Social Research Methods
Week 9, Nov. 24, 2009: Seminar and Classroom Sessions – Reflexivity and Feminist
Approaches in Social Research
Reflexivity: Texts for Group Work Assignment
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Mary Jo Neitz, ‘Walking between the Worlds: Permeable Boundaries, Ambiguous
Identities,’ in Spickard, Landres and McGuire (eds.) Personal Knowledge and Beyond:
Reshaping the Ethnography of Religion, New York University Press, 2002
Margaret Poloma, Main Street Mystics: The Toronto Blessing and Reviving Pentecostalism,
chapter 10: ‘Narrative and reflexive ethnography: a concluding account,’ Altamira, 2003
Ganiel and Mitchell, ‘Turning the categories inside-out: Complex identifications and multiple
interactions in religious ethnography,’ Sociology of Religion, 67(1), 2006
Kathleen M. Blee, ‘Studying the Enemy,’ in Barry Glassner and rosanna Hertz, eds., Our
Studies, Ourselves: Sociologists’ Lives and Work, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003
R. Stephen Warner, ‘Sojourn in the Field,’ in New Wine in Old Wineskins: Evangelicals and
Liberals in a Small-town Church, University of California Press, 1988
Reflexivity Group Work:
Reflexivity is an integral part of qualitative, ethnographic data-gathering and analysis.
Here is a definition of Reflexivity: the idea that the researcher must reflect on her position as a
researcher, her standpoints, her different identities, and analyse how this impacts on her data
collection and analysis.
Discuss your assigned readings with your partners and then ‘report back’ to the group.
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Was the researcher(s) in the article an insider or an outsider?
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Did the researcher(s) reflect on how this impacted their research? Summarise their
reflections.
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Is it important for social science research to include this kind of reflection? Why or why not?
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What else would you have liked to have known about the researcher(s) experience in the
field and ‘writing up’?
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Did you learn anything that will help you to be ‘reflexive’ in your own research?
In sum, what should self-reflexive researchers be aware of when they undertake a project?
Feminist Approaches
Background Reading:
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Burns and Walker, ‘Feminist Methodologies,’ in Somekh and Lewin, eds., Research
Methods in the Social Sciences, Sage, 2005 [IN FOLDER]
Olesen, V. ‘Feminisms and Models of Qualitative Research,’ in Denzin and Lincoln, The
Landscape of Qualitative Research, Sage, 2003 [IN FOLDER]
Reinharz, S. Feminist Methods in Social Research, chapter 3, Oxford University Press,
1992 [IN FOLDER]
Nason-Clark and Neitz, Feminist Narratives and the Sociology of Religion, Altamira, 2001
Ferree, M. et al., Revisioning Gender, Sage, 1999
Behar, Ruth, ed. Women Writing Culture, University of California Press, 1996
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Discussion Topics:
 What’s distinctive about feminist approaches?
 Contribution of feminist approaches to the social sciences
 How does your identity as a researcher affect data gathering and analysis
 How to bring participants into the research process
 How to be ‘reflexive’ during data gathering and writing up
What’s distinctive about feminist approaches to social research?
From Burns and Walker (2005: 66): ‘Feminist research has contributed to the development of
many key methodological ideas, for example, standpoint, positionality and reflexivity, while also
foregrounding critical enquiries into gender, gender relations and society. Feminism and feminist
research has been at the forefront of challenging the silencing of women’s voices in society and
research and in challenging a narrow, gendered kind of science, which cast women in passive and
subordinate roles and excluded them from scientific practices by virtue of them being ‘emotional’
and hence incapable of ‘reason’. Crucially, feminist research aspires to be for women as much as it
is about women.’
Burns and Walker quote Weiner’s (1994) three principles as a guide to feminist research:
 feminist research involves a critique of unexamined assumptions about women and
dominant forms of knowing and doing
 it involves a commitment to improve life chances for girls and women
 it is concerned with developing equitable professional and personal practices (quoted in
Burns and Walker, 2005:66)
However, there are no methods which are specific to feminist research.
Focus on Women’s Voices
This may translate into:
 Studies by women focusing on women
 More general studies focusing on women’s perspectives
 The focus on women’s voices comes from a conviction that women’s perspectives have
been silenced or undervalued in the social sciences
Focusing on women’s voices also means paying attention to standpoint, positionality and reflexivity
(Burns and Walker)
Standpoint: the idea that women have a broader perspective on social reality because of their
understanding of their own gendered oppression (their standpoint), and that the subjectivity of the
researcher is crucial in the research design and must be taken into account in her interpretation
(67)
Positionality: the implication of the researcher in the production of research (the researcher is
seen as producing data along with the research participants, not as extracting it from them)
Reflexivity: the idea that the researcher must reflect on her position as a researcher, her
standpoints, her different identities, and analyse how this impacts on her data collection and
analysis. Your group work exercise deals with reflexivity.
