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1 – 10 of over 8000Lyndsay M.C. Hayhurst, Holly Thorpe and Megan Chawansky
This chapter will explore how different feminist theories and theorists have informed what counts as research, what is defined as a research issue, and methodological approaches…
Abstract
This chapter will explore how different feminist theories and theorists have informed what counts as research, what is defined as a research issue, and methodological approaches to research in higher education. It will consider the theoretical and methodological tools feminist academics have mobilized in order to develop more powerful explanations of how gender and other forms of difference work in the relation to the positioning of the individual, higher education and the nation state within globalized economies. It pays particular regard to the feminist political project of social justice.
The purpose of this paper is to critique the argument that research methodology is gendered and present a post‐essentialist understanding of research methods.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to critique the argument that research methodology is gendered and present a post‐essentialist understanding of research methods.
Design/methodology/approach
A conceptual paper which engages with the feminist debate over the gendering of methodology.
Findings
The paper begins by discussing the feminist critique of positivism that quantitative methodologies embody patriarchal assumptions. Then, drawing on contemporary attempts by feminists to rehabilitate quantitative research, and developments in organizational research methods, it counters the argument that methodologies are gendered. Specifically, it argues the idea that methods embody gendered assumptions is founded on essentialist reasoning and treats them as having immutable characteristics. Moving on, the paper offers a post‐essentialist understanding of “methods as text”. Key advantages of this metaphor are that it acknowledges the interpretative flexibility of research methods and illustrates the rhetorical function descriptions of them perform in particular contexts. Finally, the contributions and limitations of this perspective and its implications for future research are summarised.
Research limitations/implications
Further research is needed to understand how research methods are discursively constructed and the rhetorical functions descriptions of them perform in specific contexts.
Originality/value
The paper critiques the view that research methodology is gendered and offers a novel metaphor for understanding research methods. It is likely to be of most value to social scientists with an interest in research methods and/or feminist epistemologies.
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This paper aims to offer an account of the research process and reflects on feminist research practice. It discusses methodological issues based on the author's experience as a…
Abstract
Purpose
This paper aims to offer an account of the research process and reflects on feminist research practice. It discusses methodological issues based on the author's experience as a PhD student in sociology carrying out fieldwork with women in Latin America. The paper makes the research process transparent and shows how feminist epistemologies inform the research strategies the author used in the field.
Design/methodology/approach
This is a reflexive piece about the methodology and method used and the dilemmas encountered in the author's empirical work as a feminist doctoral researcher. It considers biographical issues and personal interests in relation to the research.
Findings
The article discusses methodological assumptions and feminist epistemologies. It examines the interview as a research method as well as interviewing skills. It reflects on research practice, considering power issues, feminist challenges in the field, and the topic of reflexivity and otherness.
Originality/value
The article provides an account of feminist research practice, and considers the roles and skills of the researcher when interviewing. It contributes to knowledge by providing real examples of feminist research in Latin America.
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This chapter engages cosmopolitan and feminist paradigms of knowledge production through their shared ethics of social justice, equality, and diversity, promoting integration into…
Abstract
This chapter engages cosmopolitan and feminist paradigms of knowledge production through their shared ethics of social justice, equality, and diversity, promoting integration into an emerging postdisciplinary focus on embodied cosmopolitanism(s) as a promising way forward in tourism studies. Cosmopolitan paradigms theorize the dialectics of cultural diversity and universal rights, while feminist cosmopolitanism focuses on gender and sexuality equality and difference within this intersection. An embodied approach combines work on “the body” and “situated embodiment” with the cosmopolitan to embrace all human differences and acknowledge that the researchers’ own embodied cosmopolitanism affects research questions, ethics, and praxis toward transformation in research communities and the academy.
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This study examines liberal second-wave feminists’ writings about cooking. Most scholarship of liberal feminism has focused on the attempts to integrate women into previously…
Abstract
Purpose
This study examines liberal second-wave feminists’ writings about cooking. Most scholarship of liberal feminism has focused on the attempts to integrate women into previously male-dominated public spaces such as higher education, the professions, and political office. Less attention has been paid to how these feminists politicized feminized spaces such as the home. A longstanding tension between the housewife role and feminist identities has led many to theorize that feminists avoid or resent domestic tasks. However, I argue that some liberal feminists in the 1960s, 1970s, and 1980s suggested engaging with cooking in subversive ways that challenged patriarchal institutions and supported their political goals.
Methodology/approach
I analyze 148 articles about cooking in Ms. magazine between 1972 and 1985. I also analyze the copy and recipes within four community cookbooks published by liberal feminist organizations.
Findings
I find that liberal feminists suggested utilizing time- and labor-saving cooking methods, encouraged men to cook, and proposed that women make money from cooking. These three techniques challenged the traditional division of domestic labor, supported women’s involvement in the paid workplace, and increased women’s control of economic resources.
Originality/value
This study turns the opposition between feminism and feminized tasks on its head, showing that rather than avoiding cooking, some liberal feminists proposed ways of cooking that challenged patriarchal institutions. I show how subordinate populations can develop ways of subversively engaging with tasks that are typically seen as oppressive, using them in an attempt to advance their social position.
