Critical Reflections on Research Methods

Power and Equity in Complex Multilingual Contexts

Edited by Doris S. Warriner, Martha Bigelow

Publication date:

06 February 2019

Publisher

Multilingual Matters

Dimensions:

234x1569mm
62x9"

ISBN-13: 9781788922555

This book explores the challenges and opportunities involved in conducting research with members of immigrant, refugee and other minoritized communities. Through first-hand reflective accounts, contributors explore community-based collaborative work, and suggest important implications for applied linguistics, educational research and anthropological investigations of language, literacy and culture. By critically reflecting on the power and limits of university-based research conducted on behalf of, or in collaboration with, members of local communities and by exploring the complicated relationships, dynamics and understandings that emerge, the chapters collectively demonstrate the value of reflecting on the possibilities and challenges of the research process, including the ethical and emotional dimensions of participating in collaborative research.

Part I: Language, Culture and Identity

Chapter 1. Chatwara S. Duran: “I Have So Many Things to Tell You, but I Don’t Know English”: Linguistic Challenges and Language Brokering

Chapter 2. Ayfer K. Gokalp: Revisiting our Understandings in Ethnographic Research

Chapter 3. Christopher Browder: The Trouble with Operationalizing People: My Research with Students with Limited or Interrupted Formal Education (SLIFE)

Chapter 4. Emily Feuerherm: A Researcher’s Coming-of-Age Through Participatory Action Research: The Intersection of Cultures, Identities and Institutions

Part II: Researcher Roles and Reciprocity

Chapter 5. Rosalva Lagunas: Doing Ethnographic Research as an Insider-Outsider: Reflections on Building Relationships and Doing Reciprocity

Chapter 6. Sarah Young Knowles: Researcher-Participant Relationships in Cross-Language Research: Becoming Cultural and Linguistic Insiders

Chapter 7. Nimo Abdi: Researching From the Margin: Challenges and Tensions of Doing Research within One’s Own Refugee Community

Chapter 8. Daisy E. Fredricks: Working Towards and Humanizing Research Stance: Reflections on Modifying the Interview Process

Part III: Relationships, Ethics, Power and Equity

Chapter 9. Katie Bernstein: Ethics in Practice and Answerability in Complex, Multiparticipant Studies

Chapter 10. Nicole Pettitt: Weaving Reciprocity in Research with(In) Immigrant and Refugee Communities

Chapter 11. Kristen Perry: Anonymity, Vulnerability and Informed Consent: An Ethical-Methodological Tale

Chapter 12. Katherine E. Morelli and Doris S. Warriner: The Emotional Dimensions of Qualitative Community-Driven Research: How Interactions and Relationships Shape Processes of Knowledge Production

Chapter 13. Martha Bigelow, Jenna Cushing-Leubner, Mikow Hang, Luis Ortega, Shannon Pergament, Amy Shanafelt and Michele Allen: Perspectives on Power and Equity in Community Based Participatory Action Research Projects

This gem of a book offers vivid and trenchant insights regarding the ongoing, ubiquitous ethical challenges inherent in qualitative research. The chapters reveal research dilemmas, scrutinize how linguistic and social inequalities shape research processes, and explore more transparent and humanizing approaches to data collection, analysis, and presentation.