Category Archives: big abstract ideas

Indigenous and anti-racist methodologies

September 5, 2020big abstract ideas, methodology, politics, representation, researcher rolesSandra Mathison

This new semester begins for many Universities with a ‘scholar strike,’ an action to draw attention to the Black Lives Matter movement, but also to all forms of racism and the privilege that many Whites have in relation to others, referred to collectively as BIPOC. (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour). This strike is meant to be a continuation of the need to undo Indigenous invisibility, anti-Blackness, dismantle white supremacy and advance racial justice.

Within research this can mean a number of things: listening to and learning about Indigenous research methodologies, reading research conducted by BIPOC, learning to talk, write, and review research in inclusive ways.

Indigenous methodologies

There is a growing body of literature on Indigenous research methodology, easily accessible through various search engines. Here, I want to simply introduce some initial thoughts about how an Indigenous research methodology may differ from other research methodologies.

Cora Weber-Pillwax suggests these basic principles that characterize Indigenous research methodology:

(a) the interconnectedness of all living things,

(b) the impact of motives and intentions on person and community,

(d) the groundedness of theories in indigenous epistemology,

(e) the transformative nature of research,

(f) the sacredness and responsibility of maintaining personal and community integrity,

(g) the recognition of languages and cultures as living processes.

An Indigenous research agenda might look something like this:

Indigenous Epistemology

As with all research, presumptions about knowledge (epistemology), reality (ontology), and values (axiology) are foundational. In general, discussions of these foundations has been couched in long standing Euro-centric views. Even though many views on interpretive and critical research may accommodate an Indigenous worldview (for example, a social constructionist epistemology privileges inter-subjectivity and human connection) most nonetheless are inadequate for fully capturing this way of seeing and being in the world.

Key aspects of Indigenous epistemologies are relationality (we are all related to each other, to the natural environment, and to the spiritual world, and these relationships imply interdependencies), the interconnection between sacred and secular, and holism (everything is related and cannot be separated, and thus wholes must be maintained for understanding)… what Weber-Pillwax calls the “interconnectedness of all living things.”

Notions of Indigenous pedagogy are intertwined in Indigenous epistemology as learning (knowledge sharing) occurs through the process of observing and doing, and by interacting over long periods of time with elders in a natural environment. This learning process is subtle and unobtrusive and in non-Indigenous eyes it may not even be recognized as learning.

There are a growing number of global resources to guide recognition, understanding and valuing Indigenous knowledge, including the Principles & Guidelines for the Protection of the Heritage of Indigenous People and Science for the Twenty-first Century. Most university libraries, including UBC, have relatively easy portals for accessing books, articles, and resources on Indigenous research methodologies. (UBC portal) See also, Marie Battiste’s literature review on Indigenous epistemology and pedagogy.

Anti-racist methodologies

There has been for some time a growing awareness of putting race at the centre of research projects, methodologies and theoretical approaches. Critical Race Theory asserts “racial inequality emerges from the social, economic, and legal differences that white people create between “races” to maintain elite white interests in labour markets and politics, giving rise to poverty and criminality in many minority communities. The CRT movement officially organized itself in 1989, at the first annual Workshop on Critical Race Theory, though its intellectual origins go back much further, to the 1960s and ’70s.” (Source) CRT as an orientation was coined by Kimberlé Crenshaw and originated as a legal movement to challenge and shift race paradigms in the US.

Anti-racist research is generally situated within a critical research theoretical perspective given the focus on differential access to power for minoritized people seen through the lens of race, class, gender, and sexuality. Anti-racist research is not content with describing and understanding differences, but intends to understand, challenge and change values, beliefs and actions that sustain systemic racism.

Anti-racist research methodologies include critical ethnography, critical discourse analysis, critical narrative inquiry, and Indigenous research methodologies with attention to the relational aspects of research, that is, doing research with, not on, BIPOC.

