For several decades, feminists have challenged approaches to generating knowledge within traditional social science research. Since the 1980s, feminist work on methodology and epistemology represents a significant contribution to the de-privileging of rationality and objectivity as the cornerstone to the study of social phenomena. Consequently, the idea of the detached, unbiased researcher has come under scrutiny, and it is now widely accepted that researchers bring their experiences and positionalities to bear on the research process. The process of conducting in-depth qualitative interviews typically facilitates an exploration of participants’ understandings of reality and the situated meanings produced during this interaction. In this paper, I reflect on the process of applying feminist methodological approaches, particularly reflexivity, to data collected through in-depth interviews. The current work is based on interviews with Vincentian women and men on intimate partner violence (IPV) against women. Feminist researchers have long been concerned with generating reflexive knowledge; making visible the power dynamics and reducing the power differentials between researchers and research participants; the insider/outsider relationship; and the significance of gendered relations of power as a feature of social life. In other words, it is essential to consider our own biographies and biases even as we seek to make claims about the lives of those we study. These concerns guide my discussion of the in-depth interview method as a tool for conducting feminist research on violence against women in the Caribbean.

Autoría:
Halimah A.F. DeShong

 

Editorial:
Caribbean Review of Gender Studies, University of the West Indies

 

País:
Trinidad y Tobago

 

Año:
2013

 

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