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Free Essays - Sociology Essays

How do power relations challenge us to re-think the issue of dialogue in research, ethics and critical urban ethnography?

Introduction

Sociological research is not the clearly defined process that the textbooks would have us believe. It can be a messy business and is fraught with pitfalls so the researcher needs to be flexible in his/her approach to the project. Power relationships emerge as an issue right from the beginning. There are the power relations contained within social institutions and in personal relationships. The relationship between the researcher and the researched is generally thought of as one of unequal power relations where the researcher is the custodian of expertise concerning the meaning of a research subject's experiences.

The balance of power may not, however, be in the researcher's hands at the beginning of a project, if the researcher needs to gain access to a setting then he/she may be subject to the whims of gatekeepers. Gatekeepers have the power to say no the researcher's request and if you do manage to gain entry it is often at the end of a long slow process. Lofland and Lofland (1984) say that feelings of anxiety when a researcher first encounters gate keepers, is not unusual because they hold the reins of power. Bogdan and Taylor (1984) write about problems with gatekeepers. They argue that there are those professionals in charge of establishments such as retirement homes or women's refuges, who exercise their power by monitoring who should and should not visit. In this way they retain control of the space occupied by the people they care for and in controlling their space also control the influences of and within that space.

Giddens 2001 has argued that the changes in modern society have, in their turn, brought vast changes to the way we live our lives:

The development of modern cities has had an enormous impact, not only on habits and modes of behaviour, but on patterns of thought and feeling. >From the time when large urban agglomerations first formed, in the eighteenth century, views about the effects of cities on social life have been polarized (Giddens, 2001:573).

Hammersley (2000) has argued that social research cannot be understood outside of the social world that it studies. It does not exist in some autonomous realm, but affects, and is affected by other factors in society. Beginning with a brief explanation of key terms this paper will give a brief description of the long and hotly contested debate that frames the quantitative/qualitative divide within research discourse. This should demonstrate that even before a researcher frames a research question they have to contend with the powerful discourse that says social research should be undertaken in a scientific manner if it is to produce meaningful data. The paper will examine the question of how power relations challenge us to re-think the issue of dialogue in research, ethics and critical urban ethnography. The main focus with regard to how knowledge is acquired, and how, like research, it is intimately connected with relations of power, will be on feminist work. The final part of the paper will deal with power relations, dialogue and ethics in the context of critical urban ethnography.

Epistemology

An epistemological concern is one that raises the question of what might be regarded as acceptable knowledge in a discipline. Central to this point is whether it is feasible to study the social world in the same way and using the same principles as science (Bryman, 2004). Research undertaken in this way is generally associated with a positivist paradigm of research.

Positivism

Positivism is most closely associated with the work of Auguste Comte and Emile Durkheim. Positivism is an epistemological standpoint that argues for the application of the scientific method to the social world. It is usually (though not always) associated with quantitative research and the collection of statistics. Positivism is, therefore, very closely associated with the scientific method which, loosely put, is based around the laws of cause and effect. Bryman (2004) identifies the aspects of positivism in the following ways, only those things that we can observe through our senses can really be known. Theory (speculations about what might be the case) is used to generate hypotheses (general statements) that can be tested and from which laws can be derived. The hypothesis is subjected to questions e.g. who, what, when, where and data gathered either through interviews, observation, or using existing data such as crime statistics. If the findings confirm the hypothesis then laws are derived, if not then the hypothesis has to be modified. This process continues until a suitable conclusion is reached that confirms the modified hypothesis. Positivists state that science must be objective and value free (Bryman, A. 2004). Durkheim argued that in order to be scientific and to obtain objective knowledge, social facts should be counted as things, and that all preconceptions must be eradicated (Durkheim, E, 1938:31). Scientific statements should be the interest of the scientist because they are the only statements that can be confirmed by the senses i.e. science proceeds through observable, repeatable experiments.. It is this form of research in particular that feminists have dubbed 'malestream research' (Abbott and Wallace, 1997) they argue that:

Many malestream sociologists are resistant to the view that there is a need for a reconceptualisation. Nevertheless, this is the position that w accept and while we recognise that this is an uphill struggle we think that it is a necessary one if we are to achieve an adequate sociology (Abbott and Wallace, 1997:13).