Inclusive, anti-racist writing & knowledge representation

September 4, 2020big abstract ideas, ethics, methodology, politics, representationSandra Mathison

The new semester begins for many Universities with a ‘scholar strike,’ an action to draw attention to the Black Lives Matter movement, but also to all forms of racism and the privilege that many Whites have in relation to others, referred to collectively as BIPOC. (Black, Indigenous, People of Colour). This strike is meant to be a continuation of the need to undo Indigenous invisibility, anti-Blackness, dismantle white supremacy and advance racial justice.

Inclusive, Anti-Racist Writing

Representation of knowledge is often overlooked as a critical element of research and when we adopt taken for granted ways of writing, representing and publishing we ignore the growing concerns for BIPOC. One place to start is with this book by Gregory Younging wherein he develops a principled way of writing about and writing from within an Indigenous worldview.

Younging elaborates on this set of ideas for writing and publishing:

1. Avoid using the past tense when you write about Indigenous Peoples.

Indigenous Peoples are not a historical phenomenon; they have not been assimilated into Canadian culture and they have not lost their own rich, distinct cultures. Indigenous Peoples are diverse, authentic, empowered and current.

2. Do not use language which props up the colonial idea that Indigenous Peoples are incapable of taking care of things themselves.

This manifests itself in language that implies Indigenous Peoples have no agency.

3. Do not use the possessive when talking about the Indigenous Peoples who live in a country.

Canada doesn’t “own” the First Nations, Métis or Inuit Peoples who live in what is now called Canada.

4. Do not whitewash Indigenous Peoples out of history.

5. Think about Indigenous Knowledge as holding its own copyright.

Give Oral Traditions and Traditional Knowledge the same weight and respect as printed texts. You need to ask for permission before reprinting Oral Traditions and Traditional Knowledge, exactly as you would with written texts.

6. Be prepared for consultation to take time.

Be aware that no one person is able to give permission; if copyright is held by a Nation, then there needs to be a proper consultation practice about sharing.

7. Collaborate and seek permission when writing about Traditional Knowledge.

If you’re writing about Indigenous People then contact them and discuss what you’d like to do. Be aware that Indigenous Protocols — which are more formal than “customs” — need to be adhered to, and often it may not be appropriate to write about matters which have sacred significance, or perhaps contain stories which may only be told by women, men, or at a particular time of the year.

8. Do not repeat inaccurate and offensive material.

9. Always choose Indigenous Style.

Capitalization may not be where you’d expect to see it. Use Indigenous style: Aboriginal, First Nations, Indigenous, Elder, Longhouse, Clan, and so on.

10. Respect Elders.

Be aware of the important role of Elders within Indigenous societies and their role as holders of Traditional Knowledge and as community advisors.

11. Recognize and respect distinct and diverse Indigenous Peoples.

The Indigenous population in Canada is made up of Inuit, Métis, and some 634 different First Nations. Each has their own distinct Traditional Knowledge, culture and heritage. Avoid writing about ‘First Nations’ as though they are a homogenous group; instead, be specific and ask for people’s preferred self-declaration.

12. Understand Indigenous cultures do not need to be static to be authentic.

Indigenous Peoples are currently engaged in a period of cultural reclamation and rejuvenation. Indigenous cultures are dynamic and undergo natural change and adaptation, just like other cultures, and there are many manifestations of authentic indigeneity. This point is core to Thomas King’s work: The Inconvenient Indian and The Truth About Stories: A Native Narrative.

A very short note on mixed methods

May 18, 2020big abstract ideas, methodology, methodsSandra Mathison

The many guises of mixed methods…

Mixed methods are used when there are two or more types of:

➢ research questions
➢ sampling procedures
➢ data collection procedures
➢ data
➢ data analysis
➢ conclusions

It is relatively easy to mix methods at the methods level, i.e., when the intent is to collect both quantitative and qualitative data. This can be accomplished within a single method. For example, you might use observation as a method and use an inventory to record frequency of behaviours, interactions, and so on. You could also record dialogue or take field notes occurring during this same observation. But this strategy may also mean using a method that generates numbers (likert scale item survey) and a method that generates words (oral history interview).

