Diversifying Feminist Ethnographers’ Dilemmas and Solutions

Abstract

Keywords

Avishai, Gerber, and Randles (2013a, 394) describe the feminist dilemma as arising when established “feminist analytic frameworks clash with observations.” All three felt this dilemma when conducting research on groups commonly thought to be “conservative” or “nonfeminist.” They felt unable to reconcile what they imagined was the feminist imperative to privilege the voice of participants with their stated feminist political commitments. In spite of their expectations of male dominance and support of a patriarchal system in the field, they interpreted some of their observations as reflecting feminist ideals. However, they were uncomfortable drawing such conclusions, as they felt pressure to conform to an institutionalized orthodoxy of feminist thought. As self-identified feminists, they worried how other feminists would evaluate their work. To help better navigate this dilemma, the authors encourage “institutional reflexivity,” or critical reflection of how feminist theoretical and methodological orthodoxies “constrain and enable interpretations of the world.” They also encourage feminists to privilege their analytic interpretations over their political projects when this dilemma arises.

By introducing the notions of “the feminist dilemma” and “institutional reflexivity,” the authors provide a language to interrogate not only the issues as framed, but, with JCE’s help, open up a dialogue. In the spirit of institutional reflexivity, let us explore some issues that arose as we reflected upon their provocative article. We first address how more fully integrating the diversity of feminism multiplies such dilemmas to an almost incalculable amount. We then examine how coming to terms with the diversity of feminism may point to other strategies for navigating such dilemmas. In doing so, we also aim to show how personal reflexivity, which transcends reflecting on field relations, cannot be separated from understanding the nature of the dilemmas or how we might attempt to resolve them. Although we commend the authors for discussing a real and generally unspoken dilemma, and share their belief that our data and theorizing must be tightly linked, we worry that following the authors’ advice for separating feminism’s analytic and political projects may dilute, if not dissolve, feminist ethnography.

Diversifying Dilemmas

While the authors acknowledge different feminist approaches, especially when discussing how women of color have challenged feminism as produced from the perspectives of elite white women, what might happen if we take into account more fully the diversity of feminism? Let us answer this by addressing feminists’ (1) diverse alliances with other marginalized groups; (2) adoption of varied genres of feminism; and (3) favored micro and mid-level interpretative frameworks. In doing so, we highlight how personal and institutional reflexivity are linked, and that there is no single feminist orthodoxy, and no single dilemma. Our discussion is influenced by symbolic interactionism, which shares with much feminism a distaste for dualisms (e.g., Collins 1990).

Although many feminists might predict that conservative groups are patriarchal playgrounds, there is much disagreement about how an ethnographer can best gather and interpret data, regardless of whether it conforms to initial expectations. For example, if one neglects to analyze race or class, one might be burdened with shame if perceiving intersectional feminists as judgmental (see, e.g., Cooley 1902 on the “looking glass self”). If this is the case, then one may face countless dilemmas because of the many ways feminist theories and theorists may be differentially allied with the poor, the differently abled, the young or elderly, sexual minorities, the politically exiled or undocumented, etc. The number of dilemmas the institutionally reflexive ethnographer faces may thus be limited only to the degree she or he can bracket the suffering of particular groups from others. In this way, personal reflexivity of the traditional “looking glass” variety is intertwined with feminists’ political and analytic projects.

What counts as suffering and the desired route to liberation, of course, depends on how much scholars lean toward or adopt other broader perspectives, such as socialist, radical, liberal, eco-, or anarcho-feminism, in all their nuanced variations. These often-tacit varieties of feminism are typically part of our self-concepts and how we reflexively take the perspectives of valued audiences. If one ethnographer defines herself or himself as a radical feminist but cannot interpret data in a way that fits with the broad framework, she or he likely faces a different kind of dilemma than would an eco-feminist working with the same data. The dilemmas are colored by what version of feminist identity is most personally “salient” (Stryker 1969), which is also linked to how we reflexively judge ourselves in terms of our most valued reference groups (Shibutani 1955). In addition, imagining how differently self-defined feminists might evaluate our work can also multiply the dilemmas. As a result, the knapsack of “dilemmas” that conscientious fieldworkers lug around is likely to weigh so much that it is a wonder we ever make it to the keyboard to type up notes.

