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20230720T131520230720T1615Europe/Amsterdam[SYMP85] Do no harm? – Researchers, their practices, and their role(s)100 % Onsite sessionAILA 2023 - 20th Anniversary Congress Lyon Editioncellule.congres@ens-lyon.fr
A care-full approach to relations and ethics in post qualitative inquiry in applied linguistics
Oral Presentation[SYMP85] Do no harm? – Researchers, their practices, and their role(s)01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
In this contribution, we share reflections emerging from applied linguistics research conducted in educational settings situated in the colonial context of metropolitan Vancouver, Canada. In light of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (2015), we examine how our approaches to research and teaching as settlers might be decolonized. We describe shifts in our research practices as we attend more deliberately to relations formed in encounters of children, digital devices, researchers, and other human and (im)material participants in a project on multilingual digital literacies. Post qualitative inquiry (Mazzei & Jackson, 2020; St. Pierre, 2021) provides a framework for us to question current neoliberal university structures and practices as we consider: a) whether researchers and participants can engage in equal and reciprocal relationships despite institutional ethics guidelines and policies; and b) to what extent institutional research procedures in place can accommodate genuine and respectful inquiry approaches in educational settings.
We therefore turn to new materialist, Indigenous and poststructuralist theories – such as agential realism (Barad, 2007) and relationality (Tuck & McKenzie, 2015; TallBear, 2014) – to revisit some of the encounters in our inquiry, viewing them as profoundly relational and sociomaterial. We acknowledge and unpack the tensions that were felt when students in an elementary school classroom questioned whether they wanted their literacy practices recorded, even though their guardians and the students themselves had already given their written consent for participation. We look at the specific moments of ethical friction that emerged and "glowed" (MacLure, 2010) as more than data for us as researchers. In particular, we reflect on the "breaks and jagged edges of methodological practices" (Lather, 2012) that made us pause during fieldwork, research meetings, and as we reported on this study.
We find the requirement to seek participants' "free, informed and ongoing consent" guiding our ethics protocols (Government of Canada, 2018) well suited to procedural concerns but deeply insufficient on site when we vow to "do no harm." Thus, we expand on Nodding's (1988) idea of an "ethic of caring" (Brisson, 2020; Laplante, 2005) and suggest that a post qualitative approach to inquiry in applied linguistics offers a different kind of language. From a new materialist and feminist standpoint, we argue that it allows for an ethico-onto-epistemological (Barad, 2007) way of living our inquiries, which we view as "act[s] of love" (Ibrahim, 2014).
Focusing on relational encounters of human and (im)material participants helps us conceptualise an affective, embodied and caring way of living our inquiries with all participants. It also enables us to avoid falling into hierarchic, linear and constraining research ethics, and allows us to explore ways of sharing co-produced knowledge for the benefit of the communities with whom we work and affiliate (Labov, 1982). Following Gallagher (2018), we seek to do so with renewed rigour, yet one that refuses to leave aside difficult or seemingly useless "data." Instead, we acknowledge how these important moments of ethical friction highlight our response-ability (Haraway, 2016) as care-full researchers and educators.
