{"title":"Temporal contextuality of agentic intersectional positionalities: Nuancing power relations in the ethnography of minority migrant women","authors":"A. Fresnoza‐Flot, Herbary Cheung","doi":"10.1177/14687941231179153","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231179153","url":null,"abstract":"Researchers’ reflexivity usually focuses on the spatiality and sociality of their ethnographic fieldwork. As a result, the temporal context of their positionality, whereby their various identities interact with one another at different research phases, is often overlooked. This paper adopts an agentic intersectional approach and draws from our separate studies of Thai migrant women in Belgium and Hong Kong to unpack the temporality of the power dynamics between study participants and us (the researchers). Through this reflexive exercise, we identify three salient aspects: first, different identities of the researchers intersect at each phase of the study; second, researchers are dependent on gatekeepers and study participants, notably during the data-gathering phase; and third, the changing researcher–participant dynamics throughout the research process are embedded in broader relations of power that encompass social institutions and migrant/ethnic networks. Hence, researchers’ self-discipline and constant awareness of positionality are of utmost importance for achieving well-situated knowledge (re)production.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":"92 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41265316","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"An intersectional reflexive account on positionality: researching Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim lone motherhood","authors":"Sarah A Baz","doi":"10.1177/14687941231165893","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231165893","url":null,"abstract":"Engaging in ‘reflexive practice’ throughout the research process (Benson and O’Reilly, 2022) and a ‘reflexivity of discomfort’ (Hamdan, 2009) through an intersectional lens, this article presents a reflective account of accessing and conducting observations and interviews at a South Asian women’s organisation, in North England, to explore Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim (PBM) lone motherhood. It critically explores how researchers’ own subjectivities and intersecting identities – in this case, my intersecting identities and positionalities as a young British Pakistani Muslim women, researcher and volunteer – impact interactions in different circumstances with different groups of participants and the importance of having continuous critical self-awareness. Moving beyond simplistic insider–outsider debates, the paper contributes towards further developing reflexivity debates taking an ‘intersectional reflexivity’ approach. It argues for thinking about the research process and engagements in the field as socially constructed, changing, adapting and negotiated overtime and to utilise intersectionality to unpick broader categories. Finally, it encourages researchers to adopt reflexivity in their research practices.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46859900","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Deniz Pelek, Vladimir Bortun, E. Østergaard-Nielsen
{"title":"Emerging ethical challenges in researching vulnerable groups during the COVID-19","authors":"Deniz Pelek, Vladimir Bortun, E. Østergaard-Nielsen","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176945","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176945","url":null,"abstract":"This paper discusses the lasting impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on research ethics in social sciences by focusing on the concept of vulnerability. We unpack the current conceptualisations of vulnerability and their limitations and argue for the need to reconceptualise vulnerability as multidimensional, consisting of both universal and contextual dimensions, as well as their dynamic interplay. Multidimensional vulnerability is inspired by and relevant to social science research during the pandemic but can also be useful in other contexts such as climate change or conflict. The paper puts forwards several considerations about how this revised concept of vulnerability may be useful when evaluating ethical dimensions of social science research.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44329915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Charlas y Comidas: Humanising focus groups and interviews","authors":"Yecid Ortega","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176947","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176947","url":null,"abstract":"Qualitative research has utilised focus groups and interviews to gather information from participants while conducting ethnographic research. This article explores the potential of alternative forms of collecting data that are more in line with the participants’ feelings, emotions and expectations. Charlas (chats) and Comidas (meals) were utilised in an ethnographic study with English teachers and their students in marginalised high schools in Bogotá, Colombia. I found that opening a safe space for participants to share their ideas, suggestions and comments while chatting informally or having a meal encourages leadership of the research process. This generated a sentiment of trust and bond which strengthen their sense of belonging to their academic community. This article contributes to the literature on alternative, critical and decolonial forms of doing research by considering ways to implement methods that acknowledge the cultural and linguistic backgrounds of the participants which strengthen humanising relationships, especially in marginalised contexts.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"42382395","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Audio research methods, attitudes, and accessibility theory: Using audio vignettes to elicit attitudes towards sex work","authors":"S. Kingston","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176937","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176937","url":null,"abstract":"Audio recording interviews, focus groups, and naturally occurring interactions have been utilised by social researchers for decades. Yet, the use of audio recordings as a tool to elicit participant responses has received less attention in social science research. This is despite heightened interest in non-traditional techniques such as the use of visual methodologies, and arts-based methods. In this article, I describe how I advanced a known method, vignettes, into an audio narrative to explore perceptions of sex work. This article reports on the methodological rationale for the novel use of audio vignettes, and the capacity they have for memory retrieval, eliciting reflections on lived experiences, and for providing richer attitudinal data. By drawing on ‘accessibility theory’, this article argues that audio vignettes are a powerful elicitor of attitudes. Furthermore, I claim that audio methods as I define them, can enhance the social scientists’ toolkit and that, what I term ‘audio sociology’ needs further development.