With mixed methods often one or the other paradigm is primarily emphasized and often there is a sequential use of one then the other paradigm. This chart illustrates possible variations.

Mixed methods research wants to move beyond this simple distinction of types of data and the field makes an effort to elevate the idea to a methodology, even sometimes crossing the epistemological boundaries of objectivism and social constructivism. A research study that uses interviews and participant observation, for example, is now not necessarily considered mixed methods research. Whereas, a research study that uses hermeneutics and times series analysis would be a mixed methods study. These different contexts also suggest the “mixing” can occur at different places within the research process.

Justification for mixed methods…

A primary justification for mixed methods is pragmatism. (Read, for example, David Morgan’s argument for this justification here.) Pragmatism asserts no first or foundational principles and suggests that all human knowledge is empirical, what John Dewey called “empirical metaphysics.” I confess to being unclear how the philosophical position of pragmatism is a justification for mixed methods—how does the primacy of experience lead to any particular methodology or method? And, is this a confusion of pragmatism with being pragmatic?

Related to this pragmatic justification is the triangulation justification, especially more contemporary notions of triangulation that focus on the complementarity and complexity added by multiple data sources, analyses, and so on. See my discussion of triangulation along these lines here.

Feyerabend’s “anarchist epistemology” might also justify mixed methods, either within the same study or across studies of the same or similar phenomena. This is in the big picture a more dialectical approach, working iteratively across paradigms rather than necessarily combining paradigms.

To justify mixed methods, one must at some level reject the incommensurability argument, i.e., the argument that the differences in epistemological theories cannot be overcome. (Note that the incommensurability argument at the level of the unit of measurement is easily overcome.)

In this article, Sommer Herrits’ illustrates two mixed methods (nested analysis and praxeological knowledge) approaches that operate at the paradigmatic level and result in substantially different emphases. I’ve included her summary comparison of the two approaches below.

Here are some additional resources for further exploring mixed methods…

Bergman, M. (2008). (Ed.) Advances in mixed methods research: Theories and applications. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Creswell, J. W. & Plano-Clark, V. L. (2018). Designing and Conducting Mixed Methods Research (3rd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Greene, J.C. (2007). Mixed methods in social inquiry. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Journal of Mixed Methods Research
Tashakkori, A., & Teddlie, C. (2010). Handbook of mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Teddlie, C., & Tashakkori, A. (2009). Foundations of mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

And here is a good example of a study using mixed methodology…

Castro, F. G., & Coe, K. (2007). Traditions and alcohol use: A mixed-methods analysis. Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology, 13(4), 269–284. https://doi.org/10.1037/1099-9809.13.4.269

Metaphors… again, and in the time of the pandemic

May 3, 2020big abstract ideas, metaphorsSandra Mathison

I’ve written several posts on metaphor… here, here, and here.

In these truly bizarre times when the world has been closed down by the Covid 19 pandemic, we see the power of metaphor. For many, but especially in the USA, UK and even France, the pandemic is a war. This is, of course, metaphoric and makes sense within a frame often used by media and politicians. Within the frame of war, we naturally understand things like life and death; enemies (seen and not seen); battles; front lines; sacrifice; home front.

The virus is often referred to as an “enemy who can strike” ~ anthropomorphizing the virus with the “who” reinforces the enemy as person(s), as a target within the war metaphor. This personification also gives a moral dimension to the virus, it has intention to cause harm, which has been extended to its place of origin (the China Virus) and the repeated efforts to connect the virus to an intentional act of national aggression. This extension also constructs an us and them relationship.

Another component of the metaphor is the characterization of health care workers as being on the front line, doing their duty battling the virus. They are described as heroes in their fight, but they work without the supplies and supports troops in battle enjoy. Some health care workers reinforce this metaphor, others reject it.

