Maps,Numbers, Text,and Context: Mixing Methods in Feminist Political Ecology*

Feminist post-structuralist theory, feminist empiricism, and field practice can all contribute to insights on the value of quantitative and qualitative methods in feminist geographical research. A political ecology study of gendered interests in a social forestry program in the Dominican Republic illustrates the methodological dilemmas and potentials of feminist research on environmental change. The study combined qualitative and quantitative data collection and analytical techniques. Examples from the case study address three methodological questions in feminist geography: (1) Should identity or affinity be the basis for situating ourselves and the subjects of our research? (2) How can we reconcile multiple subjectivities and quantitative methods in the quest for objectivity? and (3) Can we combine traditional positivist methods with participatory mapping and oral histories? The paper draws on theoretical literature as well as field experience to answer these questions.     

Collaboration Across Borders: Moving Beyond Positionality

Discussions about collaborative spaces in postcolonial feminist and geographical analyses have often hinged on questions of positionality, reflexivity and identity, largely in relation to the politics of representation. Such approaches have often led to an impasse, especially in fieldwork-based feminist research, where reflexivity has mainly focused on examining the identities of the individual researcher rather than on the ways in which those identities intersect with institutional, geopolitical and material aspects of their positionality. This kind of identity-based reflexivity does not distinguish systematically between the ethical, ontological and epistemological aspects of fieldwork dilemmas; it also fails to adequately address how our ability to align our theoretical priorities with the concerns of communities whose struggles we want to advance is connected to the opportunities, constraints and values embedded in our academic institutions. This article takes this discussion forward by arguing for a postcolonial and transnational feminist praxis that focuses explicitly and deliberately on (a) conceptualising and implementing collaborative efforts that insist on crossing multiple and difficult borders; (b) the sites, strategies and skills deployed to produce such collaborations; and (c) the specific processes through which such collaborations can find their form, content and meaning. To ground this discussion, I draw upon two collaborative initiatives that I have begun recently in the state of Uttar Pradesh, north India.     

Qualitative Health Research: Negotiating Life with HIV/AIDS

In this paper, I look at the use of qualitative methods in health geography. I focus on two projects using in-depth interviews with people with HIV/AIDS. Drawing from feminist work on qualitative methodologies and the production of knowledge, two questions are posed. First, what insights do interviews offer about people's daily experiences with HIV/AIDS? Second, given that interviews involve direct contact between interviewer and respondent, what are the implications of using this methodology? Projects reveal that living with HIV/AIDS involves a complex series of negotiations. These include negotiating one's own identity within medical discourse, dealing with health care professionals, and choosing how to use medication. The projects also indicate that qualitative research itself involves a process of negotiation. Researchers' preconceptions, interview settings and formats, and relationships established during research can effect research outcomes andresearch participants. I argue that a willingness to reflect critically on the use of qualitative methods is needed to safeguard against these unintended consequences.     

Masculinist Epistemologies and the Politics of Fieldwork in Latin Americanist Geography*

Given the importance of fieldwork in Latin Americanist geography, it is intriguing to note the absence of a dialogue about the politics of fieldwork within the subdiscipline. Drawing from feminist theories about the production of knowledge, this article suggests that the silence about fieldwork is rooted in masculinist epistemologies that predominate in Latin Americanist geography. After analyzing the epistemological and pedagogical implications of masculinism, I argue for increased attention to the nexus of power and knowledge and in particular, to how the researcher's geographic location, social status, race, and gender fundamentally shape the questions asked, the data collected, and the interpretation of the data. Dialogue about these issues in our teaching and writing not only will better prepare students for fieldwork, but also has the potential to foster research that subverts rather than reproduces power inequalities.     

Qualitative Health Research: Negotiating Life with HIV/AIDS

In this paper, I look at the use of qualitative methods in health geography. I focus on two projects using in-depth interviews with people with HIV/AIDS. Drawing from feminist work on qualitative methodologies and the production of knowledge, two questions are posed. First, what insights do interviews offer about people's daily experiences with HIV/AIDS? Second, given that interviews involve direct contact between interviewer and respondent, what are the implications of using this methodology? Projects reveal that living with HIV/AIDS involves a complex series of negotiations. These include negotiating one's own identity within medical discourse, dealing with health care professionals, and choosing how to use medication. The projects also indicate that qualitative research itself involves a process of negotiation. Researchers' preconceptions, interview settings and formats, and relationships established during research can effect research outcomes andresearch participants. I argue that a willingness to reflect critically on the use of qualitative methods is needed to safeguard against these unintended consequences.     