Interpretivism

This is the opposite view to positivism where a research strategy is needed that respects the fact that there is a difference between the physical world and people. The scientific methods that are used to study the physical world may not be appropriate to studying the social world where the sociologist is trying to understand the meanings that people give to their actions. Interpretivists most often use qualitative research methods consisting of unstructured interviews and participant observation. Positivists criticise research data gained in this way as unscientific and subjective. They argue that the findings from such research do not have the same validity or reliability as data collected in a scientific manner (Bryman, 2004). Researchers who use qualitative methods tend to make their research process as transparent as possible and will often ask their research subjects to check the findings to see whether they are an accurate representation of the person's life.

Both types of researchers want to know what is happening in society but interpretivists also attempt to understand. Weber (1947) maintained that sociology is a

Science which attempts the interpretive understanding of social action in order to arrive at a causal explanation of its cause and effects (Weber, 1947:88).

Qualitative researchers tend to make use of unstructured interviews, case study research and participant observation. Ethnographic methods such as in-depth interviews and prolonged participant observation are also favoured methods. These last tend to be used more often by those who are engaged in critical research. Hammersley (1992) criticises the use of ethnographic methods because he believes that this type of research is less able to produce data that will result in useful theoretical insights. Participant observation is regarded by positivists as unscientific and not rigorous enough they regard it as subjective. Hammersley (1992) has argued that because ethnographers can produce different accounts of the same setting then the results of such research might be said to reflect a purely personal perspective rather than a scientific and reliable account.Yet another criticism of this type of method is that the ensuing account is the result of highly selective methods of data collection (Hammersley, 1992). This is arguably a nonsensical criticism as all research is the result of a set of selection processes. The researcher constantly has to decide what is the best way of collecting the information that will answer the research question. This happens in what is regarded as scientific and value free social research just as much as it does in social research that does not claim to be objective and value free. All researchers, as Gouldner (1971) points out have to make choices about their 'domain of enquiry' i.e. when, where, how, and from whom they are going to obtain their data.

There is a clear difference between science and the scientific method and the methods that are needed to investigate the social world. For human beings, human action is meaningful and they act on the basis of that meaning. The sociologist's job is to interpret the social world from the research subject's point of view. What this means is that far from research being objective and knowledge being objective and value free, they are in fact marked by the stamp of their producers. Marx recognised this in his analysis of capitalism and feminists have recognised this in their analysis of patriarchy and of an epistemological stance that bears the stamp and is endowed with the power of the white western male. Thus power relations are evident even before we begin on the actual research process.

Knowledge and Power

The rationalist attitudes towards knowledge that developed during the Enlightenment remained dominant until well into the nineteenth century. They were, as many feminists have argued (Abbott and Wallace, 1997), a powerful force in determining what constituted knowledge and have had considerable effect on the structures of modern society. A similar critique of knowledge has also been mounted by the French philosopher Michel Foucault (1966).

The work of thinkers such as Nietzsche (1886) and Foucault (1966) has emphasised the fact that knowledge is intimately tied to structures of power and domination. Foucault argues that it is power which produces and sustains knowledge. Anything that contradicts the authorised view of what counts as knowledge is seen as deviant and transgressional. Thus, he argues,

Power is that which says no. Any confrontation with power thus conceived appears only as transgression (1966: 53).

Feminist criticisms of knowledge and the way that knowledge is produced are a confrontation with power and authority. The tendency of many thinkers to neglect class, race, gender, and economic factors contributes to the exclusion of oppressed and marginal viewpoints thus further reinforcing both universalistic and objective models of knowledge and the power structures associated with this view. Foucault has argued that the enlightenment model of scientific reason only existed through the will to objectify and dominate. For Foucault, this kind of knowledge is inseparable from the desire for power. He argues that research into criminality or mental illness is often undertaken for the express purposes of legislation, and not for a desire for improvement in these areas (1966). These critiques of the structures of power have meant that epistemological questions are now a central issue within contemporary culture (Lennon and Whitford, 1994). The writings of Marx (1970), Foucault (1966), and members of the Frankfurt school (and in a different context liberation theologians) emphasise the fact knowledge claims are a reflection of the interests of those with economic power. More recently, black scholars and scholars from the third world have also indicated the Eurocentric and racist nature of most knowledge production (Lennon and Whitford, 1994). The separation of fact from value in knowledge production is not appropriate, that is to say knowledge is not objective and neutral. Rather, knowledge bears the stamp of its producers and is affected by their value systems. It is through this understanding that feminist and other forms of critical research developed.

