Elsevier

Women's Studies International Forum

Volume 30, Issue 1, January–February 2007, Pages 70-80
Women's Studies International Forum

If the shoe fits: Authenticity, authority and agency feminist diasporic research

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2006.12.009Get rights and content

Sypnosis

In this article I argue that the centrality of the white, western, middle-class academic as a dominant model of feminist researcher poses considerable difficulties for researchers who are racially and ethnically marginalised within their ‘home’ communities. The ‘authority’ that I was expected to demonstrate as a western researcher, seemed surprisingly absent in many of my research encounters. My ‘authenticity’ as a westerner or non-westerner was challenged both at ‘home’ and in the ‘field’ making hybridity and hyphenated identity a compelling option. My abilities to exercise agency in the research process were complicated by my attempts to fill the shoes of a feminist researcher that did not reflect my different social and institutional positioning. I argue that diasporic researchers might be better prepared for research by acknowledging the ways in which they are academically positioned both at the centre and at the margins, at ‘home’ and in the ‘field’. In addition, training and preparation that recognises difference and acknowledges multiple positionalities contributes to a politicisation of ‘race’ and ethnicity in the context of not only university spaces, but feminist communities.

Introduction

The subject of ethnographic fieldwork has for some time now been under critical review by scholars in anthropology, sociology and geography (to name just a few disciplines), and continues to provide opportunities for discussion and academic scholarship. One of the principal areas discussed across the various disciplines is that of power relations between researchers and participants. Within this body of literature, feminist researchers have made a significant contribution, examining power as it pertains to research on, with, and by women and feminists (Bell et al., 1993, Di Leonardo, 1991, Fonow and Cook, 1991, Gluck and Patai, 1991, Golde, 1970, Personal Narratives Group, 1989, Reinharz, 1992, Roberts, 1990, Stanley and Wise, 1983, Wolf, 1996). Much of this writing has explored the shifting nature of power within the research relationship and how it is intimately tied to different positionalities and identities, such as gender, but also including class, sexuality and ‘race’ (Abu-Lughod, 1990, Acker et al., 1991, Kondo, 1986, Mies, 1991, Patai, 1991, Reinharz, 1992, Shostack, 1989, Stacey, 1991, Stanley and Wise, 1983).

But what dominant assumptions lie behind these particular conceptualisations of power, research and researchers? In the feminist methodological accounts, the researcher often appears as an all-powerful and ‘authoritative’ agent. Many of the accounts encourage scholars to ‘reflect on his or her own privilege’ based on an assumption that ‘most faculty come from middle- or upper-middle-class backgrounds and are still predominantly White’ (Kezar, 2003: 405–6). But which feminists are able to claim this privilege in research and under what conditions? This article addresses the difficulties that diasporic1 researchers, in particular, have in positioning themselves as ‘authentic’, authoritative agents in the field, especially when they find it difficult to make claims to ‘authentic’ places of ‘origin’ and ‘pure’ ethnic and racial identities (Henry, 2003). In this article, I draw on examples from my own research experiences as an Indo-Canadian woman conducting fieldwork in India. While white, middle-class researchers face many dilemmas of power in the field, diasporic researchers marginality within their ‘home’, may mean that they cannot necessarily inhabit positions of power comfortably or easily at home or in the field (Henry, 2003, Ladino, 2002, Sherif, 2001, Thapar-Björkert and Henry, 2004). I suggest that models of researchers as all-powerful are highly problematic in ethnographic border crossings and in the context of cultural, ethnic and racial marginalisation of diasporics in postcolonial settings. This is especially important when reflecting on methodological and fieldwork training for new and junior researchers.

In the first part of this article, I examine some of the key issues raised in the literature on methodology in regard to power, positionality and identity. Then, I document my methodological research training and preparation, demonstrating how my fieldwork ‘habitus’ was formed and shaped through a process of dialogue and, then, ‘on-the-ground’ experience (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992, Clifford, 1997). Additionally, I complicate particular conceptualisations of the researcher by examining issues of authenticity, authority and agency as they were contested and formed in the field. Finally, I suggest that the shoes of other researchers do not always fit diasporics appropriately and that methodological training needs to incorporate models of researchers which are inclusive and flexible.

Section snippets

Methodological literature

Returning the gaze in qualitative methodology has often meant the examination of the ethnographic ‘self’ in the design and implementation of research projects (Caplan, 1993, Clifford, 1986, Coffey, 1999, Narayan, 1993). Introspection by researchers has often led to a focus on differences between researchers and participants and thus one of the key issues frequently discussed within the feminist literature is a concern with the power relations between research participants and researcher; in

Training and preparation

‘Pedagogy that includes an engagement with theory, fieldwork methodology, and ethics has the potential to foster the production of academic knowledge that is aware of and reflexive about its own assumptions, questions, and categories and therefore more responsible for its biases’ (Sundberg, 2003: 187).