Focus on Power Relationships
Feminist researchers have focused on power relationships within society, politics, and so on; they
also have focused on power relationships between researchers and participants in the research.
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Many feminist researchers see it as a key task that their research contribute to the dismantling of
unjust power relationships.
A Participatory Approach to Research
Many feminist researchers are committed to making their research as participatory as possible.
This means that research participants are not viewed as objects from which to extract information
and data on a one-time basis. Rather, the participants should be kept informed of the research at
various stages, and have the opportunity to comment on the researcher’s work and analysis. This
approach therefore has as an aim the empowerment of participants. The researcher can benefit
when the participants disagree with her analysis, or point out things she might have missed.
I have taken this approach in my research on the multiracial congregation in South Africa. When I
went to study the congregation, I asked permission of the elders. They specifically asked me if I
would give them some feedback on my research. This has taken several forms, and included
feedback not only for the elders but for others who participated in the research. For instance,
shortly before I left Cape Town I drew up a report on the research and presented it to the elders,
where they had the opportunity to voice concerns about my findings. I also gave a similar report to
my ‘cell group’ in the congregation. When I have written journal articles based on the research, I
have emailed them to the people I interviewed before I submitted them for consideration for
publication.
Techniques for Participatory Research:
 Sharing documents
 Focus Groups
 Personal conversations
 ‘User Workshops’
Group Work: Read the examples of feedback I received from people at Jubilee Community
Church, Cape Town, and answer the following questions:
Example 1, white South African woman: You encapsulated everything well and your conclusions
were brilliant and should help our elders to put something in place in 2006 re: leaders training, etc.
You can send this paper on to anyone without being concerned that you are offending in any way. I
think it will also help the four people who you interviewed who left Jubilee a few years ago. I am so
grateful to God for sending you to us and helping us to open the way for discussion again. Since
you left I have been able to have four very meaningful discussions with [an elder] which has
opened the way for us to pick up the ‘storytelling’ component which is so necessary that people
from each race group tell their stories and are listened to without interruptions or explanations.
Thereafter there needs to be workshops to talk through what we have heard. He is very open to
this so I reckon that Jubilee is now ready for the next, and deeper step, into reconciliation. I am
chuffed about this!
Example 2, coloured man: Thanks for sending the attached document; please forgive the late
reply. You have clearly put a lot of work into this draft by getting round to interview a range of
people. I have no problem with the quotes that you have attributed to me (I think). For me, probably
the most important part of the document involves the last paragraph, which acts as a summation of
all that was discussed before, and is effectively the ‘take home’ message. For those who are
academically inclined this acts as the final analysis of your research. Understandably, all
conclusions in a context such as this will have an element of subjective interpreting; therefore you
would be aware that any other astute reader will also bring to bear his/her analysis and subjective
interpretation. As subjective as one is allowed to be, however, it remains important to be able to
stand back from the document, and interpret the data in the broader context of South Africa – its
political history, the history of the Church, the progress made since democracy, etc. And this has to
be done by considering fundamental issues, not just the ‘trimmings on the outside.’
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With this in mind, I must say that I am surprised at the upbeat tone of the summation. There are
some reservations, admittedly, that are made – recognizing that reconciliation has not been
‘completely realized’ and encouraging dialogue, for instance, but it is undeniable that the message
is a relatively enthusiastic one for the course chosen for the church in question. I am uncertain
whether this is a reflection of the analysis of your data or the push to find a positive message in
your research that can be exported to other contexts.
In truth, though, this is subject to interpretation. I would contend that, for an objective reader, the
conclusions may be very different. When the progress made by the church is taken into
consideration in the context of the society then the gains that it has made seem far less
substantial. When the casual, informed reader looks at your data in the broader context of South
Africa (someone who knows a bit about the country), they are likely to ask a few pertinent
questions, such as ‘How is it that, more than a decade after democracy (not that that should be the
yardstick for the church, which should have been proactive long before that), one has a church in
which there is not a single black South African elder?’ Surely this should point to a systematic and
unattended issue? Why has there been an exodus of many black people from the church (in
unrelated incidents)? Why does the progress in this church not match up to that seen by almost
every other secular institution in the country? Is this really the model for South Africa and beyond
to learn about how it is possible for ‘racial reconciliation to take place within the context of a
congregation’ – in a parochial, white-led fashion, more than a decade after the advent of
democracy allowed governmental institutions, sports bodies, educational institutions, news media,
and businesses to listen to, be informed by, be changed by, and be built by black South African
people, who actually account for 90% of the population? Why should the church be different? Is
there any justification, theological or practical, why this should be the case in the church? By all my
understanding of theology, politics and societal interactions, I would say no.
Questions:
 What’s your immediate reaction to these responses?
 Would you integrate them into your analysis?
 How?
 What do you think are the advantages and disadvantages of participatory research?
The Contribution of Feminist Approaches to Social Science Research
From the discussion today, what do you think are the main contributions of feminist approaches to
social science?
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