Researching female sex work: reflections on geographical exclusion, critical methodologies and 'useful' knowledge

Summary Against the backdrop of ongoing debates about the nature of 'critical' geography, this paper considers the importance of intensive, action-oriented and conversational research methodologies in providing a 'Voice' to excluded populations. The distinct contribution of such methods to the understanding of exclusion is illustrated with reference to research on female prostitution, drawing on the author's own experiences as well as those of feminist researchers in health and the social sciences. However, the paper concludes by comparing the emancipatory potential of such qualitative methods with more quantitative approaches, arguing that no one method can be prioritized in the search for 'useful' know.     

Locating the Melody of the Drives

Psychoanalysis has profoundly influenced those social theories that inform qualitative methodology in human geography. Yet many geographers are skeptical about the value and viability of psychoanalytic methodology because of its alleged reductionist causal explanations and relativistic interpretations of data. Drawing on the work of Slavoj ?i?ek, which affirms Jacques Lacan's undermining of the dualism of causality versus sense, this article illustrates the potential value of Lacanian psychoanalysis as a qualitative methodology in geography. Using a methodological case study from my research on Jamaican tourism, I illustrate how we can locate a Lacanian understanding of the drives in the interactions between tourists and hotel workers. In so doing, the article provides new insights into the enduring allures of tourism's commodity-form by focusing on how the object petit a—a chimerical object that incites desire and an unattainable object that the drives encircle—takes place in customer service and entertainment activities.     

The Feminist Geographer as Killjoy: Excavating Gendered Urban Power Relations

In this article, I place Ahmed's notion of the feminist killjoy into conversation with feminist geography literature to explore possibilities and praxis in research endeavoring to illuminate uneven power relations and the moral orders that frame them. According to Ahmed, a feminist killjoy is one who exposes sexism, heterosexism, and racism, only to be criticized for disrupting happiness and social consent. Drawing on fieldwork on urban politics and development, I explore the implications—both promise and peril—of adopting feminist killjoy research subjectivities, emphasizing the important role of affect. I suggest that when feminist researchers direct killjoy research not just at mainstream institutions but also at progressive endeavors, they risk being construed as double killjoys who disrupt supposed joy and solidarity within progressive politics.     

Voice Under Scrutiny: Feminist Methods,Anticolonial Responses,and New Methodological Tools

“Giving voice” to participants has been an important element of qualitative feminist research projects in geography. In this article, I explore scholarship that has questioned qualitative research's reliance on voice, arguing that implicit connections between voice, authenticity, and empowerment are beginning to be unpacked, particularly by scholars engaged in anticolonial work. I draw on anticolonial scholarship to build on and extend feminist debates centered on voice and participation. Feminist attention to voice must be situated within the colonial frameworks and histories of social science research. Scholarship focused on ongoing settler colonial relationships highlights methods both for cautiously proceeding with and consciously refusing incorporating voice within qualitative research. I draw on anticolonial approaches to frame research decisions, voice, and the ethical and methodological dilemmas of its use.     

Should Women Count? A Context for the Debate*

Much recent feminist geographical scholarship emphasizes the utility of qualitative research methods; yet, a significant proportion of feminist research in geography is quantitative. Geographers' engagement with the ideas of feminist theorists has shed new light on the relationship between epistemology, methodology, and objectivity, which in turn has facilitated a reexamination of feminist uses of quantification. In providing a context for the debate over quantitative and qualitative methods, we argue that each has a place in feminist geographical research.     

