Leadership without “the led”: a case study of the South Wales Valleys

PurposeThis paper aims to disrupt assumptions about leadership by arguing those who are ostensibly “followers” may be utterly insouciant towards the existence of people categorised as “leaders”. It contributes to anti-leadership theories.Design/methodology/approachThis article uses an immersive, highly reflexive methodology to explore subjective meanings of leadership at community levels ostensibly governed by local government leaders. It uses a case study of the South Wales Valleys, one of the hubs of the Industrial Revolution in the 19th century but now economically deprived.FindingsThrough drawing on their rich and complex history, the author shows how in these communities there is a culture of neo-communitarianism that is anti-leadership and suspicious of attempts to establish hierarchies of superior over inferior. The author explores the complex webs of meaning through which ancient experiences reverberate like dead metaphors, informing contemporary understandings without conscious awareness of such a heritage. This is a history in which “leaders” betrayed or oppressed and exploited the population, which in response turned against hierarchies and evolved practices of self-government that continue today, invisible and unrepresentable within the wider culture.Research limitations/implicationsThe study draws on contemporary feminist research methods that emphasise subjectivity, flux and change. These are often not understood by readers not accustomed to stepping out of a positivist onto-epistemological frame.Practical implicationsThe paper challenges the universalising tendencies of leadership theories that assume a shapeless mass; “followers” await the advent of a leader before they can become agentive.Social implicationsThe paper offers insights into a day-to-day world that is rarely explored.Originality/valueThe article demonstrates how emerging forms of qualitative research give insights into communities that undermine dominant, universalising theories of leadership, followership and government more generally.

She Embodied: A Materialized Collective

This collaboratively written piece materializes the collective experiences of 14 students and an instructor in a graduate-level feminist research methods class in the United States. Instead of writing a traditional seminar paper, the class decided to continue our weekly discussions, during which we wrestled with both theory and practice, in text in a final paper. It just seemed like the best way to end our time together. In so doing, the she embodied collective furthers feminist writing practices that embrace uneasy collectives of varying viewpoints. This particular collective acknowledges our she, but recognizes, listens to, and celebrates all the powerful pronouns that create a collective. The collective offers a brief introduction and lengthy appendix to situate the piece. We do not adhere to a singular feminism in the piece. Consequently, our collective is a way of doing unity differently, of attending to and residing with the frictional thought within feminisms and finding that frictional thought as generative. We invite readers to join our collective, to think together across differences without reducing those differences to similarities.

Researching Home-Based Technical and Professional Communication: Emerging Structures and Methods

With the massive shift to remote work, what does researching home-based workplace writing look like? We argue that the collapse of traditional work–life boundaries might allow for a renaissance of feminist research methods in technical and professional communication, specifically because the home is a domestic space largely associated with women. Inspired by methodologies like apparent feminism and examinations of positionality, privilege, and power, the authors suggest three research methods that help capture the intricacies of blurred personal and professional lives: time-use diaries, embodied sensemaking, and participatory data collection and coding. These methods seek to illuminate the invisible work of women, as well as the diversity and range of experiences of home-based workplace communicators.

Situating Native American Studies and Red Feminisms

This essay aims to show that serious and robust engagement with Native American Studies and Red feminist research, methods, and theories contribute to the epistemological core of Ethnic Studies and produce new and important understandings of phenomenology, resistance, coloniality, and structures. Native American Studies and Red feminism are situated in relationship to Ethnic Studies and Feminist Studies to question the ongoing necessity of Native American scholars to occupy academic spaces. Ultimately, this paper illustrates how Native American Studies and Red feminism offer inroads to understanding the matrix of coloniality and the systematic efforts of Native American scholars, including Red feminists, to arrive at an Ethnic Studies that works for the people and serves in efforts to achieve social justice and Native American sovereignty simultaneously.

Complex Accountabilities: Deconstructing “the Community” and Engaging Indigenous Feminist Research Methods

Scholars have focused significant attention on the need for relational conceptions of “accountability” as alternatives to Western modes of knowledge production. This article suggests that conceptualizing accountability through the normative frame of the “community” can narrow the breadth of possible ways of realizing ethical and accountable research relationships and that critical analytical strategies to help ensure researcher accountability to diverse perspectives and experiences within Indigenous communities also demand our attention. The need for research to be driven by and for Indigenous communities has been emphasized, yet within colonial heteropatriarchy, deference to collective units has historically functioned to homogenize and/or erase the knowledge and experience of Indigenous women, girls, and GLBTQ2 peoples. Researchers and academics have the potential to either challenge or reproduce these tendencies in our own works; thus, a decolonial research and activist agenda must be informed by a commitment to address patriarchal and heteronormative structures both internal and external to Indigenous communities. To this end, I propose a turn to Indigenous feminist methodologies as a means of informing broader notions of responsibility and accountability.

Perinatal mental health of young women

This article stems from research conducted with four pregnant women and four health professionals. Feminist research methods using semi-structured qualitative interviews explored experiences of mental health support and education provided during the perinatal stage. This article outlines the themes the pregnant women identified as significant to their mental health during pregnancy then concludes with the researcher’s analysis of these areas. These themes highlight areas of perinatal care and social work practice that can impact the health of the mother, and therefore the child, in a preventative manner.

Teaching Feminist Research Methods: Evidence-Based Teaching

What are Feminist research methods and how are they different from other, non-Feminist research methods? This presentation begins by interrogating the question of how research methods become labeled as Feminist. Building on this knowledge, we detail how this investigation guided our implementation of a new Feminist Research Methods course. The evaluation [research] of this course yielded information regarding the deeply ingrained connection students have between certain research methods and Feminist practice, despite completing a course that explicitly argued for the application of the label "Feminist" to any research rooted in Feminist theory or practices, regardless of the methodologies employed. Additionally, the evaluation [research] we performed of the first offering of this course has allowed us to revise the course based on evidence, not just "hunches," in ways that improve the student experience as well as identify some of the structural and pedagogical challenges when teaching Feminist research methods.