Doing Research within Communities

Stories and lessons from language and education field research

Kerry Taylor-Leech, Donna Starks

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• eBook ISBN: 9781317242338
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Doing Research within Communities provides real-life examples of field research projects in language and education, offering an overview of research processes and solutions to the common challenges faced by researchers in the field. This unique book contains personal research narratives from sixteen different and varied fieldwork projects, providing advice and guidance to the reader through example rather than instruction and enabling the reader to discover connections with the storyteller and gain insights into their own research journey. This book:

• provides advice, practical guidance and support for engaging with a community as a research site
• covers the real-life theoretical, ethical and practical issues faced by researchers, such as language choice in multilingual communities, and the insider/outsider status of the researcher
• discusses challenges posed by a variety of mono- and multilingual settings, from remote island communities to large urban areas
• includes research from across the Asia-Pacific area, including Australia, New Zealand and East Timor, and also the US

Doing Research within Communities is essential reading for early career researchers and graduate students undertaking fieldwork within communities.

1 Doing research within communities Strands within and across the narratives

DOI: 10.4324/9781315628875-1

Kerry Taylor-Leech

Donna Starks

Introduction

This book is about critical moments in field research with communities. Drawing on the experiences of researchers in applied linguistics and language education who have worked with communities, the book takes the form of a series of narratives, each of which focuses on a critical moment. A critical moment, in research as in everyday life, is not necessarily a dramatic one. It can be thought of as one that forces the researcher to stop and think or one that raises questions or changes perspectives. There are times in the field when researchers encounter critical moments that no amount of reading, research training and meticulous risk assessments can fully prepare them for. At such times, when preconceived ideas are challenged or there is a turn of events that means carefully laid plans need to be reconsidered, researchers are forced to take stock of their assumptions, theories and practices. These moments offer new opportunities for reflection and introspection that typically enrich both research and personal development (see also Giampapa, 2011). In many instances, these critical moments are not single events but a series of accumulated experiences. The stories of the critical moments in this volume provide vivid examples of how both big and small events in the field can affect researchers in significant ways.

The typical sequence of steps and stages that occur in qualitative field-work presents the opportunity for stories to be told about critical moments at points in the process that every researcher has to negotiate. As Agyeman (2008, p. 82) writes, ethical and context-sensitive research is a journey of discovery in which researchers become sensitised to the challenges and dilemmas of their chosen sites. In asking contributors to write a story highlighting the joys, struggles or difficulties that they encountered in the field, the book aims to provide an accessible way for readers to engage with each experience and see its broader implications, both for their own research, and for research in general.

Although the stories have universal relevance and application, they are drawn from community-based research in the Asia-Pacific region (see Appendix A for an overview). This is a practical consequence of where the majority of the authors and their research sites are located but it is also an ideal arena for our volume for its own reasons. The Asia Pacific covers a vast geographical area and has long boasted great historical, religious and socio-political diversity. Its communities grapple with the political, socioeconomic and linguistic legacies of differing indigenous, colonial and postcolonial histories. It has attracted countless social science researchers, some less morally and ethically scrupulous than others. The region boasts an astonishing array of languages and cultures (see, e.g. Cunningham, Ingram & Sumbuk, 2006). Yet, although linguistic and cultural diversity have long been the normal state of affairs in the Asia Pacific (Goodenough, 1976; Volker & Anderson, 2015), the dominance of international and national standard languages has reduced linguistic variation, leading to predictions that the loss of community languages will become increasingly common (Baldauf & Djité, 2003; Crocombe, 1989; Dixon, 1989; Mühlhaüsler, 1996). Community-based language and education research is therefore critically important in these complex and vulnerable language ecologies, all of which have been affected by migration and mobility.

Migration and mobility are social phenomena of current scholarly interest but they are nothing new in the Asia Pacific as people have moved around the region since long before the advent of European colonialism (see, e.g. Mühlhaüsler, Dutton, Hovdhaugen, Williams & Wurm, 1996). Nevertheless, today in the Asia Pacific and worldwide people and communities are on the move at a rate that has not been seen before. As Blommaert (2010) observes, it is no longer useful to think in terms of “the spatial fixedness of people, language and places” (p. 44). Communities are not static entities but change shape and character as rapid political, economic and social change have transformed societies and brought about dramatic demographic change, both voluntary and involuntary.