Because feminists develop and use other common interpretative frameworks, along with more general and traditionally established theoretical perspectives (see, e.g., Nielson 1990; Roberts 1981; Stacey 1988; Wolf 1996), calculating the number of dilemmas feminist ethnographers face may require the help of our comrades in demography. For example, because reality is multiperspectivial (James 1890), different feminist ethnographers may very well interpret the same interactional exchange as conversational work, emotion management, identity work, doing gender, framing, ad infinitum. And, if an institutionally reflective ethnographer interprets such an exchange as identity work rather than emotion management, she or he may, for example, be haunted by an image of Arlie Hochschild scribbling in the manuscript’s margins. Furthermore, feminism has been incorporated into and developed by not only postmodern and postcolonial theories, as the authors mention, but also ethnographer-friendly varieties of ethnomethodology, psychoanalytic sociology, symbolic interactionism, dramaturgy, existentialism, phenomenology, structuration, and so forth. Reflexive feminist ethnographers may face more dilemmas than a sweet-toothed procrastinator in a convenience store.

Let us say more with regard to basic interpretive lenses through which we frame qualitative data, especially with regard to research participants’ talk. The authors argue that “privileging our subjects’ worldviews” and “voices” is a feminist methodological imperative that should take precedence over political commitments. Although we agree—as do all ethnographic textbooks we know of—that we should not coerce data into a preexisting framework, we do not advocate privileging participant voices at the expense of political analysis. Doing so cuts off the possibility of analyzing “talk as action” (Kleinman 2007) that reproduces and/or challenges sexism. What is required is an analysis of talk rather than an assumption that honoring and respecting participants’ talk (and worldview) is in itself feminist. In fact, privileging the worldview of some participants may very well amount to “going patriarchal.”

Take, for example, Scully and Marolla’s (1984) classic research on rapists’ accounts, which they interpreted as rapists drawing on the larger culture to justify and excuse their sexual violence against women. Were they unfeminist because they refused to privilege rapists’ worldview over their feminist politics? To the contrary, their analytic project was political and empirically rigorous and changed how many feminists understand and study language. Beyond this, it brought feminism to those studying accounts and challenged the dominant individualist paradigm that constructed rapists as suffering from psychopathology. Their study has introduced cohort after cohort of undergraduates to the power of feminist analyses of talk and the idea that common stereotypes of women are symbolic resources that men use to allow them to commit rape in the first place. Feminism, as well as social science, was advanced not because they jettisoned their politics because it clashed with privileging interviewees’ worldviews. Rather, their contributions depended on taking those interviewees’ talk as something to be analyzed from a perspective that understands sexual violence as key to the oppression of women. Feminism was the savior, not the foil of their empirical research.

Although we disagree that a feminist orthodoxy exists and that a feminist ethnographer should privilege research participants’ worldview, we do agree that one approach, in a specific area of research, may enjoy a long stretch at the top of the paradigmatic charts. In other words, an established cadre of feminists might hold a particular analytic framework in such high regard that it becomes dominant in certain domains (e.g., journals, subfields, networks). For example, there may be a dominant framework about how to frame research about a specific group (e.g., Israeli orthodox Jewish women), broader social groups (e.g., men), or a certain substantive area (e.g., religion and gender). Take, for example, Connell and followers’ approach to studying men; the 7,208 citations (according to Google Scholar) of Connell’s (1995) Masculinties can make it seem like the only discursive game in town. We thus agree with the authors wholeheartedly that under such conditions, ethnographers writing about a certain group may feel rather uneasy if they do not believe it is appropriate to utilize a dominant framework. We ourselves have struggled with this in our own research and theorizing on men. But even in such dire straits, one might find that the same thing that multiplies dilemmas—the diversity of feminism—can aid in resolving them and advancing feminist ethnography.

