Feminist participatory methodologies in geography: creating spaces of inclusion

The collection of articles

The idea for this special issue began at the American Association of Geographers annual meeting in 2013 in Los Angeles at a session on participatory methodologies. Realizing that a debate on participatory approaches is carried out more intensely in the Anglo-Saxon context than in continental Europe, we decided to organize a session at the International Geographical Union Conference in Krakow (Poland) in August 2014. This session, entitled ‘Feminist Participatory Methodologies: Creating Spaces of Inclusion’, was sponsored by the International Geographical Union Commission on Gender and Geography. Given the great interest that the session sparked, and with the desire to contribute to advancing our understanding of feminist participatory methodologies, we put forward an international call for papers for a special issue in Qualitative Research.

In selecting the six papers for this special issue, we aim to present an array of contributions addressing research partners who have so far received insufficient attention: highly skilled migrant women, young people identifying themselves as queer, gate-keepers controlling access to the studied communities, children, and the elderly. The issue’s contributors also bring new emerging methods and tools intended to produce inclusionary spaces of knowledge production such as street theatre, pamphlets in local languages, arts-based workshops, and Minga workshops. Finally, a variety of Northern and Southern hemisphere countries are brought to the fore, including Switzerland, India, Ghana, Malawi, South Africa, Kenya, Tanzania, Sierra Leone, and Canada.

Riaño proposes the notion of ‘marginalized elites’ to examine social integration and exclusion experienced by highly skilled migrant women in Switzerland, a group largely neglected by feminist participatory research. Her innovative ‘Minga’ methodology uses biographic workshops designed to produce inclusionary spaces, where women share and critically analyze their migration histories with other participants. Minga means ‘building together’ in Quechua; Riaño uses this name to symbolize the new knowledge that academics and their research partners can produce through collaboration. The research partnership is informed by key principles of reciprocity, mutual learning, mutual recognition, dialogic engagement, personal transformation, and access to academic spaces. Research partners who participated in Minga workshops found that the method enhanced of spaces of inclusion, produced ‘spaces of personal transformation’, questioned the perceived inferiority of migrant women, and produced original scientific insights on social exclusion. Using the example of highly skilled migrant women, Riaño questions notions of privilege, power, and positionality commonly used in feminist participatory approaches. She also draws attention to how the disciplining function of academic contexts and prevailing social norms regarding gender roles limit our engagement with social justice.

Lund, Panda and Dhal focus on the researcher–gatekeeper dialogue in a research project on Adivasi (indigenous) women in rural Odisha, India. The authors understand a gatekeeper as ‘someone who has power and control over access to communities and key respondents in a particular location selected for research’. The power of gatekeepers is in their ability to influence problematic areas of study, access to respondents, and the scope of analysis. The authors explore opportunities and limitations in the co-production of knowledge with gatekeepers. They report on a collaboration with Manju Prava Dhal, a gatekeeper and co-author of the paper, and unravel spaces of inclusion and exclusion among partners in their research. They conclude that no matter how great an effort is made to create a relationship of equality, inequalities continue to exist among partners. Understanding the role and power of each participant as well as their contributions to creating spaces of inclusion is of great significance.

Porter uses the method of co-investigation with children, youth and older people as peer-researchers, and reflects on a series of collaborative studies that she led in several African countries. The first concerns her work training young people (ages 9–18) to participate confidently as peer-researchers in a child mobility study in Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa; the second research project investigates youth and mobile phones (in which some of those young peer-researchers continue to participate); the third studies mobility of older people (ages 59–69) in Tanzania. The three case studies presented demonstrate the potential of co-investigation in the creation of new spaces of inclusion for vulnerable groups who are rarely consulted in international development research. Porter shows that while the funding brought by foreigners may have encouraged the initial interest of research participants in these projects, she assesses the sustained commitment of the in-country teams as far more crucial in building trust with peer-researchers. She concludes that if the perpetuation of colonial power landscapes is to be avoided, the establishment of ethics agreements and procedures at the start of academic/community collaborations are essential. Throughout the research process, it is necessary to monitor and reflect on the knowledge being reported and represented – in particular, by whom, from whom, and for whom.