The communities in the Asia Pacific overlap and intersect in interesting and highly complex ways. These intersections are evident both in the chapters and in the volume as a whole. Two chapters deal with research within East Timorese communities but at different points in time: one describes research in Australia in the 1990s with East Timorese refugees who had fled their then occupied country (Hajek), while another describes research with communities within independent East Timor after 2001 (Taylor-Leech and Boon). Three chapters deal with very different but interconnected communities in Aotearoa/New Zealand, respectively based in the Māori Deaf (Smiler), Māori hearing (Ngaha) and the wider New Zealand Deaf community (McKee). Two chapters focus on the challenges and rewards of working with interpreters, one based on a research project with recently arrived migrants in Australia (Major and Zielinski) and the other with the New Zealand Deaf community (McKee). Two chapters deal with the complexities of postcolonial language research in Pacific communities on the islands of Niue (Tukuitonga, Starks and Brown) and Vanuatu (Willans). Four chapters cover diaspora communities: the Pasifika and Filpino diasporas in Australia (Kearney; Lising) and New Zealand (Tukuitonga, Starks and Brown) and the Chinese diaspora in California (Leung). Three chapters have educational settings as their research sites, two in Australia (Major and Zielinski; Willoughby) and one in Japan (Sampson). Some chapters in the volume report on communities that are relatively new, where the participants are recently arrived migrants (Lising; Major and Zielinski) or humanitarian entrants (Hatoss), while others have a longer history, being Indigenous (Mushin and Gardner; Ngaha; Smiler) or well established migrant communities (Petrovska; Leung).

The researchers’ own stories are similarly interconnected. Three focus on the earliest stages of research (Petrovska; Sampson; Willoughby). Other stories consider critical moments that occurred in the thick of the research (Hatoss; Leung; Lising; Major and Zielinski; Ngaha; Smiler; Tukuitonga, Starks and Brown; Taylor-Leech and Boon; Willans), while still others focus on the ways in which commitment to working with the community extends beyond the original purposes of the intended research (Kearney; Mushin and Gardner; McKee; Petrovska). The chapters recount research experiences in communities situated far from traditional centres (East Timor, Niue, Vanuatu, Northern Queensland) and those in more centralised semi-urban or urban settings (Honshu, Melbourne, San Francisco). Some discuss in more general terms the experiences of working in communities: one based in metropolitan Melbourne (Hajek), and the other in the New Zealand Sign Language community (McKee). All the stories aim to offer advice and guidance through example rather than through instruction, encouraging the reader-researcher to empathise with the storyteller while gaining insights into his/her own research journey.

Bringing the researcher's personal voice into the narratives

When we worked with the authors on editing their stories, they often remarked how hard they found it to separate one part of their fieldwork from other parts and to focus on a particular moment. In our editorial discussions, several authors also commented how difficult they found it to switch from the impersonal voice to the highly personal. In academic research writing, it is a commonly accepted norm that the focus of writing should be on the research and not on the researcher. However, the stories in this collection do just the opposite. They place the researcher at centre stage and beg the question whether it is really possible for researchers to keep their personal selves and their responses out of their work.

Other recent scholars involved in participatory research within communities have expressed similar sentiments. For example, Lennon (2015) writes how she came to realise just how deeply the researcher’s sense of self is invested in critical, qualitative, participatory research. The ethical researcher, she observes, learns from others: from community members and research participants, from friends and family, from professional and academic colleagues. Working in this way produces a researcher who both influences and is influenced by others and who is prepared to accept that in the field s/he is sometimes powerful and sometimes powerless. Etherington (2004) has written how incorporating the role of the researcher-self into qualitative research can open up opportunities for personal transformation. Even earlier researchers, such as McDowell (1992), assert that researchers should recognise and take account of their own position as well as that of the participants, and write this into their research practice. Yet, as Rose (1997) points out, many researchers find this kind of writing very difficult to do. As the editors, we think the authors have succeeded admirably in personalising their role in the research documented in this collection and we hope that reader-researchers will see themselves and their own struggles and dilemmas reflected in these narratives.

Common and interweaving strands in the narratives

Although each narrative focuses on one particular aspect of their engagement with their community, running across the contributions are common concerns and challenges that can be grouped into five strands: (i) the shifting and complex nature of being an insider or outsider; (ii) ethical aspects of doing research within communities; (iii) the role of language ideology and identity in researcher and participant language choice; (iv) the challenges and rewards of working in multilingual communities; and (v) the interrelationships between researcher and participants in multilingual community settings. In what now follows, we expand on these commonalities.