But a pandemic is not a war, a virus has no morality or intention, the virus is not intimidated by force or bombastic rhetoric, and health care workers are not soldiers. The strategies that will contain the virus are inconsistent with war… isolation, for example. Nonetheless, the frame of war with its metaphoric content is meant to rally people in a particular way, to signal who has responsibility and who does not. When rural parts of the USA resist stay at home orders because there are few cases of Covid 19 in their area they see the front line very far from them, and a battle that is being fought elsewhere thus making them safe from the enemy. The public does not embrace measures to safe guard public health, because a small group of others will defeat or at least contain the viral enemy.

The war metaphor also leads to containment of information… information is controlled, limited, and on a need to know basis. The war frame directs attention to divisions among people, to fear, to security and enforcement, and to the use of propaganda and censorship. This stands in stark contrast to countries where the war metaphor is not prevalent, and where information is shared routinely and transparently (for example… Germany, Canada, New Zealand) and through metaphors of science, medicine, and the common good.

Not only is the analogy of war misplaced on factual grounds; it also misses the possibility to cultivate an imagination that builds on narratives of peace, solidarity and social justice – and to foster a more acute understanding of how we are all fundamentally dependent on one another as inhabitants of a shared planet. (Source)

It’s all metaphors, all the time… but different metaphors construct different lived experiences with potentially dramatically different real outcomes.

story versus narrative: a definitional note

January 6, 2019big abstract ideas, narrative inquirySandra Mathison

Stories have a clear beginning, middle and end and solve a problem, sometimes a dramatic peripeteia and sometimes a small conundrum. Stories are explicit, told and retold.

Narratives are a story made up of many stories and may not have a clear end, and may not have a clear problem or may indeed have many problems within. Narratives are often unseen, unnoticed, unanalyzed, and powerful shapers of human experience.

Take, for example, the American Dream… this is a narrative, one that is manifest in many different contexts… the media, folklore, social institutions. It is made up of many stories, some of them also possibly narratives. Stories within the American Dream are about work and effort and the relationship between the two; about opportunity, fairness and equality; about rights and responsibilities; about meritocracy and privilege; about democracy. It is a complex narrative which contributes to its power.

methodology as recipe

May 4, 2016big abstract ideas, methodology, methods, research designSandra Mathison

A challenging idea for many graduate students learning how to do interpretive and critical research is that one must make a commitment to a research methodology. The two most common errors/scenarios are that students want to begin with research methods (ways of making and analyzing data) or research design features (the most common is to say they want to do a case study, a topic I discuss in some detail here.)

I find Michael Crotty’s definitions and relationships among the elements that frame research helpful. See this image and here, for a short note on this.

A methodology is a framework that contains core ideas reflecting more fundamental epistemological and ontological groundings, but it also provides guidance on the focus of our inquiry, key concepts, values, and often a hint at methods (although this is a separate matter). A methodology contains core definitional foci and cue us to what to expect in a research project. Methodologies also give us a sense of what we might expect the outcome/product of the research to be, even though there is tremendous variation in representational forms within any methodology.

Methodology as Recipe

To help students understand what a methodology is and why we need one, I use the metaphor of methodology as recipe. A recipe is a framework for preparing food: it has a name that reflects what the outcome will be; a list of ingredients, procedural guidelines; tools and techniques; and often a color photo to show us what the food should look like when we are finished. And, different recipes illustrate fundamental differences. For example, a recipe for a chocolate cake and one for beef stew vary on all of these features and are therefore about something quite different. One would never follow a recipe for a chocolate cake and expect to end up with beef stew.

Chocolate Cake Beef Stew

flour, sugar, cocoa, eggs, butter beef, broth, carrots, potatoes, onions

whisking, stirring, mixing chopping, browning, deglazing

mixer, cake pan, whisk knives, heavy pot

baking braising, stewing

A methodology is a framework for doing research: it contains a name that reflects the outcome; what is needed to identify the research as being within that framework; procedures and tools; and we often have a general notion of what the outcome will look like.

