. 7. Ensuring that it promotes formation of knowledge collectives. 8. Maintaining a critical and creative use of the theory. 9. Recognizing the plurality of subjects and promoting a “dialogue of knowledge.” 10. Incorporating diverse cultural practices within communities in order to produce and communicate their knowledge. 11. Assuming methodology to be a flexible practice. 12. Assuming research within PE is a permanent practice of critical reflection.

scholarly journals Almost Confessional: Managing Emotions When Research Breaks Your Heart

2021 ◽  
pp. 136078042110367
Author(s):  
Kate Reed ◽  
Laura Towers
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Data Collection ◽  
Emotional Experience ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Social Scientists ◽  
Emotional Labour ◽  
Sibling Bereavement ◽  
Original Contribution ◽  
Shed Light

Social scientists have increasingly shown how qualitative research can be an emotional experience for researchers. Literature on this subject has tended to focus on the emotionally upsetting impact of data collection, often framing this as a form of emotional labour which can be managed by researchers adopting confessional style narratives throughout the research process. But what about the potentially life-affirming impacts of emotions in research? And what happens when confessional style narratives create, rather than dilute, emotional trauma? We use our experiences of conducting qualitative research on two very emotive topics – baby loss and sibling bereavement – to explore the role of emotions in research. We go beyond the predominant focus on doing research to shed light on emotions in the wider research process (from recruitment to impact). We will highlight the dual-edged nature of emotions in research, emphasising some of the more beneficial impacts. Drawing on the Weberian concept of Verstehen which focuses on the importance of understanding, we will also develop a more nuanced form of emotion management in this context. In doing so, we offer an original contribution to methodological discussions in this field, as well as to more conceptual debates on emotional labour.

Critical Approaches to Qualitative Research

2020 ◽  
pp. 242-262
Author(s):  
Kum-Kum Bhavnani ◽  
Peter Chua ◽  
Dana Collins
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Critical Ethnography ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Social Analysis ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Situated Knowledges ◽  
Critical Approaches ◽  
Critical Social

This chapter reflects on critical strategies in qualitative research. It examines the meanings and debates associated with the term critical, in particular, contrasting liberal and dialectical notions and practices in relation to social analysis and qualitative research. The chapter also explores how critical social research may be synonymous with critical ethnography in relation to issues of power, positionality, representation, and the production of situated knowledges. It uses Bhavnani’s framework to draw on Dana Collins’s research as a specific case to suggest how the notion of the critical relates to ethnographic research practices: ensuring feminist and queer accountability, resisting reinscription, and integrating lived experience.

Conducting Qualitative Research on Wife Abuse: Dealing with the Issue of Anxiety

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sevaste Chatzifotiou
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Design ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Wife Abuse ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Abused Women ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
Sensitive Group

Abused women are a very sensitive group with whom to conduct research. As such, researchers need to be aware of this inherent sensitivity and should design their research accordingly. The ethics of social research, the implications of conducting research on sensitive topics, the possible exposition of the participants to stressful moments for the sake of the interview are important issues to be taken under serious consideration by the researcher prior to undertaking the fieldwork. However, during the fieldwork the researcher might face issues which she had paid less attention to while designing the inquiry, namely issues of dealing with the anxiety that the interviews would expose on herself too. It is well recognised in the literature that the rights and safety of the participants must be of paramount importance to the researchers in every research project. Still, the researcher's ‘safety’ should not be underestimated or be given little attention. This paper, based on the experience of conducting research with abused women documents the issue of researcher's anxiety which was a salient issue throughout the study. Documenting the research process, from the research design through to issues which arose after the fieldwork, the paper draws attention on the issue of anxiety experienced by the researcher in various stages of the research, including prior, during and after leaving the field, and provides ways that these were dealt with.

scholarly journals ¿Artesanía o cazador tras la huella?. Reflexiones para el análisis cualitativo de datos

2018 ◽  
pp. 65
Author(s):  
Daniel San Martín Cantero
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Social Research ◽  
Research Process ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Object Of Study ◽  
And Training

En las ciencias sociales se generan debates metodológicos que contribuyen a las formas de comprender la investigación social. En este ensayo se discute el modo de entender el rol del investigador frente a la aproximación y análisis del objeto/sujeto de estudio. El objetivo es cuestionar el uso de la metáfora del investigador como artesano. Esta imagen aparece en los años 50 para explicar la creatividad que requiere el proceso de investigación y análisis cualitativo de datos. Sin embargo, la metáfora del artesano representa una aproximación deductiva del investigador al sujeto/objeto de estudio. Por el contrario, el análisis cualitativo está orientado por procedimientos inductivos. Entonces, se propone la metáfora del cazador tras la presa, como un recurso con consistencia paradigmática y epistemológica que aporta a la comprensión y formación en investigación cualitativa.Within the social sciences, methodological debates contribute to the understanding of social research. This paper discusses one way of understanding the role of the investigator in relation to the approach and analysis of the object/subject of study. The objective is to question the use of the researcher's metaphor as a craftsman. This image appears in the 1950s in order to explain the creativity required by the research process and qualitative data analysis. However, the artisan's metaphor represents a deductive approximation of the researcher to the subject/object of study. On the contrary, the qualitative analysis is oriented by inductive procedures. The metaphor of the hunter after the prey is then proposed as a resource with a paradigmatic and epistemological consistency that contributes to the understanding and training in the qualitative research.

Collective Fieldwork Interviews in the Classroom Without Walls

2013 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 356-380
Author(s):  
Daniel Makagon
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Experiential Pedagogy ◽  
Temporal And Spatial ◽  
Learning Focused

This article uses a course that meets from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. as a context to critically examine collective collaborative fieldwork as an experiential pedagogy that helps students better understand and practice qualitative fieldwork interviews. A collective interviewing experience can provide each student with practice and establish a situation for relatively sustained learning-focused dialogue and debate about interviewing ethics. With this context in mind, I critically examine how interviewing participants in a group scenario can help students understand spurned interview requests, the effects on researcher-participant relationships, and the alteration of temporal and spatial scenes in which interviews take shape as well as teach students about the important nuances of translation during interviews. Taken together, these four issues offer important ways to think about team-based fieldwork projects as an alternative to lone-ethnographer models of research practices that are foregrounded in qualitative research literature and in fieldwork-based courses.

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