Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research : Public Knowledge and Private Lives

by Jane Ribbens

• ISBN13: 9780761956648
• ISBN10: 0761956646
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1998-02-17
• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd

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

Contributor's Notes	vii
Part I Introducing Our Voices	1	(38)
1 Living on the Edges: Public Knowledge, Private Lives, Personal Experience	1	(23)
Rosalind Edwards
Jane Ribbens
2 Hearing my Feeling Voice? An Autobiographical Discussion of Motherhood	24	(15)
Jane Ribbens
Part II Speaking and Listening: Reflecting Multilayered Voices	39	(64)
3 Bringing Silent Voices into a Public Discourse: Researching Accounts of Sister Relationships	39	(19)
Melanie Mauthner
4 Shifting Layers of Professional, Lay and Personal Narratives: Longitudinal Childbirth Research	58	(14)
Tina Miller
5 Public and Private Meanings in Diaries: Researching Family and Childcare	72	(15)
Linda Bell
6 Theoretical Voices and Women's Own Voices: The Stories of Mature Women Students	87	(16)
Janet Parr
Part III Hearing and Representing: Reflecting the Private in Public	103	(100)
7 Hearing Competing Voices: Sibling Research	103	(16)
Miri Song
8 Reflections on a Voice-centred Relational Method: Analysing Maternal and Domestic Voices	119	(28)
Natasha Mauthner
Andrea Doucet
9 Ethnography and Discourse Analysis: Dilemmas in Representing the Voices of Children	147	(24)
Pam Alldred
10 Re/constructing Research Narratives: Self and Sociological Identity in Alternative Settings	171	(15)
Maxine Birch
11 Writing the Voices of the Less Powerful: Research on Lone Mothers	186	(17)
Kay Standing
Epilogue	203	(4)
Jane Ribbens
Rosalind Edwards
Index	207