Programme full

Wednesday 15 April 2015 11:00 - 12:30
PAPER SESSION 2
dismantle the normative. Do qualitative feminist sociological methodologies need to develop new approaches,
perhaps drawing on indigenous research methods for example, or can existing approaches be adapted?
Visual Reflections
Guest, C.
(Birkbeck, University of London)
This paper draws on narrative interviews exploring women's accounts of 'becoming feminist'. Interviewees were asked
to present and discuss images that held significance to their feminism. The use of visual methods provides exciting
and interesting data, however this paper will focus on how it is also an effective, yet challenging reflexive social
research tool. Taking specific examples from the interviews it will discuss three aspects of visual methods as a
reflexive, ethical and political research tool.
Firstly, it will discuss issues of mis-identification and appropriation – what does it reveal about the researcher and her
relationship to the data when images are viewed as her own? Can these moments of viewing act as prompts to reflect
on the pre-conceptions and investments that the researcher brings to the research process?
Secondly, it asks how the use of the visual in an interview can produce non-linguistic narratives that often complicate
or contradict spoken narratives. In doing so it can highlight what is difficult to articulate verbally and bring to the fore
the affective dimension of the interview.
Finally, it explores the significance and complexities of giving consent for the use of visual images in research. It asks
what might be revealed in the images interviewees choose to display or hide. It reflects on an instance where an
interviewee consented to the reproduction of an that produced unease and discomfort in the researcher. This final
section explores the ways in which ethical research practice unfolds and develops across the research process.
‘Dear Researcher’ Revisited: Methodological Reflections on Data Collection Via E(mail)
Letherby, G., Parsons, J.
(Plymouth University)
Here we reflect on our individual and joint experience of data collection via (e)mail. When Gayle began fieldwork for
her doctorate (on the experience of 'infertility' and 'involuntary childlessness' (in single quotation marks to highlight
problems of definition)) in the early 1990s she expected data to be collected only through face-to-face interviews. The
100+ letters she received from more than 50 women and eight men and the significance of these both
methodologically and substantively were a surprise. Julie on the other hand embarked on her doctoral data collection
in 2010, for her auto/biographical study of relationships with food, intending to correspond (via email) with respondents
through a series of asynchronous on-line interviews. She collected narratives from 75 individuals, some of whom drew
on epistolary traditions associated with letter writing whilst others engaged in emerging forms of expression,
emoticons etc. Recently, working together, we have continued this approach for a project concerned with weight loss
management, including weight loss surgery, again collecting data via asynchronous online interviews with 62
respondents. Here, with specific reference to our separate and collaborative work, we reflect on the use and meanings
of 'research by correspondence'. We revisit the arguments put forward by Gayle and a colleague (Letherby and
Zdodrowski 1995) arguing for the academic and political value of such an approach and reflect on the benefits and
costs of e(mail) data collection.
Letherby. G. and Zdrokowski, D. (1995) 'Dear Researcher: the use of correspondence as a method within feminist
qualitative research' Gender and Society 9:5
Race, Ethnicity and Migration 1
CARNEGIE LECTURE THEATRE, CHARLES OAKLEY BUILDING
RACISM, CLASS AND THE RACIALIZED OUTSIDER: A ROUNDTABLE DISCUSSION WITH PROFESSORS
SATNAM VIRDEE, GARGI BHATTACHARYA, JOHN SOLOMOS AND TIM STRANGLEMAN
Racism, Class and the Racialized Outsider offers a critical analysis of working class efforts to secure economic and
social justice and democratize British (Scottish and English) society over the longue duree (covering a two hundred
year period between 1780 and 1990). Unlike most studies of the British working class however, it investigates these
social and political struggles through ‘the prism of race’. As a result, it offers an original perspective on the significance
of both racism and anti-racism in the making of the working class. While racism became a powerful structuring force
BSA Annual Conference 2015 98
Glasgow Caledonian University