Friday, September 12, 2008

Empowering Research

On Saturday, I posted some of my reflections on Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, a scholar whose work focuses on black women’s experiences. Elaine Lawless also focuses on women’s experience in her work. Her book Handmaidens of the Lord focuses on the life narratives of white Pentecostal women preachers mostly in the rural south. She, too, has had to draw on more informal resources since a majority of these women serve in small parishes with little written history. As a folklorist, her focus is on the narrative aspects of women’s call stories and sermons. In particular, she suggests that women’s life stories are constructed narratives that serve to present a particular identity to the listener. Rather than a linear life story, the narratives are made up of a series of vignettes focused on this particular identity. Her approach is similar to that of Carolyn Heilbrun in Writing a Women’s Life. (I highly recommend Heilbrun’s book! It contains some great reflections on how we tell our own life stories, in particular stories of call and how they are shaped by our own expectations of what it is to be a woman)

In a later work Holy Women, Wholly Women, Lawless develops a more intentionally feminist approach to her interviews with women clergy. In this work she focuses on a group of mainly Protestant ordained clergy and develops a methodology that she calls reciprocal ethnography. Again, Lawless begins with interviews soliciting the call narratives of women clergy and follows up with additional interviews and sermons. Lawless’ reciprocal ethnography then adds an additional step. In this particular study she began meeting with the clergy women regularly, joining in an existing support group they had formed. Lawless observed the group as part of her study, but she also began a process of dialogue and discussion with the women. Those interviewed were allowed to read the transcripts and comment or correct them. As Lawless observed themes, she would bring them to the group educating them about the context of those themes and asking for their feedback. Their feedback would serve at times to correct Lawless’ observations and at other times to present a distinct voice from her own.

Lawless’ purpose in adding such a layer to her interviews was to move research into a dialogue between researcher and subject. Feminist methodology is interested in doing away with the hierarchies inherent in research and moving into a partnership model. Lawless’ method attempts to bring in the subject’s voices as an equal partner with her own. This requires a high level of self-reflection on her own preconceived notions and her own social location. It also requires her to distinguish in her writing between her voice and that of her subjects. I value this approach to research, but I also know that it is impossible to fully do away with the power dynamics inherent in the process. Lawless’ methodology includes an over reading of interviews to search for the things that are not said and the themes that are unconsciously present. In this way she exerts her power as the researcher to read into the narratives her own paradigms. While she is reflective about it, it is impossible to fully remove yourself from such work and to keep from imposing paradigms of your own onto the subjects. In the end, Lawless retains her own voice as that of the final expert. Her education and research give her expertise and in that sense power over her subjects.

Esther Madriz, in an article on qualitative research, further elaborates on the use of focus (small) groups in feminist research. She highlights, along with Lawless, how focus groups emphasize the multivocal nature of truth. Feminist research often seeks understanding grounded in multiple perspectives rather than one absolute truth. Focus groups also allow one to observe the relationships between individuals, to gain access to the language and symbols of their culture. They allow one to grant priority to individuals as relational beings, central to feminist thought.

Madriz also highlights the shifts in power dynamics that occur when a researcher is in a room with multiple subjects. She highlights the fact that focus groups may be particularly helpful when entering certain cultures or when the researcher is from a more dominant culture than the subject. For some women, in particular, the group may be necessary to help them find their voice and make their ideas and feelings heard. Madriz recognizes that many focus groups serve as consciousness raising groups for the subjects. She sees this as a significant aspect of feminist research. Feminists recognize that research is not neutral, but has the power to change the subjects. Rather than seek an impossible neutrality, some feminists embrace this aspect and seek to use it for the empowerment and flourishing of their subjects. When I finally do begin my research in local congregations, I can only hope it will have such an effect!

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