Book Chapter: Feminist Practice of Action and Community Research
Book CHAPTER
Title :
Feminist Practice of Action and Community Research
Writer :
M. BRINTON LYKES AND ALISON CROSBY
Reference :
Lykes, M.Briton and Crosby, Alison, 2014, Feminist Practice of Action and
Community Research, in Hesse-Biber, Sharlene (Ed) Feminist Research Practice (A
primer), SAGE: LA
MY SUMMARY
The journey of feminist practice towards action
and community research has been discussed by previous experts. Being a
feminist, we are challenged to be ‘fleshy, activist feminism’ and more flexible
in order to listen ‘silence voice’ and to create a space for our participants
to make a social transformation for their group, for instance in my study ‘HIV-positive
women. An intersectionality of every unique life of women who are a subordination
and also a subaltern in a patriarchy culture lead to an effort to combine
multiple creative methods (like mapping, drawings, photographs) and diverse
co-researchers to gain better the understanding and generate rich data for
solutions on some issues, particularly related to women. In addition, honoring diverse
voices and multiple actions are important part on feminist community action. In
addition, We consider to have multiple positions as ‘a researcher’ or a’
participant’ or a co-researchers’ and our privilege as outsider or insider to
reflect our research findings through diverse lenses and to be ‘a naïve inquirer’,
particularly on ‘marginalized groups’. Lastly, ‘forming relationships and
identifying partners’ may be considered as a means to get involved with our
participants in their everyday life and share our concerns on some issues
related their life in order to design the project. All co-researchers also
encouraged to get involved in all process of research, including interpreting
finding within and across differences.
IMPORTANT QUOTATION
Feminist community-based, participatory, and
action researchers have developed multiple ways to analyze the various
epistemological and methodological resources identified above Hill, Bond,
Mulvey, and Terenzio (2000) identified seven themes, which they argie cross
over the terrains in which community and feminist researcher work:
1.
Integrating
a contextualized understanding
2.
Paying
attention to issues of diversity
3.
Speaking
from the standpoint of oppressed groups
4.
Adopting
a collaborative approach
5.
Utilizing
multilevel, multimethod approaches
6.
Adopting
reflective practices:
7.
Taking
an activist orientation and using knowledge for social change (p.760)
*Hill, J. Bond, M.A, Mulvey, A., &
terenzio, M. (2000). Methodological issues and challenges for a feminist
community psychology: An introduction to a special issue. American Journal of
Community Psychology, 28, 759-772
Diversity of methods and also emphasizes the
reflective practices of the researchers, all of whom are described as striving
to generate a”body of work that presents a rich, multitextured tapestry of the
lives of the participants and that is sued to improve those lives” (Hill et al,
200, p.770) p.151
Reid and Frisby (2008) push this further,
suggesting that feminist researchers and participatory action researcher should
become “allies”, arguing that despite many epistemological and methodological
similarities, both have particular contributions that can strengthen the other.
Specifically, they emphasize feminism’s particular contribution to the field:
feminism’ theoretical and epistemological debates, the promises and challenges
of intersectional analyses, the emphasies on researcher positionality and
reflexivity, and the foregrounding of agency and lived experiences of women as
resources to strengthen AR and PAR, similarly, they suggest that the emphasis
within AR and PAR on understanding stakeholders’s multiple locations and the
implications therein, as well as the longstanding prioritization of praxis and
of action-reflection dialectics, are potential contributions to facilitating
alliances between feminists and local communities and activitis. According to
Reid and Frisby, FPAR (feminist participatory action research) is performed at
the intersections of six interrelated dimensions that include:
1.
Centering
gender and women’s diverse experiences while challenging forms of patriarchy
(p.97)
2.
Accounting
for intersectionality (p.97)
3.
Honoring
voice and difference through participatory research process (p.98)
4.
Exploring
new forms of representation (p.99)
5.
Reflexivity
(p.100)
6.
Honoring
many forms of action (p.101) p.152
The authors cautions against a rigid or
singular model, suggesting instead the multiple ways of embodying these
principles, and thus sharing the aforementioned tendencies to eschew
methodological or epistemological rigidity.p.152
*Reid, C & Frisby, W (2008). Continuing the Journey: Articulating dimensions of feminist participatory action research (FPAR). In P. Reason & H. Bradbury (Eds), The SAGE Handbook of action research:Participative inquiry and practice (2nd Ed pp. 93-106). London, England:SAGE
Lykes and hershberg (2012) have built on these
diverse recommendations, but they seek to capitalize on the tensions between
feminist research and participatory and action research in order to press both
toward more transformative praxis. Specifically, they suggest that
feminist-infused PAR and AR constitute an iterative set of processes and
outcomes performed to critically reposition gender, race, and class; excavate
indigenous cultural knowledge and generate voice: and/or deploy intersectionality
as an analytic tool for transformation. P.152-153
Cresee and Frisby (2011) centers postcolonial
feminist scholarships, and suggests that its focus on community, and on race
and racialization in the intersection of other oppressions, emphasizes the
historical sites in which relations of power are embedded and operationalized. Postcolonial
feminist research deconstructs these structures of power, and “create space in
a constructive maneuver for agency of subaltern and subjugated knowledges
(p.21). some features of this work have been identified above (eq. recognizing intersectional oppressions, listening to
silenced voices); but
Creese and Frisby stress not only the research methods, but also the multiple
ways in which power is structured within these processes and the relationships
formed therein. Thus reflexivity in the feminist research processes is critical
to this study, particularly the acknowledgement of outsider research
privilege. P.153
So let me hitchhike
a little on Maria, and speak to the older version of “Why feminism”? You know, it
mus happen to you all the time, when people say: “Is this a feminist project?”
or”Whose theory is this based on?” and I resist a simple classification: but
when I have to default, I default to feminism. Even though I feel like our
work, my work, is deeply informed by feminism and critical race theory and
indigenous and postolonial theory; but if it has a fleshy, activist feministm,
the one where bodies, politics, lives and silences are connected to structures,
histories, and to social movement. The kind of feminism that knows there is
desire, yearning, and capacity, if you dare to imagine, to create the space for
someone to sing through her story of pain, survival, and laughter. Our feminist
analyses are also a little suspicious of taken-for-grated categories, even the
categories we use in our work. We understand that lives are not lived in
categories and are not situated in structures and histories but are dynamic and
fluid-not fixed, not wholly known or knowable… (MICHELLE FINE)P. 157
EXPLORING
FEMINIST PRACTICES IN ACTION AND COMMUNITY RESEARCH
1. Dialogical
relationships
a.
Who are the researchers?
b.
Forming relationships, identifying partners
c.
Identifying a shared questions/focus
d.
Designing the project
2. Generating
and analyzing data
a.
Mapping as a resource in data collection
b.
Creative techniques as a resource for data
generation and analysis
3. Interpreting
findings within and across differences
Concluding
Reflection: Challenges towards the future
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