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"41407748","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Research as care: Positionality and reflexivity in qualitative migration research","authors":"M. Moralli","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176946","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176946","url":null,"abstract":"This article analyses the implications of qualitative research on migration in terms of reflexivity and positionality. In particular, it presents research as care, revolved around three main critical nodes of reflection: the epistemological importance of emotions, intersectional positionality and the ethics of care. Drawing upon the insights concerning a qualitative research on migration in Italian shrinking areas, the contribution underlines the importance of conceiving research as a process of negotiation. Moreover, it shows how positionality in qualitative migration research is not static but flexible, and is conditioned by different emotionalities emerging during the fieldwork. In this sense, the continuous negotiation that exists between researchers and participants can imply affectivities and kinship that valorises the relationships created during the research.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43720732","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Literary allusion in sociological analysis: Mass Observation mantelpiece reports as epic and drama","authors":"R. Hurdley","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176944","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176944","url":null,"abstract":"This paper experiments with the use of literary analysis for the interpretation of participants’ writing. The dataset comprises 56 ‘Reports’ in response to a 2019 Mass Observation Directive. Mass Observation is a British archive. Its aim is to record everyday life through correspondents’ responses to thrice-yearly Directives. The paper contributes to lyrical sociology with its development of ‘textural’ analysis. The 2019 Directive asked volunteers to submit reports on what was on their mantelpieces and also about their treasured objects. I found this writing highly allusive of two literary works: Tom Stoppard's play Arcadia, and the ‘Catalogue of Ships’ in Homer's ancient Greek epic poem, the Iliad. This led me not only to review the earlier reports but also to consider how literature can enrich the interpretation of participants’ writing. In conclusion, I argue that following up allusive ‘hunches’ can result in fruitful literary analysis, as a ‘textural’ approach to sociological method.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48200777","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Challenging methodologies: Deploying liberatory epistemologies to unlock creative research practices","authors":"Dalia Milián Bernal","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176938","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176938","url":null,"abstract":"Departing from the methodological story of my doctoral research and deploying feminist, postcolonial, and decolonial epistemologies, this article explores the double connotation of the phrase ‘challenging methodologies’. On the one hand, the article reviews the process of my doctoral research, the challenges I faced, and how these oriented my methodological decisions. On the other hand, it examines the three methodologies I chose – grounded theory, online research, and narrative inquiry – to understand how they originated to challenge unjust canonical research processes that undermine different ways of generating knowledge and reinforce epistemic silencing. By exploring ‘challenging methodologies’, the article invites (novice) researchers to contest unjust research processes and embark on their own creative, albeit challenging, methodological paths.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44276855","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Achieving co-presence when together and apart: Hybrid engagements and multi-modal collaborative research with urban indigenous youth","authors":"P. Horn, Olivia Casagrande","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176942","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176942","url":null,"abstract":"This article reflects on collaborative research carried out during the COVID-19 pandemic involving indigenous youth co-investigators from different urban settings in Bolivia and a UK- and Bolivia-based research coordination team. Unlike previous studies that highlight the potential of generating a shared co-presence via virtual engagements and digital methods when face-to-face interactions seem less desirable, this article offers a more cautious account. We question the existence of a shared co-presence and, instead, posit co-presence as fragmented and not necessarily mutual, requiring careful engagement with power imbalances, distinct socio-economic and space-time positionings, and diverse priorities around knowledge generation among team members. These considerations led us to iteratively configure a hybrid research approach that combines synchronous and asynchronous virtual and face-to-face interactions with multi-modal methods. We demonstrate how this approach enabled us to generate a sense of co-presence in a context where collaborator access to a shared space-time was limited, differentiated, or displaced.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47655021","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ester Serra Mingot, Carlos Alberto González Zepeda
{"title":"Conducting team ethnography with African migrants in Mexico: The dynamics of gendered and racialised positionalies in the field","authors":"Ester Serra Mingot, Carlos Alberto González Zepeda","doi":"10.1177/14687941231176939","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/14687941231176939","url":null,"abstract":"Based on the current trends in conducting ethnographies, with time and funding limitations and the need to reflect on the researcher's positionality, this article explores the implications of conducting ethnographic fieldwork in a mixed team (in terms of gender, race and nationality) with highly vulnerable populations in a context of crisis. To that end, the article analyses the experience of conducting a team ethnography with African migrants in Tijuana, Mexico. While the study did not start with a self-awareness of what a team ethnography implied, as fieldwork developed the gender, race and nationality of both interviewees and researchers became crucial elements to produce a meaningful multi-layered, multiply-positioned ethnography. This article argues that methodological flexibility and the researchers’ relationship with themselves and the respondents are vital elements that require further experimentation in ethnographic research.","PeriodicalId":48265,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Research","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":3.6,"publicationDate":"2023-05-25","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"46395421","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}