References Barad, K. (2007). Meeting the universe halfway. Quantum physics and the entanglement of matter and meaning. Duke University Press. Brisson, G. (2020, Aug. 29). Researchers in classrooms: Collaboration, ethics and more. Keynote address presented at the Learning Together Conference, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC, Canada. Gallagher, K. (Ed.) (2018). The methodological dilemma revisited: Creative, critical and collaborative approaches to qualitative research for a new era. Routledge. Government of Canada, (2018). Tri-Council policy statement: Ethical conduct for research involving humans – TCPS 2 (2018). Available at https://ethics.gc.ca/eng/policy-politique_tcps2-eptc2_2018.html (accessed June 27, 2022) Haraway, D. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press. Ibrahim, A. (2014). Research as an act of love: Ethics, émigrés, and the praxis of becoming human. Diaspora, Indigenous, and Minority Education, 8(1), 7–20. http://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-1340-6 Laplante, B. (2005). Cheminement éthique d'un chercheur engagé en recherche collaborative. Revue des Sciences de l'Éducation, 31(2), 417–440. http://doi.org/10.1002/sce.3730760110 Lather, P. (2012). Getting lost: Feminist efforts toward a double(d) science. State University of New York Press. MacLure, M. (2010). The offence of theory. Journal of Education Policy, 25(2), 277-286. https://doi.org/10.1080/02680930903462316 Mazzei, L.A. et Jackson, A.Y. (2020, November 19). Webinar with Lisa Mazzei and Alecia Jackson. Post philosophies and the doing of inquiry, webinar series hosted by Vivienne Bozalek, Candace Kuby and Erin Price; University of Missouri and University of Western Cape. https://education.missouri.edu/learning-teaching-curriculum/webinars-2020-2021/ (Accessed June 22, 2022). Noddings, N. (1988). An ethic of caring and its implications for instructional arrangements. American Journal of Education, 96, 215-230. St. Pierre, E. A. (2021). Why post qualitative inquiry? Qualitative Inquiry, 27(2), 163-166. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800420931142 TallBear, K. (2014). Standing with and speaking as faith: A Feminist-Indigenous approach to inquiry. Journal of Research Practice, 10(2), 1-7. Available at http://jrp.icaap.org/index.php/jrp/article/view/405/371 (Accessed June 22, 2022) Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada (TRC). (2015). Honouring the truth, reconciling for the future. Summary of the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. https://nctr.ca/records/reports/#trc-reports Tuck, E., & McKenzie, M. (2015). Relational validity and the "where" of inquiry: Place and land in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 21(7), 633-638. doi: 10.1177/1077800414563809
When multilingualism fails: Working through distress and negative perceptions of language in multilingual research
Oral Presentation[SYMP85] Do no harm? – Researchers, their practices, and their role(s)01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
In this presentation I use an autoethnographic approach to examine three events of language-related "failures," and which also highlighted the negative perceptions and distress of both participants and researcher regarding participant multilingualism. In the first example, I discuss my discomfort with being positioned as a language expert in a community where multilingualism in Spanish and Quichua was the norm, but where debates raged about the legitimacy of certain varieties of Quichua, which I perceived as contributing to the language's loss in the community. In the second example, I examine my role as researcher with a group of former students studying abroad in Brazil, and how one student's difficulties with learning Portuguese may have led to increased negative self-perceptions during our final interview. In the final example I reflect on my interactions with a Spanish teacher participant, whose insecurities about her abilities in the language were reflected in limited classroom use of the language, as well as other language teaching practices that conflicted substantially with my own beliefs. In each of these examples I highlight how mutual perceptions of participant failure may have impacted participant-researcher interactions, which shape the very data we collect and the interpretations we construct.
Research on multilingualism sometimes involves the analysis of language events that could be categorized as "failures." These failures can occur at a macro or micro level, from community loss of a heritage language to a participant struggling with the learning or teaching of an additional language. While investigating the reasons for these failures is valuable for improving multilingual policies and practices, failure in a research study can produce significant emotional distress for participants and researchers alike. This distress can be compounded by the perceived researcher role of "expert" in the topic being studied, particularly if the researcher is known by the participant to be a more proficient multilingual. In interpretive research, which seeks to capture participant perspectives, these events can undermine the trust so essential to high quality research. In this presentation I use an autoethnographic approach to examine three events of language-related "failures," and which also highlighted the negative perceptions and distress of both participants and researcher regarding participant multilingualism.