The shifting and complex nature of being an insider or outsider

One clearly observable strand in the narratives is the fluid and changeable nature of what is often too simplistically described as insider/outsider status. While the early literature contains a variety of definitions, generally insider-researchers have been considered to be those who choose to study a group to which they belong, while outsider-researchers are not considered to belong to the group they study (Adler & Adler, 1994; Breen, 2007). The stories in this collection show that far from being simple binary opposites, insider and outsider identities are highly nuanced and problematic. In today’s world of high population mobility and ethnocultural diversity, essentialised definitions of who is an insider and who is an outsider have become rather anachronistic. Insider/outsider status is context-sensitive and bound up with researcher positionality and the attitudes of the research participants, a view that is increasingly acknowledged in the social science literature (see, e.g. Agyeman, 2008; Carling, Erdal & Ezzati, 2014; Mullings, 1999; Rose, 1997).

Embedded in these discussions is a recognition that that there are degrees of insider/outsider status. For example, in the field of migrant research, Carling, Erdal and Ezzati (2014) identify five types of insider and outsider position that deviate from the standard binary divide. These positions range from ‘explicit third party’, through ‘honorary insider’ and ‘insider by proxy’ to ‘hybrid insider-outsider’ and ‘apparent insider’. In multilingual field settings, the lack of a common language or a shared ethnic or cultural background will inevitably position the researcher as an outsider at the start of any project but, as the narratives in this volume show, efforts to acquire a local vernacular or even sometimes the mere fact of showing an interest in it, can quickly transform the researcher’s status in a community.

The stories in this collection highlight the fluidity of insider/outsider-hood. They show how both outsider and insider status can be an advantage. Sampson describes how his outsider status helped bridge cross-cultural differences in expectations about the research process and Leung describes how her research benefitted from her insider relationship with older family members, who turned out to be an invaluable source of knowledge and support. The chapters show how insider status can be socially loaded, as in Lising’s account of her interactions with a less socioeconomically privileged member of her own ethnic group. They also show also how holding insider status is absolutely no guarantee of a successful outcome, as when Ngaha relates how community members she knew well turned away from her research project, exercising their right to exit with little explanation but leaving her perplexed as to their reasons.

The stories show how outsider status can be a vulnerable one, as when Willoughby describes how her lack of an insider role in the school community exposed her to being taken advantage of by students falsely claiming an interest in taking part in her research. Willoughby also describes how useful it was to find an insider who was prepared to act as a champion to help her find a way into a more suitable and supportive community research site. The stories show how outsider status is negotiable, as when communities begin to trust researchers (Hatoss; Mushin and Gardner) and how becoming an adopted insider generates special insights and responsibilities (Kearney; McKee). In all, the chapters show that insider/outsider status exists on a spectrum of possibilities that shift and change according to place and time.

Ethical aspects of doing research within communities

A second strand in the narratives is the range of ethical issues that confronted our contributors in their work with communities. This issue is one that has also been raised in prior literature where Rice (2006) and other scholars (e.g., Steb-bins, 2012; Wolfram, 1993) have advocated for greater attention to the ethical concerns involved in working with individuals, communities and knowledge systems. As Rice (2006) explains, in an empowerment view of social research, the linguist working in a community setting has a responsibility to try to use his or her research t...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title Page
• Series
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Contributors
• Preface
• 1 Doing research within communities: Strands within and across the narratives
• 2 Human rights: Journeys start with experiences
• 3 This doesn’t feel right: Selecting a site for school-based
• 4 Challenges in conducting ethical classroom-based research across cultures
• 5 What happens when a community withdraws? Managing relationships with an Indigenous community
• 6 Labeling community and language
• 7 Taking an interest: Competence in and affiliations with the expected languages of schooling
• 8 Navigating the multilingual field: Language choice and sociolinguistic fieldwork
• 9 Interpreter-mediated data collection: Experiences of talking to migrants through interpreters
• 10 Being a part of and working with an overlooked linguistic community
• 11 Building relationships with whānau to develop effective supports for Māori Deaf children
• 12 Establishing connections: A tale of two communities
• 13 Multiplexity in sign language research
• 14 Engaging with communities and languages in multilingual urban settings
• 15 Imagined linguistic identity: Reflections on an interview
• 16 Becoming an adopted insider: A researcher’s journey
• 17 The narrative journey: Adapting research design to capture the voice of the community
• 18 Doing research within communities: Connecting practice to theory
• A. Overview of research sites
• B. Overview of lessons
• Index