Caretta questions which methods are most suitable to ensure research validity in cross-cultural and cross-language contexts. While conducting research on the gendered division of labour in smallholder irrigation farming in the dry lands of Kenya and Tanzania, she uses pamphlets written in local languages to summarize and visualize preliminary results. By means of short written descriptions and graphics, the pamphlets convey to participants – among them analphabets – their contribution to the research process, and ask for their assistance in correcting, improving, and discussing preliminary research results. The pamphlet became a catalyst for discussion and effectively allowed the creation of a space for inclusion and reciprocal learning. As misunderstandings in transcultural interviews tend to occur frequently, the pamphlet helped to establish a common ground between the academic, the research assistants, and the research participants. Overall, the pamphlet proved a useful tool for ensuring research validity and allowing a shift in the research power hierarchy.

Enria discusses the potential and limitations of the method of participatory theatre – designed to create shared understandings of the relationship between youth unemployment and violence – while working with economically marginalized youth in the White House neighbourhood of Freetown, Sierra Leone. Unemployed youth have been portrayed in official narratives as potential threats to stability. Public theatre performances with White House youth served as a tool to challenge this portrayal. Street theatre provided participants with an opportunity to represent themselves and interpret their realities while also sensitizing the local population towards the need for peace. Although Enria acknowledges that she set the agenda, the article shows this novel method made it possible for youth to understand the causes of violence as rooted in the structural dynamics of economic adversity.

Bain and Payne critically examine the play of power in the co-production of knowledge in the context of a feminist participatory action research project with queer youth in Toronto’s (Canada) West-Central neighbourhoods. At the invitation of a queer youth programme’s director, Bain and Payne collaborated to facilitate two arts-based workshops using maps and photographs to create dialogue with queer youth about the forces that drive the evolution of the places where they live. Through these workshops, the authors sought to build bridges between the queer community and the university, and to inspire young people to think critically about making and claiming queer space in urban areas. By unpacking the power relations that surrounded a co-produced conference and journal article papers, the authors argue that an accelerating process of de-participation and exclusion is on-going and eroding the progressive, inclusive politics of feminist participatory methodologies. While they remain convinced of the value of participatory approaches, they also recognize that scholars are disciplined by their contingent contexts.

Pointing to new paths and persistent challenges

Feminist geography and participatory research have disproportionately focused on vulnerable and uneducated populations, leaving the potential of co-producing knowledge with less disadvantaged groups insufficiently explored. Contributors of this special issue encourage academics to pursue new directions by working with groups such as queer youth in Toronto or highly skilled migrant women in Switzerland, who can engage in critical and collective thinking about the forces that shape their environments and daily experiences.

Ensuring fewer exploitative and hierarchical research relationships is the central goal of feminist participatory research. The contributors of this issue further this understanding by showing that academics do not exclusively hold the power in a research partnership. In fact, each partner has a different form of power that can be used for different times and spaces. Gate-keepers and research participants have the power to deny access to the studied community, refuse a research partnership, negotiate the conditions of their participation, and/or control the dissemination of research results. Hence, it becomes important to understand when, where, and with whom the power lies in a research partnership.

While recognizing that it is important for academics to share their power during the research process, the contributors of this special issue also uncover the inevitable ‘tensions and messiness’ that arise during feminist participatory projects (Reid et al., 2011: 94). The contributors acknowledge the occasionally overwhelming expectations that feminist researchers face in creating a level playing field for all research participants (see also Reid, 2000). They also acknowledge that despite their efforts to create more democratic spaces of knowledge production, inequalities persist among research partners. Moreover, contributors also warn that academics must be aware that collaborative processes can also lead to de-participation and exclusion. Finally, the contributors bring to light how unsupportive academic environments, as well as traditional understandings of the role of women and men in society, limit academic engagement with just methods.

Despite their challenges, the contributors also acknowledge the benefits of using feminist participatory methodologies. Academics have gained new scientific insights on a variety of issues, such as the patterns of gendered labour division in smallholder irrigation farming in Africa, the link between youth unemployment and violence in Sierra Leone, the forces that drive the evolution of the places where queer youth live, and how traditional gender values and ethnic imaginaries shape the professional exclusion of highly skilled migrant women in Switzerland. Most importantly, spaces of inclusion have been created whereby highly skilled migrant women in Switzerland, indigenous women leaders in India, smallholders, marginal youth, children and the elderly in Africa, and queer youth in Canada have gained confidence, acquired new skills, sharpened their views on their lived spaces and realities, and enriched their social networks.