Positionality at the Center: Constructing an Epistemological and Methodological Approach for a Western Feminist Doctoral Candidate Conducting Research in the Postcolonial

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

CatherineVanner¹ 

关键词: postcolonial contexts;    Western feminism;    epistemology;    critical research;    bricolage;    positionality;    ethics;   

DOI  :  10.1177/1609406915618094

学科分类：社会科学、人文和艺术（综合）

来源: Sage Journals

【 摘 要 】

As a Western feminist supporting and researching gender equality in education in postcolonial contexts, I often wonder: Am I doing more harm than good? The privilege of my social location means that my efforts to support education in postcolonial contexts risk being patronizing, insulting, threatening, imperialist, and recolonizing. Yet neglecting and ignoring postcolonial contexts similarly reflects and reproduces a privileged position. I provide a tentative framework designed to address positionality, power, and privilege while creating an ethical research process for working in a postcolonial context. Beginning with an identification of positionality, the objectives of research, and guiding theoretical frameworks to situate the research in relation to the participants and context, I proceed to establish a methodology designed to minimize the negative effects of power and maximize participants’ empowerment. I position myself as a bricoleur, layering feminist standpoint theory and postcolonial theory, an...

【 授权许可】

CC BY-NC