Identifying Stakeholder Groups in Natural Resource Management: Comparing Quantitative and Qualitative Social Network Approaches

Abstract

This study compares the efficiency of two analytic approaches—qualitative and quantitative—to social network analysis for identifying stakeholder groups. Social network data were collected from 23 water and agriculture stakeholders in Arizona, USA, and analyzed quantitatively and qualitatively. Analysis of the sample in the original order of data collection found qualitative analysis was more efficient, in that it yielded a stable result—the identification of four stakeholder groups—within 16 interviews. In contrast, the quantitative analysis did not produce a stable result after 23 interviews. Repeated analyses with randomized order and reverse order samples found qualitative approaches yielded more stable results, took about the same number of interviews to yield results, and produced slightly fewer stakeholder groups compared to quantitative approaches. Our findings suggest that, in resource-constrained projects, qualitative social network analysis for identifying stakeholder groups can provide an efficient alternative to conventional quantitative social network analysis.     

Vital Statistics∗

This article questions the idea that quantitative methods, in particular the analysis of social statistics, is at odds with critical approaches to geography. It argues that numbers-based research is vital to highlight social injustice and oppression and that quantitative research can meet the requirements of critical geography to be reflexive, politically conscious, and activist. The article highlights two issues of pressing interest for research and activism by critically inspired quantitative researchers. First, there should be vigilance about the retrenchment of data collection and releases by the state, which will end up obscuring the ability to see social inequalities. Second, there should be a vigorous challenge to the political and judicial undermining of the results of statistical sampling and inference. These are vital tools for estimating hard-to-count populations and inferring inequalities between groups. The article gives examples of where these estimation issues are critical, which include civilian deaths in Iraq, counting minority populations in the United States, and the detection and remediation of structural racism.     

Beyond boundaries? Activism, academia, reflexivity and research

Summary In this paper, I draw on my own experiences to question some of the boundaries constructed around notions of activism and academia. Firstly, I introduce activism as a discursively produced concept with potential both to challenge and to support social exclusion. I propose an inclusive, reflexive view of activism that places us all as 'activists'. Using this understanding of activism and the work of feminist and other critical geographers, I consider the role of reflexivity within research and other activist projects. Drawing on my own experiences of activism, I then explore some of the boundaries that reproduce the academic-activist binary. I suggest such boundaries are actively constructed and may compromise the liberatory potential of academic research. I conclude the article by suggesting that a reflexivity grounded in the contingency of our lives can support activism within the academy and beyond.     

Counting for Women*

Despite their limitations, quantitative methods have an important role in feminist geographic research. As discussed in this essay, quantitative methods can contribute by describing and analyzing the broad contours of difference, by providing a basis for informed policy making and progressive political change, by identifying people and places for in-depth study, and by situating qualitative research in a broader context. At the same time, feminist insights can enhance quantitative analysis. Collaboration between quantitative and qualitative researchers is essential.     

女性主义地理学观及其思想史意义

论文从本体论、认识论和方法论3个层面讨论了女性主义地理学观的建构,并说明了女性主义地理学对更新地理学观的意义,以及对当代主流人文地理学思潮的潜在影响。在本体论层面上,女性主义地理学一直直面西方传统社会文化思想中的等级制性别化二元论,建构了主张女性和男性在建构社会及社会空间中具有交互性关系的本体论。在认识论和方法论层面上,女性主义地理学证明了女性及其空间在西方社会中处于弱势的认识论和方法论根源,动摇了实证主义地理学认识论和方法论中永恒性、普遍性、客观性的预设,阐释了地理学认知过程中情感等主观因素的可靠性,并建构了“去中心化”的认识论和方法论框架。无论在本体论还是在认识论和方法论层面上,当前的女性主义地理学主流思潮都有一定的中和性色彩,这一倾向使女性主义地理学在地理学观演进,以及以人文地理学思想为代表的地理学思想演进中,都具有重要的位置。西方女性主义地理学的兴盛,与其直面西方的社会文化思想根源问题不无关联。在中国女性主义地理学开始发展的当下,注重分析中国女性及其空间问题产生的社会文化思想根源,将有助于中国女性主义地理学的发展,并提升其潜在的价值。     

Getting Personal: Reflexivity,Positionality, and Feminist Research*

Feminist and poststructural challenges to objectivist social science demand greater reflection by the researcher with the aim of producing more inclusive methods sensitive to the power relations in fieldwork. Following a discussion of contrasting approaches to these power relations, I present a reflexive examination of a research project on sexual identities. My reflections highlight some of the key ethical questions that face researchers conducting fieldwork, especially with regard to the relationship between the researcher and those being researched. My discussion of these dilemmas reflect the situated and partial nature of our understanding of “others.” I argue that the researcher's positionality and biography directly affect fieldwork and that fieldwork is a dialogical process which is structured by the researcher and the participants.     