Ethnography

culture, language, rituals, artifacts

field work: prolonged engagement, participant observation, interviewing, kinship charts, mapping, SNA

field notes, photographs, transcripts

thick description; analysis with cultural categories; emic perspective

Novice cooks and researchers are more likely to follow recipes closely, developing the knowledge and skills that will in time free them from a specific recipe while still working within the recipe framework. A good cook might substitute Guinness beer for some broth in the beef stew, but she is still making beef stew. An ethnographer might substitute live field note taking using social media for more traditional field notes, but she is still taking field notes.

Without a methodology a research project is ungrounded, drifting and has a high probability of being atheoretical. With a methodology, with a recipe, the researcher plans on making an ethnography or a narrative analysis or a hermeneutic investigation because the core ideas, the ingredients, the tools are valued and indeed reflect deeper senses of the nature of both the world and knowledge about it.

good theory…

November 29, 2015big abstract ideasSandra Mathison

A good theory is an act of the informed imagination — it reaches toward the unknown while grounded in the firmest foundations of the known.

~ Maria Popova

case study ~ research design, methodology, method?

October 6, 2015big abstract ideas, methodology, methods, research designSandra Mathison

Since the early 80s when I did my MA degree I have been steeped in “case study research,” and I have the deepest respect for those who have articulated the importance of focusing on the particular in social science research (Robert Yin, Robert Stake, Sharon Merriam, for example). The work of these individuals is valuable ~ Yin provides a valuable foundation for why we should look at cases, and Stake has added detail about different motivations for looking at cases.

With a background in sociology and cultural anthropology my early exposure to case studies created little confusion ~ I was and remain interested in the particular. So researching and understanding a case make conceptual sense. Being schooled in ethnography as a methodology meant that using the language of case study provided a way to engage the tools of ethnography in a flexible way, focusing on pretty much anything that can be identified as a case, that is, a bounded system. Indeed, Creswell defines case study as “an in-depth exploration of a bounded system (e.g., an activity, event, process, or individuals) based on extensive data collection” and he goes on to clarify what a bounded system is: “the case is separated out for research in terms of time, place, or some physical boundaries.” The coupling of a bounded case in naturalistic settings aligns these methodological ideas with interpretivist and critical perspectives on research, but a case can also be investigated within a post-positivist perspective.

In his 2000 book, The Art of Case Study Research, Bob Stake characterized case studies as intrinsic, instrumental or collective. Intrinsic cases are those that are inherently interesting to a researcher, perhaps because of their uniqueness or peculiarity. Instrumental cases are those that researchers study because they have features connected to bigger concepts and that provide an empirical instance to study a bigger idea. Collective case study is looking at multiple cases often with a desire to compare and understand variation, in other words it is a collection of instrumental cases.

So far, we have case study as the investigation of bounded systems that we are motivated to investigate with three possible intentions. Sounds like a very important feature of research design.

But is it a methodology?

Research methodology is a framework that guides research practice ~ it is the theoretical frame that pulls epistemology forward into a discourse that further articulates the nature of knowledge and that guides our choice of methods. Crotty describes it as: “the strategy, plan of action, process or design lying behind the choice and use of particular methods and linking the choice and methods to the desired [research] outcomes.” Note that methodology is a theoretical framework. An important feature of methodologies is that they have substantive content, notions about what the focus of the research will be. If one does ethnography, for example, some notion of culture (even if adapted substantially from cultural anthropology) is central to the investigation. If one does critical research, some notion of power (and likely inequity) is central to the investigation. If one does narrative research, some notion of storying is central. So methodologies bring together salient, foundational social constructs with features of doing research. One could argue that certain methodologies logically entail the investigation of cases, in which case, case study could be an element of a methodology, but that it is only one among a number of elements.

