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FEMINIST RESEARCH 37
respecting diversity of personal experience
(rooted, for example, in gender, race, ethnicity,
class, sexual preference)
challenging traditional views (e.g. the sociology
of knowledge).
Gender shapes research agendas, the choice of
topics and foci, the choice of data collection
techniques and the relationships between researchers
and researched. Several methodological
principles flow from a ‘rationale’ for feminist
research (Denzin 1989; Mies 1993; Haig
1997, 1999; De Laine 2000):
The replacement of quantitative, positivist, objective
research with qualitative, interpretive,
ethnographic reflexive research, as objectivity
in quantitative research is a smokescreen for
masculine interests and agendas.
Collaborative, collectivist research undertaken
by collectives – often of women – combining
researchers and researched in order to
break subject–object and hierarchical, nonreciprocal
relationships.
The appeal to alleged value-free, neutral, indifferent
and impartial research has to be replaced
by conscious, deliberate partiality – through
researchers identifying with participants.
The use of ideology-critical approaches and
paradigms for research.
The spectator theory or contemplative theory
of knowledge in which researchers research
from ivory towers has to be replaced by
a participatory approach – perhaps action
research – in which all participants (including
researchers) engage in the struggle for women’s
emancipation – a liberatory methodology.
The need to change the status quo is the
starting point for social research – if we want
to know something we change it. (Mies (1993)
cites the Chinese saying that if you want to
know a pear then you must chew it!).
The extended use of triangulation and multiple
methods (including visual techniques such as
video, photograph and film).
The use of linguistic techniques such as
conversational analysis.
The use of textual analysis such as deconstruction
of documents and texts about women.
The use of meta-analysis to synthesize findings
from individual studies (see Chapter 13).
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critical evaluation of them, including a critique
of question wording.
Edwards and Mauthner (2002: 15, 27) characterize
feminist research as that which concerns a
critique of dominatory and value-free research,
the surfacing and rejection of exploitative power
hierarchies between the researcher and the
participants, and the espousal of close – even
intimate – relationships between the researcher
and the researched. Positivist research is rejected as
per se oppressive (Gillies and Alldred 2002: 34) and
inherently unable to abide by its own principle of
objectivity; it is a flawed epistemology. Research,
and its underpinning epistemologies, are rooted
in, and inseparable from interests (Habermas
1972).
The move is towards ‘participatory action research’
in which empowerment and emancipation
are promoted and which is an involved and collaborative
process (e.g. De Laine 2000: 109 ff.).
Participation recognizes ‘power imbalances and
the need to engage oppressed people as agents of
their own change’ (Ezzy 2002: 44), while action
research recognizes the value of ‘using research
findings to inform intervention decisions’ (p. 44).
As De Laine (2000: 16) writes: the call is ‘for
more participation and less observation, of being
with and for the other, not looking at’, with
relations of reciprocity and equality rather than
impersonality, exploitation and power/status differentials
between researcher and participants.
The relationship between the researcher and
participant, De Laine argues, must break a
conventional patriarchy. The emphasis is on
partnerships between researchers and participants,
to the extent that researchers are themselves
participants rather than outsiders and the
participants shape the research process as coresearchers
(De Laine 2000: 107), defining the
problem, the methods, the data collection and
analysis, interpretation and dissemination. The
Chapter 1