Painting Pictures of Ourselves: Researcher Subjectivity in the Practice of Feminist Reflexivity

In this article, I argue that researchers need to carefully distinguish the concepts of subjectivity and positionality in feminist reflexive practice, as an explicit focus on researcher subjectivity has the potential to provide additional insights into the research process that go beyond a focus on relational positionality. Drawing on examples from my own research, I argue that examining one's subjectivity as a researcher opens up a consideration of emotional reactions to research; lets us reconsider the importance of feelings of (dis)affiliation and (dis)comfort in the research process; and helps us to recognize that the dreams and desires of researchers about themselves and their research participants can play an important role in the research process. Moreover, researcher subjectivity attunes us to ways in which our subjectivities shift through the research process and are intimately connected to and mediated by the process of research and our interactions with our research participants.     

Reaching critical mass? Theory, politics, and the culture of debate in children's geographies

A small but growing number of voices have begun to raise questions about the current direction of children's geographies as a subfield and its status within the wider discipline. This article intervenes in these emerging discussions to examine the status of debate itself within children's geographies. I argue that children's geographies over the past decade has operated primarily in a consensus-based mode, with a number of potential tensions and differences between practitioners masked as a result. I develop the example of notions of children's competent social agency, a core theoretical assumption that is rarely interrogated in much depth. In closing, I pose questions regarding several contemporary political issues concerning children's agency about which geographers have had surprisingly little to say. I suggest that explicitly addressing some of these vexing issues would contribute to a richer state of debate within children's geographies.     

Simultaneous Analysis of Qualitative and Quantitative Social Science Data in Conservation

Conservation research includes social as well as natural sciences, and social sciences include qualitative, qualitative, and mixed methods. Most mixed-methods research adopts quantitative and qualitative approaches in parallel or in sequence, using related but distinct sets of data. Transformations of raw data, to apply qualitative and quantitative approaches to the same dataset, are uncommon, and beset by obstacles. I argue that dual analysis of a single dataset can be valuable and sound, subject to four caveats. Authors must: check for adequate sampling as well as theoretical saturation; distinguish clearly between structural and statistical associations; explicitly describe conversion from qualitative constructs and codes, to quantitative categories or other variables; and ensure that precision, reliability and generalizability are considered appropriately within both analyses.     

Integrating neo- and paleolimnological approaches to refine interpretations of environmental change

With the development of quantitative transfer functions to relate community structure to physicochemical variables, reconstructions of past environmental conditions have been possible and have enhanced our understanding of various ecosystem processes. There are cases, however, in which this approach is not applicable, or does not provide enough information for the questions being asked. In these cases, some alternatives are to conduct experiments or to examine the distribution of species at a finer spatial resolution. These two approaches have been used as alternatives to or in conjunction with the development of transfer functions. In this review, I discuss the ways in which these two approaches are now being used in paleolimnological studies to enhance our understanding of the ecology of the species found in sediment records and thus refine interpretations of environmental change. My focus is primarily on studies that deal with establishing clearer relationships between environmental variables and the growth or distribution of organisms. I present examples of how these approaches have been integrated in a variety of studies, including those designed to: (1) refine and enhance reconstructions that are based on transfer functions; (2) develop new paleolimnological tools to reconstruct environmental change; (3) explore mechanistic links in the relationships between organisms and commonly reconstructed environmental variables; and (4) pose and test hypotheses based on patterns in the sediment record. These cases demonstrate that the use of these approaches was essential to clarify species-environment relationships as well as lake responses to disturbance. As in all disciplines, however, there are many challenges in this area of research. In particular, the quantitative integration of these approaches with the sediment record is a major challenge, due to disparate spatial and temporal scales. This research can also be quite labor-intensive, and provides information on fewer taxa than in the calibration set approach. It also requires interdisciplinary training and/or collaboration in fields that have historically been less integrated, hence they may require greater effort. These issues may hinder the use of these approaches because of the perceived difficulty. I discuss these challenges and address possible solutions.