Critical Research

Carspecken (1996) maintains that critical research is aimed at exposing the power relationships at work in society particularly as they relate to social inequalities. The researcher studies this from the viewpoint of the oppressed in the hope of achieving social change. Critical research is informed by the critical theory of the Frankfurt School. Critical social research does not fit well into either the positivist camp or the interpretive one but embraces all those approaches which tend to criticise society (in terms of its power relationships for example) in order to transform it. Hammersley (1995) has argued that the growing influence of qualitative research and most particularly of the type of research that is critical of power structures and of the inequalities that exist within society has meant that increasingly the basis for seeing social research as scientific has been undermined. Harvey (1990) has said of critical research that:

critique is an integral part of the processA critical research process involves more than appending critique to an accumulation of fact or theory gathered through some mechanical process, rather it denies the objective status of knowledge (Harvey, 1990 quoted in Haralambos et al, 2000:982).

Knowledge in these terms is a process that is never finished because the social world is constantly changing. Knowledge is inseparable from the values of the social context in which it emerged, the research participants, and most importantly, the researcher. The knowers always affect what is known as Ely et al (1996) argue:

Research like all other knowing, is a transactional process - the knower and the known both act upon each other (Ely, et al, 1996:196 ibid.).

Critical research is primarily concerned with uncovering oppression and oppressive structures and by that action transforming them. By uncovering these structures within social accounts the critical researcher can then link these with wider social processes and structures. Thus Oakley's analysis of housework and how women bear the brunt of it links back to industrialisation and the rise of capitalism and women's removal from the public world of work to the private sphere of the home, this also links with the growth of patriarchal oppression of women (Harvey, 1990). Thus a critical analysis such as this can uncover the basis of some of the power relationships that exist within society and eventually to change them. Harvey (1990) says of this process that it:

..involves a constant questioning of the perspective and analysis the researcher is building up. It is a process of gradually, and critically, coming to know through constant reconceptualisation. This means that the selection of a core concept for analysis is not a once and for all affair (Harvey, 1990:30).

Harvey (1990) maintains that critical research does not depend on any one method because researchers may often use a variety of methods in ensuring that they have made the connections with wider social processes such as the structures of power, and also to increase the reliability of their findings. Feminist research also operates by the use of a number of different research methods, feminists are more concerned with improving women's lives and with the non-exploitation of those who are researched, than they are with the commitment to any one set of methods. Some (primarily male) researchers argue against feminist research because they say that it is subjective and partisan. They argue that research should never be partisan and that it is impossible for everyone to be equally free, there must always be some hierarchy. Thus Geuss (1981) contends that:

It seems unrealistic under present conditions of human life to assume that any and every preference human agents might have can be satisfied, or to assume that all conflict between the preferences of different agents will be peacefully and rationally resolved. Some frustration-even some imposed frustration-of some human preferences must be legitimate and unexceptionable (Guess, 1981:16).

Presumably the legitimate and unexceptionable preferences are the prerogative of the male, who for centuries has had some much power over women's lives. It is this kind of power that feminists are keen to expose, they are also concerned about the power relationships which exist between the researcher and the researched, and which have sometimes been exploited by (male) researchers. In view of this some feminists argue that participatory research, where the researcher and the researched work together on a project, should be a defining feature of feminist research. Abbott and Wallace (1997) argue however, that this is not often done because,

it is not possible for the researcher to share her knowledge and expertise, and to imply that she is sharing them conceals a power relationship rather than overcoming it (Abbott and Wallace, 1997:288).

Feminists who do use these methods argue that participatory research not only gives women a more active role in knowledge production but further increases the validity of the research findings. McGuire (1987), has this to say

Participatory research proposes returning to ordinary people the power to participate in knowledge creation, the power that results from such creation, and the power to utilize knowledge (Maguire, 1987:39).

Even this statement is problematic because the researcher has at least some training in how research might be said to proceed and this is not easily passed on to those who are not trained (Abbott and Wallace, 1997). Mies, 1983 has this to say:

the study of an oppressive reality is not carried out by experts but by the objects of the oppression. People who were before objects of research become subjects of their own research and action. This implies that scientists who participate in this study of the conditions of oppression must give their research tools to the people (Mies, 1983:16).

Shared experiences, it might be argued, help to balance out the power relationships that feminists such as Abbott and Wallace (1997) contend, inevitably exist between a researcher and those who are researched. One way in which the researcher may try to lessen the power differential is through self-disclosure. Thus recovering alcoholics who are researching alcohol misuse or women who have survived domestic violence interviewing women who are being abused would make the interviewee aware of the fact. While it maybe impossible to do away with the power differential altogether, it does make it less problematic. Ann Oakley (1982) has written that,

the goal of finding out about people through interviewing is best achieved when the relationship of interviewer and interviewee is non- hierarchical and when the interviewer is prepared to invest his or her own personal identity in the relationship (Oakley, 1982:41).