In the first example, I discuss my discomfort with being positioned as a language expert in a community where multilingualism in Spanish and Quichua was the norm, but where debates raged about the legitimacy of certain varieties of Quichua, which I perceived as contributing to the language's loss in the community. In the second example, I examine my role as researcher with a group of former students studying abroad in Brazil, and how one student's difficulties with learning Portuguese may have led to increased negative self-perceptions during our final interview. In the final example I reflect on my interactions with a Spanish teacher participant, whose insecurities about her abilities in the language were reflected in limited classroom use of the language, as well as other language teaching practices that conflicted substantially with my own beliefs. In each of these examples I highlight how mutual perceptions of participant failure may have impacted participant-researcher interactions, which shape the very data we collect and the interpretations we construct.
The implications for researcher practices are myriad. As researchers, what are our obligations to participants? Should we help them learn languages? Or do we watch them fail, reporting "objectively" on their difficulties? After all, we have both an obligation to understand when multilingualism does not work (and why), as well as an obligation to enhance the benefits that participants might reap from participating in our research. What if these participants are negatively impacting the multilingual possibilities of others? How do our choices shape our data and our findings? How do our actions position us as expert, collaborator, or colleague? I argue for an empathetic approach that allows the participant to guide researcher responses to perceived participant failure through mutual rapport and reflection. I also emphasize the continuing need to analyze interviews and other participant contact as situated events, as well as the importance of triangulating data sources for a deeper view of participant experiences.
Presenters Michele Back Associate Professor, University Of Connecticut
Beyond anti-school? About researching gendered and classed meanings in the context of literacy study in vocational education and training (VET) in Finland
[SYMP85] Do no harm? – Researchers, their practices, and their role(s)01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
This paper reflects ethnographic fieldwork (2018–2020) conducted in the context of the school subject of literacy in vocational education and training (VET) in Finland. I explore some troubling situations and discuss social hierarchies produced within.
VET technical field male students are often seen through stereotypes of anti-school masculinity, for instance not interested in studying core subjects such as literacy but longing for labour (Rosvall 2015; Pietilä et al. 2021; Nylund et al. 2018). School subject of literacy is culturally understood as feminine and academic (Jackson 2006; Sulkunen & Kauppinen 2018). However, in the VET technical fields, literacy contextualises in working-class and male setting (Nylund et al. 2018; Education Statistics Finland 2022).
This presentation addresses to the need to detail and diversify interpretations on VET students (Rosvall 2015) and not to settle for the anti-school diagnosis. The paper stems from ethnographic PhD project with the aim of exploring social meanings and relations that are constructed during literacy lessons in VET. The overall methodology was feminist ethnography (Skeggs 2001), meaning a commitment in social justice and norm criticism.
The analysis draws from regarding language use indexical, reproducing hierarchies and discourses (Blommaert 2007). The paper presents examples and analysis on troubling situations from the fieldwork and research process. I reflect the social dynamics and social hierarchies by focusing on indexical language use within these troubling situations. I aim in exploring how indexical language use analysis might help in interpreting intensive and important local meanings drawing from a body of ethnographic fieldwork in which the researcher is personally intertwined. From a social justice perspective, locating discourses and their reproduction in subtle moments of indexical language use enables to reveal, discuss and subvert social hierarchies – hierarchies in which a researcher is part of whether she liked it or not.
Blommaert, J. (2007). Sociolinguistics and discourse analysis: Orders of indexicality and polycentricity. Journal of multicultural discourses, 2(2), 115-130.
Jackson, C. (2006). Lads and ladettes in school: Gender and a fear of failure. McGraw-Hill Education.
Nylund, M., Rosvall, P. Å., Eiríksdóttir, E., Holm, A. S., Isopahkala-Bouret, U., Niemi, A. M., & Ragnarsdóttir, G. (2018). The academic–vocational divide in three Nordic countries: Implications for social class and gender. Education Inquiry, 9(1), 97-121.
Pietilä, P., Tainio, L., Lappalainen, S., & Lahelma, E. (2021). Swearing as a method of antipedagogy in workshops of rap lyrics for 'failing boys' in vocational education. Gender and Education, 33(4), 420-434.