Diversifying Solutions

How might ethnographers navigate a feminist dilemma and remain faithful to “obdurate reality” (Blumer 1969)? Avishai, Gerber, and Randles (2013a, 419–420) conclude that, “in order to produce valid research, feminists should be cognizant of the tension between feminism’s dual agendas as a political and analytical project and how the former must cede to the latter.” There may be multiple readings of this statement, especially if we consider it in light of others the authors made. Considering the definition of the dilemma given to us in the abstract—“when feminist analytic perspectives clash with observations”—one interpretation is that they are urging feminist ethnographers to allow what they see in the field to shape analyses, rather than being blinded by ideology. Navigating such a dilemma may require little more than putting to use one’s training in ethnographic methods, especially with regard to generating an inductive analysis grounded in the empirical world. The authors mention in passing that grounded theory helped solve their dilemmas—let us add that following sound advice in qualitative guidebooks (e.g., Charmaz 2006; Kleinman and Copp 1993; Lofland et al. 2006) may help resolve or preempt them. Such lessons include making explicit one’s initial assumptions about the group being studied, reflecting on one’s own emotions, regularly writing analytic memos to explore developing themes, searching for negative cases and changing one’s interpretations to fit them, engaging in line-by-line and other forms of coding so that conceptualizations are always connected to data, and so on. These strategies help to prevent ethnographers from ignoring the empirical world in favor of their own or others’ expectations. They also help feminist ethnographers to develop grounded feminist theory if they are so committed.

A more troubling rendering of the authors’ aforementioned statement may be that they are suggesting that feminist analysis can be separated from feminist politics, and feminists are biased if they “conflate” their political and analytical projects. If feminist politics includes consciousness raising through storytelling, as highlighted in the 1970s when feminism was more commonly found in women’s rap groups than academic journals (Kalcik 1975), then what does it mean to construct a feminist analytic project without being political? Perhaps we are stuck in an old orthodoxy, but we presume that many theories have political assumptions, and removing the politics would turn these paradigms into something else entirely. For example, critical race theory would no longer be critical race theory if we took out the politics of racial equality. What would feminist ethnography be if one removed the political from its analytic agenda? The danger, as we see it, is that it may dilute feminism by relegating it to identity politics rather than maintain it as a project aimed at eradicating gender inequality. In other words, removing feminist politics could turn feminist ethnography into pseudo-feminism.

Instead of diluting feminism or working on one’s ethnographic chops, engaging the diversity of feminism may be particularly helpful in addressing the dilemmas. Let us continue by again using Connell’s dominant approach to studying men. Although the sheer amount of academic discourse adopting the language of masculinities can make it seem like an inescapable web, others have consistently pulled away its strands and offered alternative conceptualizations (see, e.g., Hearn 2004; MacInnes 1998; Martin 1998; Schrock and Schwalbe 2009). Such critiques include that the approach is essentialist, ambiguous, and enables a delinking of the concept of masculinity from understanding the oppression of women. Engaging and developing the critiques and alternative approaches have enabled feminist ethnographers analyzing men to publish their work without being trapped in this masculinities discourse (e.g., Eastman 2012; Ezzell 2012; Sumerau 2012; Vacarro, Schrock, and McCabe 2011; Wilkins 2012). The point here is that instead of dropping feminist politics from ethnographic analyses when the empirical world seems obscured through one feminist lens, try to develop others until it comes into better focus. This approach, of course, requires ethnographers to remain systematically engaged with our empirical data throughout the process.

Let us briefly consider how existing feminist frameworks may have helped the authors differently resolve their stated dilemmas to further illustrate the potential of institutional reflexivity. Gerber’s finding that men of the “ex-gay” movement were encouraged to express vulnerability led her to contend that they were “playful” rather than patriarchal. She argues that what she found contradicted a previously published analysis that argued ex-gay men were claiming male privilege. Our reading of her description suggests that adopting or adapting a feminist lens that emphasizes the linkages between sexism and the privileging of heterosexuality (see, e.g., Pharr 1988) might have complicated her analysis. Feminist ethnography has shown that it is possible to reproduce male privilege regardless of one’s good intentions and style of communication (Kleinman 1996). When Randles entered a marriage promotion program, she found instructors did not emphasize marriage as macro-oriented feminists theorized, and thus her dilemma centered on making sense of her data outside the alleged feminist “orthodoxy.” However, she may have found solace in feminist theorists who argue against a macro view of the state and advocate focusing on interactions between people inside state-sanctioned programs (e.g., Haney 2000). In Avishai’s attempt to resolve dilemmas surrounding how to make sense of orthodox Jewish women’s engagement in niddah, she focused on how the women “do religion” and construct authentic religious selves, which “challenged feminist critiques of religious practices that regulate women’s bodies.” It is plausible, however, that adopting a feminist interactionist lens would have enabled her to view such identity work as intertwined with patriarchy (see, e.g., Kleinman 1996; Schwalbe 1996).

