Qualitative Data Analysis: An Introduction

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Qualitative Data Analysis An Introduction

• Carol Grbich
• Chapter 5 Feminist Research

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Feminist research principles

1. that there is inequality in our society
   constructed along gender lines - women are
   subordinate to men in socioeconomic status and
   decision making power.
2. that current modes of knowledge disadvantage
   women by devaluing their ways of knowing
3. that highlighting the experiences of women
   through research and allowing their voices to be
   heard may go some way to making inequalities more
   widely recognised
4. that transformation of society through the
   empowerment and emancipation of women are
   desirable outcomes.

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The researcher and the researched

• Relationship guidelines
• non-exploitative relationships between you and
  those you are researching
• exposure of your position, your personal
  biography, your emotions and values and how these
  impact on data gathering, analytical and
  interpretative phases
• the voices of the researched should be heard in
  their own words and ownership of narratives
  should be shared between you and these people in
  an egalitarian manner

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Empowerment of participants

• Ways of managing empowerment
• Recognise the value driven nature of research
• Practice reflexivity
• Participants drive the research agenda
• Focus on improvement of participants lives as
  the major outcome
• Include a diversity of participants including
  elites
• Use language which is meaningful to
  participants
• Contextualise data so readers can make their own
  judgments
• Present ways in which women may improve their
  situation.
• (Adapted from Wadsworth 20014-5)

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Feminist data analysis

• Use feminist theoretical frames
• Focus on an extensive display of participants
  voices
• Joint ownership of data interpretation

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Memory Work

• The researcher is also a participant
• Involves the tracing of memories and their
  construction from each co-researchers
  perspective
• The group takes the collective memories and
  seeks to understand how each memory as come to be
  constructed in this particular way and how
  interaction within the wider society has created
  and reinforced oppression.
• Theoretical constructs are applied to the
  memories by the researcher

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Criticisms of memory work

• Using friends/close acquaintances to form the
  group is not ideal
• Women with no background nor interest in
  academic theory may become subjects and/or
  experience minimal emancipation or transformation
• The group may tend to indulge in primitive
  psychotherapeutics
• Marxist frameworks emphasise action as conformity
  rather than resistance

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Limitations of Memory work

• Emancipation is not always the outcome
• Theoretical perspectives are not always
  meaningful to participants
• How are differences of opinion to be managed in
  the group process?
• Is it possible to share ownership with a
  researcher who will ultimately gain through
  publishing the work?
• In terms of analysis and final publication, what
  happens to the personal material from the first
  and second stages?
• Whose voices are being silenced when issues of
  academic credibility are important?
• What happens to notions of emancipation and
  transformation when the groups are more
  interested in sharing than theorising their
  experiences (Onyx and Small
  2001)