This power differential that exists in the research relationship may also colour what is found because data is never free of the influence of the person who gathered it. Carspecken (1996) believes that although critical researchers may have a value commitment that is not to say that the research needs to be biased providing it is systematic and careful. Stanley and Wise have this to say,

.the recognition that who a researcher is, in terms of their sex, race, class, and sexuality, affects what they 'find' in research and is as true of feminists as of any other researchers (Stanley and Wise, 1993:228).

This power differential will also affect, and may distort the dialogue between the researcher and the researched. Abbott and Wallace (1997) argue that because the researcher will necessarily involve herself with the women she is studying then she needs to be aware of this. Constant reflexivity is required if the research is to be considered valid. The researcher must be aware that because she is a part of what is going on this inevitably affects what is going on and there needs to be a continual taking stock of how personal values, attitudes and perceptions are influencing the research process.

A feminist interviewing women is by definition both "inside" the culture and participating in that which she is observing...personal involvement is more than dangerous bias - it is the condition under which people come to know each other and to admit others into their lives (Oakley,1982:58).

Aronson (1992) has pointed out that the ethnographic interview is a common method of gathering data in qualitative research. Interviewing is also a method which is favoured by feminist researchers (Oakley, 1982; Stanley and Wise, 1993). The interview process should be such that women feel at ease and can relate their experiences as they see them. The interviewer should encourage the participation of the interviewee, the aim of which is to conduct research with women rather than on women. In this way it is thought that a fuller picture of women's experiences emerges (Oakley, 1981 et al). Carspecken (1996) argues that one way of minimising any distortions that may arise due to the power differential between researcher and researched is to check out your findings with the research participants. Differences may also arise here if the dialogue between the researcher and the research participants has been awkward or untruthful in any way there may be objections when the participant sees what has been written. Seeing this distorted dialogue in print may increase any feelings of powerlessness that the participant might have and thus renegotiating the dialogue may prove difficult.

Ethics

At the very least ethics are concerned with protecting the anonymity of those who are participating in the research. This is vital if for example the participants are women who have experienced rape or domestic abuse as any such exposure of their true identity could put them at further risk. Many researchers, not just feminist researchers, also regard the use of non-sexist language as an ethical principle. Sexist language is exclusionary and denotes the power relationships that have for centuries existed in patriarchal society. Relationships that are in some way based on power are prone distortions in communication and it is up to the critical researcher to be aware of these sources of distortion as a matter of ethical principle. Carpecken (1996) thus believes that researchers should:

Establish supportive, non-authoritarian relationships with the participants in your study. Actively encourage them to question your own perceptions. Be sure that participants are protected from any harm that your study could produce, and be sure that they know they are protected (Carpecken, 1996:90).

There is considerable contemporary debate about what constitutes ethical research. This is particularly the case with sensitive areas and with feminist methodologies (Abbott and Wallace, 1997). Feminist researchers are concerned with the idea that the people who are the major part of many research undertakings should not be exploited. As I have stated previously, feminist researchers are concerned with the researched. Relationships between researchers and their human subjects are often continued long after work in the field has finished (Ely et al, 1996). The majority of feminists are conscious that the research relationship is a two-way process.

Research like all other knowing, is a transactional process - the knower and the known both act upon each other (Ely, et al, 1996:196 ibid.).

Many feminists regard it as crucially important that women who are more oppressed and marginalised than they themselves are given a voice for their experiences. They argue that some, (predominantly male) researchers have used respondents as objects to be worked on (Reinharz, 1983; Abbott and Wallace, 1997). In many cases there is no further contact with the people they have worked with once the research process is finished. Feminists have said that this kind of research is conducted on a rape model.

The researchers take, hit, and run, with a total disregard for the needs of the researched. They intrude into their subject's privacy, disrupt their perceptions, utilise false pretences, manipulate the relationships, and give little or nothing in return. When the needs of the researchers are satisfied, they break off contact with the subjects (Reinharz, 1983:80).

The issue of giving oppressed and marginalised women a voice has been identified by black feminists, as an ethical matter. This is because black women's voices are the most marginal of all women's voices in the academy, and the current educational system reinforces the values and culture of the dominant classes, thereby ensuring their continued domination and the covert exercise of power (Hill-Collins, P, 1990). In view of these ethical questions, many feminists are conscious of the need to put something back in, whether by the payment of a fee, or of contributing to work in the community. More recently however ethical questions have also concerned researcher safety. Is it ethical to allow a lone (possibly female) researcher to venture into settings where the power relationships that pertain in such a setting may put that researcher at risk. Power and ethics are closely entertwined. Covert participant observation (whereby the researcher does not disclose their true role and reasons for being in the setting) is often regarded as unethical and a misuse of researcher power because participants are not given the chance to give their informed consent to the research. It is also regarded as privacy violation (Bryman, 2004). Thus the power relationships that are, or might be at work in the research relationship need to be acknowledged at all stages of the research process and before decisions about how the research is undertaken are formalised.

