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Researching minority
culture women’s
standpoint and
experiences of rights
Snjezana Bilic1
Abstract
In this paper I discuss the methodology that I have employed to examine some of the issues that stemmed from conducting my doctoral research on Liberian and Afghan women in South Australia. I argue that a feminist approach is the most suitable to situate the representations of newly arrived women from minority cultures, since it challenges the invisibility and distortion of women‟s experiences. I examine some of the dilemmas associated with representation within the feminist framework and acknowledge that, to implement the most adequate strategies of representation, a feminist researcher must be mindful of the ways that the differences between others are invoked and relied upon. I argue that feminist standpoint theory provides an invaluable basis from which to commence theorising about women‟s lives. Finally, I address some of the ethical issues within my research and also, in the context of managing some of the challenges when conducting cross-cultural research, I discuss my own position as an insider/outsider.
My PhD research2 explored the theoretical parameters of the debates on the tensions between
feminism and multiculturalism.3 In order to scrutinise the validity and the practical
1 Dr Snjezana Bilic is a tutor/lecturer in the School of Communications, International Studies and Languages at
the University of South Australia. Her research interests include human rights, women’s rights, feminist
theory, cultural rights and multiculturalism. Snjezana’s PhD thesis was titled Women’s rights and cultural
rights of Liberian and Afghani women in multicultural Australia. It made a significant contribution to
feminist discussions about rights and to research on policies concerning refugee women and their
communities in multicultural contexts. This paper was presented at the Cultural Studies Association of
Australasia Conference ‘Cultural ReOrientations and Comparative Colonialities’, Adelaide, 22–24 November
an awareness of conscious and subjective knowledge about what is known and how we happen
to know it (Schram 2003; Patton 2002). This knowledge is revealed implicitly and explicitly
through research assumptions, language and context. In my utilisation of praxis I highlight
the significance of the participants in the research, hence my endeavours to communicate their
perspectives authentically. In this process I also sought to consider the impact of the inquiry
on those being researched. This entails the potential for the knowledge provided by the
participants to be used in a way that can be empowering and that can have an ongoing impact
(Patton 2002), which were the initial reasons for conducting this research.
Negotiating outsider/insider status within research
During the course of my study I was both an external-outsider and an insider. I was an
external-outsider as a researcher who is „socialized within a community different from the one
in which he or she is doing research‟ (Merriam et al 2001: 408). The outsider‟s advantage lies
in curiosity about the unfamiliar, the ability to ask taboo questions and being seen as non-
aligned with subgroups, thus often getting more information. My outsider status became an
asset with regard to eliciting fuller explanations than would have been given to an insider
who was assumed to „already know‟ (see Merriam et al 2001: 408).
I began my research with an understanding of my outsider position, aware of the benefits and
disadvantages within it. I rested my assumptions about the benefits associated with my
outsider position on the feminist work of Susan Greenhalgh and Jiali Li (1995: 605), who
advocated collaboration on political as well as intellectual grounds with other cultures in the
belief that feminists working in other traditions have much to contribute theoretically and
often have „more political space‟ in which to offer critical interpretations of demographic
findings. It can be argued that my role as an outsider researcher into African and South Asian
156
cultural values can be observed positively as I, due to having no ties with the communities,
had less anxiety about revealing my findings in the political space (of the university or the
academic community) and thus could promote potential resolutions. However I was also
aware that my feminist criticism (of some cultural practices or traditions) could be perceived
negatively by the respective cultural groups that might seek to deflect such criticism. In
addition, my position as an outsider might be seen to prevent true understanding of the
cultural groups, gender relations within them or the women that belong to these groups. My
research could also be perceived (by the respective cultural groups of the participants) as
having imperialist intentions since human rights might be perceived as a primarily western
construct. This could also lead to perceptions (by the cultural group and the women in
question) of bias in favour of establishing universalising western rights parallels, despite my
aim to recognise difference.
My status as an outsider also posed obstacles in terms of accessing the participants and
understanding the dynamics inside women‟s groups, dynamics within their respective cultural
groups (only available to an insider), as well as more factual information (such as their arrival
and visa details). There were a number of aspects that the university Ethics Committee
enquired about prior to granting me permission to conduct research with these women,
including issues concerning the women‟s visa status, and enquiring whether women needed a
male family member to approve their participation. These issues caused a ten-month delay in
gaining the university Ethics Committee‟s approval to conduct research.
My status as a former non-English speaker and a woman who comes from a collectivist
culture also characterised my participation in the research on cultural rights and women‟s
rights, positioning me, to some degree, as an insider. I consider that from a multicultural
perspective I was also a partial insider. As Banks suggested, from a multicultural perspective
„we are all members of cultural communities where the interpretation of our life experiences is
mediated by the interaction of a complex set of status variables, such as gender, social class,
age, political affiliation, religion, and region‟ (1998: 5). Thus, notwithstanding the differences
between the groups of participants and myself, the mere analogies of gender, non-mainstream
157
ethnicity and of refugee and war experiences made me both an insider and an outsider within
my research. In the words of Kath Weston, „A single body cannot bridge the mythical divide
between outsider and insider, researcher and researched. I am neither, in any simple way, and
yet I am both‟ (1996: 275, cited in Denzin and Lincoln, 2003: 352).
Conclusion
I have discussed the methodology for this research and the theoretical assumptions that
inform the research. While feminist theorising in general informed the research methodology,
the specific theoretical influences come from standpoint theory. This theoretical approach
emphasises not only the importance of moving away from essentialist and categorical
tendencies (present in some claims within the debates about the tensions between feminism
and multiculturalism) and understanding women‟s life stories as situated knowledges but also
understanding specific issues relevant to Afghan and Liberian women‟s lived realities.
In this paper I have also detailed the range of ethical issues that arose in the course of the
research process such as the issues of reflexivity and negotiating an outsider/insider position
within feminist research.
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