Article Database

“Bringing Your Whole Self to Research” The Power of the Researcher’s Body, Emotions, and Identities in Ethnography

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Despite advancements, there remains relatively little research about how researchers navigate their bodies and emotions in the context of field research. Perhaps because it represents a threat to ideas about objective or value-free research, qualitative researchers may receive the least amount of practical training about how their bodies and emotions matter in the field. The prevailing assumption is that researchers will eventually find their way or organically develop the pivotal relationships that they need to conduct their work. This uncertainty can be a tremendous source of anxiety for researchers new to the field and even for those seasoned researchers initiating new projects. In this article, I explore the factors that shape the meanings that research participants attach to researchers’ bodies and emotions and, similarly, how researchers’ emotions are implicated in their research. Drawing on constructivist grounded theory and critical feminist methodologies, I use specific examples from my ethnographic research in Brazil to highlight the complex and contradictory ways that researchers’ bodies and emotions are perceived by potential research participants and can be managed in order to enhance ethnographic research. Ultimately, this presentation is intended to explore the challenges and possibilities created when researchers marshal their bodies and emotions to bring their whole self to research.

Race and the Politics of Knowledge Production: Diaspora and Black Transnational Scholarship in the United States and Brazil

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In this co-edited volume, Gladys L. Mitchell-Walthour and Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman have invited contributors of African descent from the United States and Brazil to reflect on their multidimensional experiences in the field as researchers, collaborators, and allies to communities of color. Contributors promote an interdisciplinary perspective, as they represent the fields of sociology, political science, anthropology, and the humanities. They engage WEB Du Bois’ notion of’second-sight,’which suggests that the unique positionality of Black researchers might provide them with advantages in their empirical observations and knowledge production. They expose the complex and contradictory efforts, discourses, and performances that Black researchers must use to implement and develop their community-centered research agenda. They illustrate that’second-sight’is not inevitable but must be worked at and is sometimes not achieved in certain research and cultural contexts.

Out of the Shadows, Into the Dark: Ethnoracial Dissonance and Identity Formation Among Afro-Latinxs

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A 2016 Pew report reported that 24 percent of Hispanics identify as Afro-Latinxs, but researchers know very little about the significance of Afro-Latinx identity and how it develops. Using survey data administered to 94 self-identified Afro-Latinxs and in-depth interviews with selected survey respondents, the authors examine the socialization experiences that shape their identity formation. The authors illustrate that Afro-Latinx identity formation rarely occurred as a result of racial affirmation from families (as observed for other Black-identified groups in the United States). In the context of their families, Afro-Latinxs report the normalization of colorism and consistently negative appraisals of “black” racialized features (skin, hair, and facial features), silence about race and racism, and the encouragement of Latinx ethnicity contrasted with the stigmatization of blackness. Afro-Latinxs’ early racial socialization is marked by ethnoracial dissonance: a feeling of disidentification with, and from, racial schemas made available to them. Most respondents report that this dissonance is punctuated in secondary school and rarely reconciled through familial experiences. However, college experiences and participation in online communities ultimately exposed them to the history of the African diaspora, introduced them to the term Afro-Latinx, and offered alternative constructions of blackness that led them to adopt an Afro-Latinx identity.

Out of Bounds?: Negotiating Researcher Positionality in Brazil

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The transnational dialogues between black researchers from the United States and Brazil have been documented by a number of scholars (Hellwig 1992; Yelvington 2006). While the historical import of these dialogues have been discussed at length, only rarely does the analysis of these dialogues focus on dilemmas in the f eld that are related to how researchers practice activism and research (see Twine & Warren 2000 for an exception). T is is, indeed, unfortunate as black scholars f nd themselves in a truly unique position to provide insight into these negotiations. T eir positionality allows them to, at times, slip seamlessly through social spaces and, in other moments, stumble awkwardly through an unpredictable “web of interlocking social categories,” on “multiple levels,” and simultaneously (Caldwell 2007, xv). Gilliam writes of her experience in Brazil: “We were white to the degree that we spoke English and refused to speak Portuguese properly since it reinforced our status as foreigners. We were black to the degree that we seemed Brazilian. This bifurcation of the subject position was to become more complex in Bahia” (Gilliam & Gilliam 1999, 72). While this statement is persuasive, I argue that positionality is characterized by multilevel fragmentation rather than a dual or bifurcated negotiation. Along these same lines, black researchers in Brazil are perhaps best framed as being positioned “out of bounds.” Rather than moving in and out of boundaries strategically, or unpredictably, they are never completely in or out. T ey hover in the uncertainty of constantly shifting positions, but they also exert agency in guiding these transitions. Researchers benefit greatly from a more candid discussion of these shifts because they have significant implications for how researchers can maximize their contribution to the very communities that they hope to empower