Rosvall, P. Å. (2015). 'Lad' research, the reproduction of stereotypes? Ethnographic dilemmas when researching boys from working-class backgrounds. Ethnography and Education, 10(2), 215-229.
Skeggs, B. (2001). Feminist ethnography. Handbook of ethnography, 426-442.
Sulkunen, S., & Kauppinen, M. (2018). Ainakin muutaman pojan luokallani tiedän lukevan. Poikien (osin piiloiset) luku-ja kirjoitustaidot. Teoksessa Kivijärvi, Antti, Huuki, Tuija & Lunabba, Harry (toim.), Poikatutkimus. Tampere: Vastapaino, 146-173.
The fatigue of being researched: how to move on with the politics of vulnerability in ethnography?
Oral Presentation[SYMP85] Do no harm? – Researchers, their practices, and their role(s)01:15 PM - 04:15 PM (Europe/Amsterdam) 2023/07/20 11:15:00 UTC - 2024/07/20 14:15:00 UTC
This paper draws on my ongoing ethnographic work conducted since 2019 in London (U.K.) that documents homeless individuals' interconnected networks and engagement in street businesses and livelihood strategies. In my fieldwork, my participants shared their fatigue about being constantly approached by researchers and their loss of hope in having researchers change their situations. Their fatigue of being over-studied by academic labor caused me emotional harm because, as a researcher, my intent was not to wear out the "subaltern others". This paper aims to reflect upon such fatigue of being researched and the "harm" that ethnographic research can do to both researchers and participants - what does it mean for us researchers to navigate this fatigue and what does it mean to do research in places where people are sick of what we do? More importantly, what do we do with this "fatigue"? How do we address it? What does it mean for our research?
Social science has made homeless people an intense object of research. Researchers have been attracted by the vulnerability of those living in the margins and have used their life stories to make many critiques of capitalism and colonialism. The economy of knowledge production in academe desires and commodifies stories of pain and demands the ethnography of resistance (Tuck & Yang, 2014; Urla & Helepololei, 2014). Tuck and Yang (2014) theorize the refusal to do such research as an attempt to place limits on the colonization of knowledge of self/Others. This paper draws on my ongoing ethnographic work conducted since 2019 in London (U.K.) that documents homeless individuals' interconnected networks and engagement in street businesses and livelihood strategies. At one point in my fieldwork, one participant shared his fatigue about being constantly approached by researchers and their loss of hope in having researchers change their situations. Another said to me that he had told me everything that he thought he could, and he could not help me more. Their fatigue of being over-studied by academic labor caused me emotional harm because, as a researcher, my intent was not to wear out the "subaltern others". I refused to further "colonize" the participants' stories although some of them were supportive of my research, so I stopped my fieldwork temporarily during Winter 2020 to reflect on the aesthetics of research interests in vulnerability in language studies and contemplate the next step of my study. I told my participants about my feeling and decision to halt the data collection. Interestingly, some of them voluntarily kept in touch with me for a long time and, instead of saying that they were used/harmed/colonized, they thanked me for making them feel "useful". This paper aims to reflect upon the fatigue of being researched and the "harm" that ethnographic research can do to both researchers and participants - what does it mean for us researchers to navigate this fatigue and what does it mean to do research in places where people are sick of what we do? More importantly, what do we do with this "fatigue"? How do we address it? What does it mean for our research? The argument I put forward is that we need to take a second look at what we mean by "harm"; there must be a balance between researchers and participants and such a balance needs to be sought by researchers throughout the research process with their participants.
References Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2014). R-words: Refusing research. Humanizing research: Decolonizing qualitative inquiry with youth and communities, 223, 248. Urla, J., & Helepololei, J. (2014). The ethnography of resistance then and now: On thickness and activist engagement in the twenty-first century. History and Anthropology, 25(4), 431-451.
Michele Back