My formal training as a fieldworker did not begin until I studied for a Master's degree in Women's Studies in the UK. I decided to study in the UK because it was one of the closest countries to

Authenticity

Although, theoretically, I would argue that my supervisors' identities were not fixed or stable as white, English, middle-class women, in our conversations their ethnic identity was often taken for granted as unitary, coherent and privileged. Neither of them had conveyed to me any sense of identity ‘crisis’ or juggling multiple identities in relation to representing themselves on a day-to-day basis or in their experiences of travelling and working in India. In their accounts, they had clearly

Authority

‘My role as a student researcher, my age, and my assumed class affiliation may have been taken as sources of potential domination. However my racialised and gender ascriptions suggested the opposite. That is, in this instance, the interviewees and myself were inscribed within multi-faceted power relations which had structural dominance and structural subordination in play on both sides’ (Bhavnani, 1993, 101).

Bhavnani's account demonstrates that the researcher/researched relationship is not only

Agency

Without authority and authenticity it is difficult to occupy a position within which to exercise agency. Agency stems from autonomy and provides a researcher with the ability to take action, but is contingent upon the specificities of the field and ‘home’. It is contingent on both the social structures and locations within which the researcher is embedded. My day-to-day experiences during fieldwork demonstrated that agency is something that cannot be taken for granted by researchers. Because I

Conclusion

In this article, I have tried to illustrate how complicated power relations in the field can be for non-traditional researchers through exploring issues of authenticity, authority and agency. These three concepts, in particular, demonstrate that power is not uniform in fieldwork practice, nor is it held solely by researchers. Without the appearance of ‘authenticity’, diasporic researchers face a different set of dilemmas in conducting research especially when using ethnographic techniques. If

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank two anonymous reviewers and Suruchi Thapar-Björkert, Joanna Liddle, Paul Higate, Tom Slater, Cathie Riessman, Vieda Skultans, Jane Speedy and Jonathan Reinarz for the valuable comments and feedback on this paper.

References (66)

  • Parin Dossa

    Reconstruction of the ethnographic field sites: mediating identities: Case study of a Bohra Muslim woman in Larnu (Kenya)

    Women's Studies International Forum

    (1997, July 8)
  • Susan Abbott

    ‘In the end you will carry me in your car’: Sexual politics in the field

    Women's Studies

    (1983)
  • Lila Abu-Lughod

    Fieldwork of a dutiful daughter

  • Lila Abu-Lughod

    Can there be a feminist ethnography?

    Women and Performance

    (1990)
  • Joan Acker et al.

    Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research

  • Laura Adams

    The mascot researcher: Identity, power, and knowledge in fieldwork

    Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

    (1999, August)
  • Bina Agarwal

    A field of one's own: Gender and land rights in South Asia

    (1994)
  • Kum Kum Bhavnani

    Tracing the contours: Feminist research and feminist objectivity

    Women's Studies International Forum

    (1993)
  • Kalwant Bhopal

    Women and feminism as subjects of black study — The difficulties and dilemmas of carrying out research

    Journal of Gender Studies

    (1995)
  • Pierre Bourdieu et al.

    An invitation to reflexive sociology

    (1992)
  • Avtar Brah

    Cartographies of diaspora

    (1996)
  • Pat Caplan

    Learning from gender: Fieldwork in a Tanzanian coastal village, 1965–1985

  • James Clifford

    On ethnographic authority

    Representations

    (1983)
  • James Clifford

    Introduction: Partial truths

  • James Clifford

    Routes, travel and translation in the late twentieth century

    (1997)
  • Amanda Coffey

    The ethnographic self: Fieldwork and the representation of identity

    (1999)
  • Richard Dyer

    White

    (1997)
  • Ruth Frankenberg

    White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness

    (1993)
  • Irene Gedalof

    Against purity: Rethinking identity with Indian and western feminisms

    (1999)
  • Peggy Golde

    Women in the field: Anthropological experiences

    (1970)
  • Yasmin Gunaratnam

    Researching race and ethnicity

    (2003)
  • Rachel Hall

    Inside out: Some notes on carrying out feminist research in cross-cultural interviews with South Asian women immigration applicants

    International Journal of Social Methodology

    (2004)
  • Marsha Henry

    “Where are you really from?” Representation, identity and power in the fieldwork experiences of a South Asian diasporic

    Qualitative Research

    (2003)
  • Barbara Heron

    Gender and exceptionality in north–south interventions: Reflecting on relations

    Journal of Gender Studies

    (2004, July)
  • Bell Hooks

    Feminist theory: From margin to center

    (1984)
  • Ping-Chun Hsiung

    Between bosses and workers: The dilemma of a keen observer and a vocal feminist

  • Deniz Kandiyoti

    Gender, power and contestation: ‘Rethinking bargaining with patriarchy’

  • Adrianna Kezar

    Transformational elite interviews: Principles and problems

    Qualitative Inquiry

    (2003)
  • Dorinne Kondo

    Dissolution and reconstitution of self: Implications for anthropological epistemology

    Cultural Anthropology

    (1986)
  • Cited by (20)

    View all citing articles on Scopus
    View full text