Research, particularly qualitative research is not just composed of a set of 'facts' drawn from a number of suitably phrased questions. It is made up of all the seemingly unrelated bits and pieces that are part of human relationships (Ely et al, 1996).

Critical Urban Research

The most famous urban research is that of the Chicago school in the 1920s and 30s. Robert Park was the central figure here and his main concerns were with the effects of social and cultural forces on human nature. Park and his colleagues recognised two levels of behaviour the biotic and the cultural. The biotic level concerned mechanisms of survival and competition and the cultural was concerned with how the human subject was constituted (Dickens, 1990). Urban research is concerned with how the city influences those who inhabit it and how it shapes their lives. Giddens has argued that the space people occupy has to be taken into account when studying social life because social interaction is not aspatial, it has to take place somewhere. This somewhere Giddens designates a locale.

Locales range from a room in a house, or street corner, the shopfloor of a factory, towns and cities to the territorially demarcated areas occupied by region states. But they are typically internally regionalised (Giddens, 1984).

The Chicago school was highly influential on the way in which street society was studied. Jacobs (1961) undertook what became a classical study of Greenwich Village when she studied the everyday behaviour and relationships of people on the sidewalk. In the nineteen-ninetees Duneier (1999) wanted to discover how sidewalk life had changed in the intervening years. He studied the life of pan handlers and street vendors to see whether and in what ways its character might have changed. Duneier started out as a voyeur and customer at a bookstall in Greenwich Village and it was there that he noticed the tenor of sidewalk life. His primary informant was the bookseller who at first was reluctant to take part in the research. When he eventually wrote up his findings and submitted the manuscript for publication he was not comfortable even though he had invited his informant to read the manuscript and comment on it. He eventually co-opted the informant to co-teach with him about life on the street for a Black American. Duneier believed that not only would this adjust the imbalance in power relationships in research more adequately but that student feedback and comments on the course might allow him to remedy any shortcomings of the original research.

Duneier had faced a number of challenges during the course of research such as gaining access to the culture and the confidence of those who lived and worked on the streets. He had trouble fitting in because of the obvious power differentials of class and race as well as the inequality of the research relationship (adapted from Giddens, 2001 pps 652-655). Duneier's research participants were among the least powerful of society. The way in which modern societies operate what Giddens (2001) has called a geography of centrality and marginality where affluence and abject poverty co-exist made the lives of Duneier's research participants unliveable. He was worried whether he was imposing an agenda on his research participants that would make their lives even more problematic. What Duneier's research revealed was that the social researcher has to take account of the wider social context and processes of which he/she is a themselves a part. Mac an Ghaill's critical ethnography of heterosexual and homosexual young men also tries to reduce the power differential between researcher and research participants and to be as open and ethically aware as possible though collaboration, reciprocity and reflexivity (Haralambos et al, 2000).

Conclusion

This paper has examined how power relationships in research impact at all levels of the research process and affect the dialogue between the researcher and the research participants and the ethical considerations that are part of social research. It has also attempted to show how these processes can severely affect the undertaking of critical urban ethnography. Duneier's work in particular demonstrates how power relationships operate at all levels in research and how decisions that have been made (for example the changing geography of the urban environment) which neither the researcher nor research participants have any control over can affect the outcomes of the research and a researcher's own sense of his personal ethical commitment to the people who may have participated in the research. There are a number of reasons why this is important. Those scholars who are critical of this type of research often fail to acknowledge that the scientific paradigm is also beset with these kinds of issues and problems but fails to take them into account. This is what Popper (1992) called the theory of demarcation whereby any variables that do not fit with the theory are ruled out of the equation. Duneier and other's explicit recounting of the problematic nature of undertaking social research that contributes to knowledge, is committed to social transformation, and at the same time is aware the pitfalls that can occur when researching the lives of those who are already disenfranchised by society. There may never be a complete answer to addressing the issue of power relationships in social research but I would wish to argue that the researcher who neglects the fact that such things exist and influence all research is failing to give an accurate account of the social reality that he/she is investigating.

5000 words

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Adapted from page 11

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