The point here is not that any of these alternative feminist lenses are necessarily better than the ones the authors used to interpret their data—and we acknowledge that they know their data better than we ever could. Rather, we want to suggest that if previously published feminist analyses of the group one is investigating does not resonate with one’s observations in the field, then feminist ethnographers may be able to maintain a focus on gender inequality by trying out feminist perspectives that have been developed by theorists addressing broader issues and ethnographers who may have focused on other types of groups. Furthermore, it should not be surprising that one is surprised by what one finds in the field and that participants’ worldviews do not resonate with established feminist discourse. The point is to unpack seeming contradictions to find the connections. After all, it is precisely these surprises and contradictions that give us an opportunity to enrich and contribute to a kind of knowledge and theory that challenges patriarchy. We should not expect our participants’ constructions of their own lives to do such analytic work for us, regardless of what type of ethnographer one aims to be, as “here lies a serious danger of romanticizing and/or appropriating the vision of the less powerful while claiming to see from their position” (Haraway 1988, 292). As Kleinman and Kolb (2011, 425) point out, two of the most common “traps” of qualitative analysis are becoming too attached to the research on one’s specific topic and becoming “overly sympathetic towards participants.”

In addition, let us briefly consider the role of personal reflexivity in resolving dilemmas. If ethnographers’ dilemmas, as suggested earlier, have something to do with our understanding of what kind of feminist we aim to be, then it follows that coming to terms with our brand of feminist identity (and by extension, our feminist politics) may help mitigate discomfort. Understand what one’s values are and become secure in them, yet allow growth as new insights develop. It may be useful to also reflect on whether one’s commitment to one’s identity or brand of feminism would necessarily lead, if acting as a reviewer or editor, to rejecting a manuscript just because the author did not conform to your approach. Our sense is that most feminists are not so wedded to their favored approach that they shut those using alternative approaches out of the publishing game; most do their best to evaluate authors on the basis of their presented arguments and data and editors and the peer-review process provides a check (albeit sometimes an imperfect one). In addition to reflecting on one’s identity, reflecting on one’s own feelings while in the field and engaging in analysis at one’s desk are crucial to both pinpointing dilemmas in the field and developing solutions to them (see Kleinman and Copp 1993).

In conclusion, solving feminist ethnographers’ dilemmas most likely requires using the aforementioned techniques in an ongoing and recursive fashion: stay grounded in one’s data and committed to the inductive process, sustain institutional reflexivity including reading diverse approaches to feminist theory and research, and engage in personal reflection about one’s identity, emotions, and sense-making. Following such advice may not just help resolve feminist dilemmas; it may transform ethnographers into feminists and make their empirical work stronger. In Feminist Fieldwork Analysis, Sherryl Kleinman (2007) argues precisely this as she recounts her transition from a solidly trained and successful midcareer ethnographer to a feminist ethnographer. Faced with an “analysis block” or difficulty in making sense of her field observations at a holistic health center, she set the project aside for a time. She then interrogated her “twinge-o-meter” or feelings of discomfort with regard to her observations and developing analysis and began reading feminist theory to develop a new course on race, class, and gender. When she came back to her project, she asked new questions of her data centered on gender inequality and, as she put it, was “freed to write a story that fit the feminist I had become” (Kleinman 2007, 5).

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Daphne Holden, Patricia Yancey Martin, Jason Eastman, and Janice McCabe for their helpful suggestions and comments.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Author Biographies

Douglas Schrock is an associate professor of sociology at Florida State University. He examines the reproduction and challenging of inequalities from an interactionist perspective. Most of his research emphasizes gender, with a focus on culture and identity, emotion and embodiment, and personal and social change.

Amanda Koontz Anthony is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Central Florida. Her primary areas of specialization are culture, social psychology, and inequalities (gender, race, class). Her current work focuses on understanding how identity work in varying contexts affects the construction and negotiation of cultural resources and inequalities.

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