Exposing Whiteness Because we are Free: Emancipation Methodological Practice in Identifying and Challenging Racial Practices in Sociology Departments

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Race-related research presents a number of unique challenges that must be addressed so the integrity of the research process as well as the validity and reliability of the data can remain strong. Race as a category is a dehumanizing process because for hundreds of years it has pressed us to live out the lie that some people are ‘better than’ or ‘less than’ others, based only on phenotypical characteristics. The case study as a method of inquiry has a long tradition in psychology and anthropology. Narrative analysis of interview transcripts and organizational documents help find the deeper meaning of participants’ stories. A value of focus group methodology is the opportunity to gather a collective story from a number of people talking together that would not arise if the people were interviewed separately. Anthropologists and sociologists have long been using interviews to obtain information from research participants for clinical diagnosis, counseling, and psychological testing.

Between Marginality and Privilege: Gaining Access and Navigating the Field in Multiethnic Settings

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In this article we propose a framework of credibility and approachability for researchers to use as they prepare for fieldwork and write up their data. Highlighting intersectional perspectives from two women and scholars of color, this framework translates the important theoretical critiques of dichotomous thinking (for example, insider-outsider) into methodological practice. We argue that credibility and approachability are not just performed by researchers, but are also perceived by respondents and placed on researchers’ bodies. By conceptualizing credibility and approachability as both performed behaviors and perceived characteristics, we are able to incorporate the researcher’s positionality, the standpoint of the researched, and the power-laden particularities of the interaction in our data analyses and fieldwork reflections for the benefit of both researchers and readers.

What’s Love Got to do With it?: Racial Features, Stigma and Socialization in Afro-Brazilian Families

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This article explores how racial socialization in poor and working-class Afro-Brazilian families conveys messages about racial features that reproduce and resist racial hierarchies. Relying on 116 semi-structured interviews and ethnography in fifteen Afro-Brazilian families conducted in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, I argue that racial socialization consists of discursive strategies, concrete practices and affective displays that stigmatize black racial features. This study examines racial socialization within the intimate context of parent and sibling relationships, highlighting how Afro-Brazilians negotiate racial features such as skin colour, hair texture and nose shape during day-to-day interactions and life transitions. To illustrate the complexity of Afro-Brazilian families, I discuss critical moments when socialization simultaneously reproduces and inverts racial hierarchies. I conclude by arguing that racial hierarchies are constantly negotiated in Afro-Brazilian families, but racial socialization most often reinforces dominant racial structures in ways that compromise the affective quality of family relationships.

Critical Race Theories, Colorism, and the Decade’s Research on Families of Color

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In the millennium’s inaugural decade, 2 interrelated trends influenced research on America’s families of color: the need for new knowledge about America’s growing ethnic/racial minority and immigrant populations and conceptual advances in critical race theories and perspectives on colorism. Three substantive areas reflecting researchers’ interests in these trends emerged as the most frequently studied topics about families of color: inequality and socioeconomic mobility within and across families, interracial romantic pairings, and the racial socialization of children. In this review, we synthesize and critique the decade’s scholarly literature on these topics. We devote special attention to advances in knowledge made by family‐relevant research that incorporated ways of thinking from critical race theories and the conceptual discourse on colorism.

Sustaining Culture, Expanding Literacies: Culturally Relevant Literacy Pedagogy and Gradual Release of Responsibility in K-8 Classrooms

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Only One iPad: Preparing Preservice Teachers to Teach Digital Literacies in Under-resourced Elementary Schools

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