RESEARCH METHOD COHEN ok

40 THE NATURE OF INQUIRY
central, role in initiating, facilitating, crystallizing
and developing the meanings involved in, or
stemming from, the research, i.e. the researcher
is the one exercising power and influence.
Ezzy (2002: 44) reports that, just as there is
no single feminist methodology, both quantitative
and qualitative methods are entirely legitimate.
Indeed, Kelly (1978) argues that a feminist
commitment should enter research at the stages of
formulating the research topic and interpreting the
results, but it should be left out during the stages
of data collection and conduct of the research.
Thapar-Björkert and Henry (2004) indicate
that the researcher being an outsider might bring
more advantages than if she were an insider. For
example, being a white female researching nonwhite
females may not be a handicap, as many
non-white women might disclose information to
white women that they would not disclose to a
non-white person. Similarly, having interviewers
and interviewees of the same racial and ethnic
background does not mean that non-hierarchical
relationships will still not be present. They also
report that the categories of ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’
were much more fuzzy than exclusive. Researchers
are both ‘subject’ and ‘object’, and those being
researched are both ‘observed’ and ‘observers’.
De Laine (2000: 110) suggests that there
is a division among feminists between those
who advocate closeness in relationships between
researchers and subjects – a human researching
fellow humans – and those who advocate
‘respectful distance’ between researchers and those
being studied. Close relationships may turn into
quasi-therapeutic situations rather than research
(Duncombe and Jessop 2002: 111), yet it may
be important to establish closeness in reaching
deeper issues. Further, one has to question how far
close relationships lead to reciprocal and mutual
disclosure (p. 120). The debate is open: should the
researcher share, be close and be prepared for more
intimate social relations – a ‘feminist ethic of care’
(p. 111) – or keep those cool, outsider relations
which might objectify those being researched It
is a moral as well as a methodological matter.
The issue runs deep: the suggestion is that
emotions and feelings are integral to the research,
rather than to be built out of the research
in the interests of objectivity (Edwards and
Mauthner 2002: 19). Emotions should not be
seen as disruptive of research or as irrelevant
(De Laine 2000: 151–2), but central to it,
just as they are central to human life. Indeed
emotional responses are essential in establishing
the veracity of inquiries and data, and the
‘feminist communitarian model’ which De Laine
(2000: 212–13) outlines values connectedness
at several levels: emotions, emotionality and
personal expressiveness, empathy. The egalitarian
feminism that De Laine (2000: 108) and others
advocate suggests a community of insiders in the
same culture, in which empathy, reciprocity and
egalitarianism are hallmarks.
Swantz (1996: 134) argues that there may be
some self-deception by the researcher in adopting
a dual role as a researcher and one who shares
the situation and interests of the participants.
She questions the extent to which the researcher
may be able to be genuinely involved with the
participants in other than a peripheral way and
whether, simply because the researcher may have
‘superior knowledge’, a covert power differential
may exist. De Laine (2000: 114) suggests that such
superior knowledge may stem from the researcher’s
own background in anthropology or ethnography,
or simply more education. The primary purpose
of the researcher is research, and that is different
from the primary purpose of the participants.
Further, the researcher’s desire for identification
and solidarity with her research subjects may be
pious but unrealistic optimism, not least because
she may not share the same race, ethnicity,
background, life chances, experiences or colour
as those being researched. Indeed Gillies and
Alldred (2002: 39–40) raise the question of how
far researchers can, or should, try to represent
groups to which they themselves do not belong,
not least those groups without power or voice,
as this, itself, is a form of colonization and
oppression. Affinity, they argue (p. 40), is no
authoritative basis for representative research.
Even the notion of affinity becomes suspect when
it overlooks, or underplays, the significance of
difference, thereby homogenizing groups and their