Introduction
Researching âgender â through a wide variety of disciplinary lenses is ubiquitous. Equally, there are vast numbers of books on research methodology , many of which engage with the positionality of the author/researcher âin Africa â or elsewhere. Yet, there are still few opportunities in academic writing for âcritical self-reflection on oneâs biases, theoretical predispositions, preferencesâŠand of the inquirerâs place in the setting, context, or social phenomenonâ (Schwandt 1997 in Kleinsasser 2000, p. 155, emphasis added). By asking the women in this volume who have all conducted research in Africa to reflect about how their gender impacted on their research experiences or on how their research impacted on them as a woman, we have deliberately provided them an opportunity to create a new text making ânew connections between the personal and the theoreticalâ (p. 157). In doing so, many of the contributors have produced new and often unexpected findings outside their disciplinary boundaries. Each author was asked to consider their place or position as a woman in the research process, and to write a subjective interpretation of their experiences; we hope their stories challenge and inform other researchers in Africa (both women and men) to consider how their gendered experiences are part of the research process.
This book is not a âhow to do research manual.â There are a variety of these, which will complement this title, in that they provide grounding in research methods and fieldwork . Examples include Doing Development Research (Desai and Potter 2006) which aims to provide a user-friendly introduction to the process of development research from the conceptualisation of the work to its write-up and dissemination and Doing Fieldwork : Ethnographic Methods for Research in Developing Countries and Beyond (Fife 2005), to feminist research examples such as Feminist Methods in Social Research (Reinharz and Davidman 1992), Doing Feminist Research (Roberts 1981), or The Women, Gender and Development Reader which provides a critical gender -perspective for students and practitioners âin order to represent the lives of women of many different regionsâ (Visvanathan et al. 2011, p. xii). For anyone planning research in Africa , Emotional and Ethical Challenges for Field Research in Africa ; The Story Behind the Findings (Ansoms et al. 2012) is a good introduction to âethical challenges and emotional pitfallsâ that you, the researcher, could be âconfronted with before, during and after the field experienceâ (Thomson et al. 2012, p. 1).
Doing Development Research (Desai and Potter 2006) is a useful book for first-time researchers, as it provides a starting point on planning and logistical issues, collecting data and writing research reports. Intended for those wanting to do research in developing countries, only one chapter âWomen, Men and Fieldwork : Gender Relations and Power Structuresâ (Momsen 2006), focuses on building gender issues into the project design. Suggesting techniques such as separate discussions with men and women and creating a gendered seasonal calendar, Momsen mentions that it may take time for the researcher to realise that they inhabit a particular space in the local community depending on whether they are male or female, and that power relations between the researcher and the researched should be analysed in terms of their identity , power and access to information. In the same volume, one other reference refers to gender noting that:
Gender also plays a part in interviews within the domestic realm. Male researchers should be wary of trying to arrange interviews with women at home as this may be frowned upon and could have unwanted repercussions on the researcher and/or the female interviewee. (Willis 2006, pp. 148â149)
In conceptualising research, Fife (2005) notes the importance of challenging idealistic notions of objectivity by explaining that it can become another word for âdecontextualization and a lack of transparency about the purpose of oneâs researchâa position that is unacceptable for ethically informed ethnographic researchâ (Fife 2005, p. 51). As there is no âneutral writingâ, the concept of âobjectivity and objective writing stylesâ is more about âa theoretical positionâ, so the researcher should ask themselves: âwhat kind of a social world do I want to construct for my reader and how much reflexivity do I want in that world? Reflexivity , in this sense, refers to both the personal and professional position of the researcher him or herself and the effects that this positioning may have had on the scholarly research and resulting writing productâ (Fife 2005, p. 149). The need to challenge prior conceptualisations of research forms the basis for this volume, where the notion of an objective, neutral and essentially male , or at best sexless invisible being is no longer accepted.
Feminist Methods in Social Research
As critics of the way social science research was done in the past, early feminist researchers called for a different approach to research methods and methodology by taking the position of the researcher into account (Oakley 1981), and by attempting to define the feminist perspective not as a research method, but a way of doing research that thinks about the relationship between the researcher and those being researched with the goal of creating social change (Reinharz and Davidman 1992). Others question whether giving those who previously did not have a voice actually brings about social change. Discussions about reflexivity are central to feminist methodology , so they should not just focus on individual researchers and subjects, nor on imposing feminist interpretative frameworks as this can create a âdilemma when feminist political commitments clash with our subjectsâ worldviews, forcing us to reconcile our perspectives with those of respondents who do not share our understanding and valuation of rights, opportunities, liberation and constraints, but whose views we have a responsibility to interpret and represent accurately and fairlyâ (Avishai et al. 2013, p. 395). Although this volume is not only concerned with feminist research , the relationship of feminist research and feminist principles to life more generally form a solid backdrop to the contributions.
Research in Africa
Our stories about the day-to-day process of âdoing researchâ in Africa do not necessarily have a linear beginning, middle and end: storytelling about research is a way of showing how we participate in and are âinterdependent with material conditions of a living life-worldâ (Jorgensen et al. 2013, p. 49). However, as editors, our request was that the authors think about Africa and their experiences of doing researchâin the same way that would apply to any other placeâknowing that the word âAfrica â conjures up clichĂ©s, preconceptions, attitudes and ideas that we want to challenge. And although the practice of collecting narratives as âimportant forms of action and representation â has become a central feature of qualitative research, we concur that these narratives should âfocus on the social and cultural contextâ and be âanalytic, not celebratoryâ (Atkinson and Delamont 2007, p. 196).
In an earlier version of her paper for this volume and elsewhere, Mutiat Oladejo (2014), describes how scholarly writing about African history has been problematised in many waysâmuch of it as a response to challenge the colonial and European perceptions of Africa . For example, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Oxford University Professor of Modern History , gave a series of lectures in October 1963 where he presented Africa as a place that had no history to teachâit was only the history of Europeans in Africa âthe rest is largely darknessâand darkness is not a subject for history :
[Trevor-Roper] was sure that there was such a thing as âcivilizationâ, the opposite of barbarism, and that its strengths and weaknesses, its movements forwards or backwards, were the historianâs proper subjectâŠ[African history ] is worth studying, for the inclusion of African history in syllabuses of the early 1960s, there was no historical light to be...