Brigid Limerick and Jane O'Leary
To provide examples of qualitative research based on feminist epistemological assumptions. Such research re‐invents rather than recycles management theory, producing alternative…
Abstract
Purpose
To provide examples of qualitative research based on feminist epistemological assumptions. Such research re‐invents rather than recycles management theory, producing alternative understandings which speak to the demands of managing post‐corporate workplaces characterised by growing levels of diversity and rapid discontinuous change.
Design/methodology/approach
Reports on three feminist qualitative research projects. Describes research processes and outcomes which aim to reflexively attend to diverse voices and researcher and research participant subjectivities.
Findings
Provides tangible examples of empirical feminist qualitative research, including discussions of how the research was conducted, the nature of the findings and critical reflections on the extent to which the researchers' feminist epistemological assumptions were enacted.
Research limitations/implications
The three research projects discussed have all been conducted within the Australian education sector. Accordingly, future research could focus on providing practical examples of feminist qualitative research approaches in the management field, in different international and industrial/sector contexts.
Practical implications
Provides management researchers with three examples of feminist qualitative research covering diverse topics including leadership, mentoring and ethics.
Originality/value
While there is a plethora of writing concerned with feminist research generally, there is a dearth of feminist research in the management field specifically. This paper's contribution therefore lies in providing tangible examples of feminist qualitative research in the management field.
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To reflects upon gender, research relationships and ‘elite’ participants and highlight how traditional use of labels for gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as other…
Abstract
Purpose
To reflects upon gender, research relationships and ‘elite’ participants and highlight how traditional use of labels for gender identity and sexual orientation, as well as other aspects of identity, often serve to restrict a fuller picture as well as some more fluid queer realities.
Methodology/approach
This chapter uses queer and feminist theories to explore the relationships when the researcher and participants belong to a shared peer group of sex education professionals. It examines the choice to avoid pronoun usage or collection of demographic data, gendered or otherwise, and reflexively contemplates the impact and practicalities of friendship relationships within the research context.
Findings
I suggest that tensions often exist between feminist and queer methodologies and this chapter offers reflections for navigating and reconciling these tensions, opening up new possibilities for respectful and nuanced participant representation within research findings.
Originality/value
This chapter serves to further develop what it might mean to have a queer and feminist methodological approach to research, and specifically explores the application of such a framework when considering practices of collecting participant demographic data, classifying participants as ‘elites’ and reflecting upon friendships with participants.
This study draws on the author's experiences building rapport through online chat for data collection for the author's doctoral dissertation. The author contacted ten Korean women…
Abstract
Purpose
This study draws on the author's experiences building rapport through online chat for data collection for the author's doctoral dissertation. The author contacted ten Korean women via online chat to recruit and faced the most challenging situation; building rapport. As the Millennial generation is known as being tech-savvy or digital natives, the author actively used emoticons (pictorial representations of facial expressions using characters) with potential interviewees and completed ten interviews. Therefore, this paper offers a new qualitative interviewing method in feminist research.
Design/methodology/approach
The paper briefly reviews the works of literature on interviewing women on sensitive topics and building rapport before the interview. Then, the author introduced using emoticons to create rapport during the data collection process and how a non-traditional approach positively impacts the interviewer and interviewee before, during and even after the interview.
Findings
Women participants' responses and behaviors differed after building a rapport through an online chat. They were willing to share their personal stories and memories with the interviewer even though the interviewer did not ask.
Research limitations/implications
This study provides a stepping stone for developing an account of the new qualitative methodological approach, specifically feminist qualitative research.
Originality/value
Few studies have described how qualitative researchers create a rapport in virtual space, specifically using emoticons. Also, this study suggests a new methodological approach since nonverbal communication in online chat is inevitable when interviewing people in qualitative research.
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The purpose of this paper is to outline the challenges and complexities in conducting research faced by scholars utilizing postcolonial feminist frameworks. The paper discusses…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to outline the challenges and complexities in conducting research faced by scholars utilizing postcolonial feminist frameworks. The paper discusses postcolonial feminist key concepts, namely representation, subalternity, and reflexivity and the challenges scholars face when deploying these concepts in fieldwork settings. The paper then outlines the implications of these concepts for feminist praxis related to international management theory, research, and writing as well as entrepreneurship programs.
Design/methodology/approach
This paper discusses the experiences of the author in conducting fieldwork on Turkish high‐technology entrepreneurs in the USA and Turkey by focusing explicitly on the challenges and complexities postcolonial feminist frameworks bring to ethnography and auto‐ethnography.
Findings
The paper suggests that conducting fieldwork guided by postcolonial feminist frameworks faces challenges related to representation inclusive of the author and the participants in the study. It offers subalternity as a relational understanding of subjects in contrast to comparative approaches to the study of business people. The paper also discusses how positionality impacts reflexivity through gender, ethnicity, and class relations.
Originality/value
This paper offers a critical perspective on conducting research related to non‐Western subjects by addressing issues arising from feminist and postcolonial intersections. It is a valuable contribution to those researchers who are interested in conducting feminist research particularly with non‐Western people and cultures.
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