So where does this leave case study as a methodology? What are the foundational social constructs that are central to it as a methodology? Here is where the logic breaks down. Looking at a case, in a natural setting, doing extensive data collection in natural settings doesn’t begin to hint at any particular foundational social constructs… inevitably researchers must draw on some other methodology for those. There is considerable variation in methodologies that inform what one does when investigating a case, and even when researchers do not articulate their methodology it lurks in the articulation of what those central social constructs are and the means by which we investigate them (reflection on pre-reflected experience in phenomenology; story telling in narrative analysis; culture in ethnography; and so on).

Terminology is inconsistent in discussions of research ~ there is a bewildering, often rolling sea of ideas, concepts, and practices to navigate in learning about research. There is no single ship of understanding, but thoughtful (re)articulation of the ideas underlying the theoretical and practical aspects of research is part of being in a community of social science researchers.

PS.

Further reading: This recently published comparative analysis of Yin, Stake & Merriam‘s take on what case study research is explicates their positions well, and I think still leaves unanswered the fundamental question of what case study is. My view of case study as a feature of research design is unchanged.

The role of empathy in research

December 28, 2014big abstract ideas, methodology, research design, researcher rolesSandra Mathison

Our ability to empathize is key to our success as researchers. To understand the human conditions, social relations, cultural meanings we must first understand and only after that to engage in the conversations of what if. I recently came across a FB post by Kirstie Elgersma. I’ve extracted some parts of her post to illustrate what empathy is and, more importantly, is not:

A monologue on Empathy:
If someone said to me today,’Holy crap, Kristie. Life freakin’ sucks. I’m so broke. And I feel so scared. I’ve never been this far down before. I don’t know how I’m going to make it…’

– I would rarely say:
‘Well where do you live? I can help you find a job….’
That’s fixing it. And no one needs to be ‘fixed’.

– I would rarely IF EVER say:
‘I think you should figure out your life and get your shit together!’
That’s advising and unless they specifically asked for it, they aren’t needing that from me.

– I would rarely IF EVER say:
‘Ohhh shit! How could you let that happen?!?’
That’s interrogating… And they didn’t come looking for the Spanish Inquisition.

– I would rarely IF EVER say:
‘It’s only that way because you aren’t being positive or you aren’t trying hard enough…. You did this to yourself.’
They aren’t looking for an explanation.

– I would rarely IF EVER say:
‘Hey, you shouldn’t see it that way! There are many things in life to be thankful for.’
That would be me correcting them and they are not needing ‘correction’.

– I would rarely IF EVER say:
‘Well, there is much to be learned from this…’
They don’t need an education on what the fuck is happening to them.

– I would rarely say:
‘None of this is your fault.’
They don’t need me to console them.

– I would rarely IF EVER say:
‘Wellllll if you hadn’t quit that job you had then none if this shit might be happening right now…’
They don’t need me to evaluate their lives. And most people hate hearing,’I told you so’.

– I would rarely say:
‘Those FUCKERZ. The 1%. Fuck I wish they would die so we can all be free.’
They don’t need me to commiserate with them as much as I would want to. That serves no one.

– I would rarely IF EVER say:
‘Oh fuck you think you got it bad! You should hear what happened to this one guy I met… etc etc.’
That’s ‘one upping’ them. They don’t need to hear who has it worse than them. I could imagine that that would make people feel shitty for how they feel or feel shitty that they even shared anything with me in the first place.

– I would rarely say:
‘Hey, that reminds me of the time when I was in my early twenties….’
Telling tales distracts people from what is alive in them. And although that may be a great stall tactic it still serves nothing or no one but my furiously ‘telling tales’ thumbs.

– I would rarely say:
‘Omg! That’s so fucking awful!! I feel so bad for you!! What are you going to do?!?’
They don’t need sympathy from me either. Sympathy can dis-able a person further…..

None of these responses is empathetic, although these responses are frequently confused with empathy. To use our capacity for empathy in research and in everyday life what is called for is to listen, to be curious, to try our very best to understand, and of course to care. Demonstrating empathy is never about telling anyone anything, it is about asking and seeking understanding. This is the first step researchers need to take before presuming they know both what the problem and its solution are.