Similarity and Familiarity: Reflections on Indigenous Ethnography with Mothers, Daughters and School Teachers on the Margins of Contemporary Wales
Gender Identity and Research Relationships
ISBN: 978-1-78635-026-8, eISBN: 978-1-78635-025-1
Publication date: 10 May 2016
Abstract
Purpose
This chapter reflects on the process of conducting qualitative research as an indigenous researcher, drawing from two studies based in south Wales (the United Kingdom). The chapter not only explores the advantages of similarity in relation to trust, access, gender and understandings of locality, but it also complicates this position by examining the problem of familiarity.
Methodology/approach
The studies, one doctoral research and one an undergraduate dissertation project, both took a qualitative approach and introduced visual methods of data production including collages, maps, photographs and timelines. These activities were followed by individual elicitation interviews.
Findings
The chapter argues that the insider outsider binary is unable capture the complexity of research relationships; however, these distinctions remain central in challenging the researcher’s preconceptions and the propensity for their research to be clouded by their subjective assumptions of class, gender, locality and community.
Originality/value
The chapter presents strategies to fight familiarity in fieldwork and considers the ethical issues that arise when research is conducted from the competing perspectives of both insider and academic. The authors focus on uncertainties and reservations in the fieldwork process and move beyond notions of fighting familiarity to consider the unforeseen circumstances of acquaintance and novel positionings within established social networks.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the participants who made this chapter possible and also Professor John Fitz, Professor Emma Renold and Professor Bella Dicks for supervising Dawn’s research project and Dr. Peter Hemming for supervising Jordon’s research project. We are grateful to Dr. Michael Ward and the reviewers for their encouragement and invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this chapter.
Citation
Mannay, D. and Creaghan, J. (2016), "Similarity and Familiarity: Reflections on Indigenous Ethnography with Mothers, Daughters and School Teachers on the Margins of Contemporary Wales", Gender Identity and Research Relationships (Studies in Qualitative Methodology, Vol. 14), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 85-103. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1042-319220160000014017
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016 Emerald Group Publishing Limited