Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research Public Knowledge and Private Lives

by Jane Ribbens; Rosalind Edwards

• ISBN13: 9780761956655
• ISBN10: 0761956654
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1998-02-06
• Publisher: Sage Publications

Summary

How can researchers produce work with relevance to theoretical and formal traditions and requirements of public academic knowledge while still remaining faithful to the experiences and accounts of research participants based in private settings? Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research explores this key dilemma and examines the interplay between theory, epistemology and the detailed practice of research. It does this across the whole research process: access, data collection and analysis and writing up research. It goes on to consider ways of achieving high standards of reflexivity and openness in the strategic choices made during research, examining these issues for specific projects in an open and accessible style.Particular themes examined are: the research dilemmas that occur from feminist perspectives in relation to researching private and personal social worlds; the position of the researcher as situated between public knowledge and private experience; and the dilemmas raised for researchers seeking to contribute to academic discourse while remaing close to their knowledge forms.

Table of Contents

PART ONE: INTRODUCING OUR VOICES

Public Knowledge, Private Lives, Personal Experience - Rosalind Edwards and Jane Ribbens

Hearing My Own Voice? An Autobiographical Discussion of Motherhood - Jane Ribbens

PART ONE: SPEAKING AND LISTENING: REFLECTING MULTILAYERED VOICES

Bringing Silent Voices into a Public Discourse - Melanie Mauthner

Shifting Layers of Professional, Lay and Personal Narratives - Tina Miller

Public and Private Meanings in Diaries - Linda Bell

Theoretical Voices and Women's Own Voices - Janet Parr

PART TWO: HEARING AND REPRESENTATNG: REFLECTING THE PRIVATE IN PUBLIC

Hearing Competing Voices - Miri Song

Sibling Research

Reflections on a Voice-Centred Relational Method - Natasha Mauthner and Andrea Doucet

Representing Voices in Ethnography and Discourse Analysis - Pam Alldred

Re//constructing Research Narratives - Maxine Birch

Writing the Voices of the Less Powerful - Kay Standing

Research on Lone Mothers

Epilogue - Jane Ribbens and Rosalind Edward