Abstract
The author explores the processes and practices of the research in this chapter. She begins by outlining the epistemology and African-centred feminist theory which have shaped her choice of methodology. In the first part of the chapter, the author unpacks central features of the research—representation, revisiting the data and dynamics around researcher positionality and presence. She then unpacks the distinct methodology, collective biography, which is collectively based, longitudinal and which foregrounds the researcher’s partnerships with the women’s group. The reader is taken through a journey of the research process and introduced to the creative strategies such as role-plays, drama, and visual memory work. This is interweaved with the women’s voices and imaginings that constitute the first layer of narration for this research. The chapter ends with comments on the theoretical lens used to make sense of the women’s voices. The author puts forward a ‘new chapter’ for gender research for the African continent.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
This name is a pseudonym, as are all the other participants’ names documented in this book. The decision to use pseudonyms was made to ensure participants’ rights to confidentiality and anonymity.
- 2.
The ‘container’ refers to a shipping container commonly used on the peripheries of townships in South Africa as schools or meeting venues.
References
Adames, S. B., & Campbell, R. (2005). Immigrant Latinas’ conceptualisations of intimate partner violence. Violence Against Women, 11, 1341–1364.
Andrews, M. (2008). Never the last word: Revisiting data. In M. Andrews, C. Squire, & M. Tamboukou (Eds.), Doing Narrative Research (pp. 86–101). London: Sage.
Bacchus, L., Mezey, G., & Bewley, S. (2006). A qualitative exploration of the nature of domestic violence in pregnancy. Violence Against Women, 12, 588–604.
Bohler-Muller, N. (2002). Really listening? Women’s voices and the ethic of care in post-colonial Africa. Agenda, 54, 86–91.
Cowman, K. (2012). Collective biography. In S. Gunn & L. Faire (Eds.), Research methods for history (pp. 83–100). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Davies, B. (1990). The problem of desire. Social Problems, 37, 801–816.
Davies, B. (1991). The concept of agency. Social analysis, 30, Postmodern critical theorising (pp. 42–53).
Davies, B. (1992). Women’s subjectivity and feminist stories. In C. Ellis & M. G. Flaherty (Eds.), Investigating subjectivity. Research on lived experience. London: Sage.
Davies, B. (2000). A body of writing 1990–1999. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.
Davies, B., & Gannon, S. (2006). The practices of collective biography. In B. Davies & S. Gannon (Eds.), Doing collective biography (pp. 1–15). New York: Open University Press.
Davies, B., Gannon, S., Laws, C., Lenz Taguchi, H., McCann, H., & Rocco, S. (2006b). Reading fiction and the formation of feminine character. In B. Davies & S. Gannon (Eds.), Doing collective biography (pp. 35–60). New York: Open University Press.
Davies, B., Browne, J., Gannon, S., Honan, E., & Somerville, M. (2006c). ‘Truly wild things’: Interruptions to the disciplinary regimes of neo-liberalism in (female) academic work. In B. Davies & S. Gannon (Eds.), Doing collective biography (pp. 79–87). New York: Open University Press.
De Fina, A. (2003). Identity in narrative: A study of immigrant discourse. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins.
De Lauretis, T. (1987). Technologies of gender: essays in theory, film, and fiction. Bloomington: Indiana University press.
de Vos, P. (2015). The Limit(s) of the law. Human rights and the emancipation of sexual minorities on the African continent. In D. Higginbotham & V. Collis-Buthelezi (Eds.), Contested intimacies: Sexuality, gender, and the law in Africa (pp. 1–16). Cape Town, South Africa: SiberInk.
Derickson, K. D., & Routledge, P. (2015). Resourcing scholar-activism: collaboration, transformation, and the production of knowledge. Professional Geographer, 67, 1–20.
Doucet, A. (2008). From her side of the gossamer’s wall(s): Reflexivity and relational knowing. Qualitative Sociology, 31, 73–87.
Eisikovits, Z., & Winstok, Z. (2002). Reconstructing intimate violence: The structure and content of recollections of violent events. Qualitative Health Research, 12, 685–699.
Fish, J. (2006). Domestic democracy: At home in South Africa. New York: Taylor & Francis Group.
Fox, A. M., Jackson, S. S., Hansen, N. B., Gasa, N., Crewe, M., & Sikkema, K. J. (2007). In their own voices. A qualitative study of women’s risk for intimate partner violence and HIV in South Africa. Violence Against Women, 13, 583–602.
Fraser, H. (2004). Doing narrative research: Analysing personal stories line by line. Qualitative Social Work, 3, 179–201.
Gavey, N. (2005). Just sex? The cultural scaffolding of rape. New York: Routledge.
Gill, A. (2004). Voicing the silent fear: South Asian women’s experiences of domestic violence. The Howard Journal, 43, 465–483.
Gqola, P. (2017). Reflecting Rogue: Inside the mind of a feminist. Johannesburg, South Africa: Jacana Media.
Haaken, J., & Reavey, P. (2012). Why memory matters: Disturbing recollections. In J. Haaken & R. Reavey (Eds.), Memory matters: Contexts for understanding sexual abuse recollections (pp. 1–13). New York: Routledge.
Harned, M. S. (2005). Understanding women’s labelling of unwanted sexual experiences with dating partners: A qualitative analysis. Violence Against Women, 11, 374–413.
Hofisi, C., Hofisi, M., & Mago, S. (2014). Critiquing interviewing as a data collection method. Mediterranean Journal of Social Science, 5, 60–64.
Israel, B. A., Schultz, A. J., Parker, E. A., & Becker, A. B. (1998). Review of community-based research: Assessing partnership approaches to improve public health. Annual Review of Public Health, 19, 173–202.
Johnson-Odim, C. (1991). Common themes, different contexts. In C. T. Mohanty, A. Russo, & L. Torres (Eds.), Third World women and the politics of feminism (pp. 314–327). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Kitzinger, J., & Barbour, R. S. (1999). Introduction: The challenge and promise of focus groups. In R. S. Barbour & J. Kitzinger (Eds.), Developing focus group research: Politics, theory and practice (pp. 1–20). London: Sage.
Kuhn, A. (2000). A journey through memory. In S. Radstone (Ed.), Memory and methodology (pp. 179–196). Oxford: Berg Publishers.
Macleod, C. (2006). Radical plural feminisms and emancipatory practice in post-apartheid South Africa. Theory & Psychology, 16, 367–389.
Macleod, C. (2008). ‘Who? What?: An unindicted view of towards a new psychology of women from post-apartheid South Africa. Feminism & Psychology, 18, 347–357.
Macleod, C., & Durrheim, K. (2002). Foucauldian feminism: The implications of governmentality. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 32, 41–60.
Mauthner, N. S., & Doucet, A. (2003). Reflexive accounts and accounts of reflexivity in qualitative data analysis. Sociology, 37, 413–431.
Mauthner, N. S., Parry, O., & Backett-Milburn, K. (1998). The data are out there, or are they? Implications for archiving and revisiting qualitative data. Sociology, 32, 733–745.
Melucci, A. (1995). The process of collective identity. In H. Johnston & B. Klandermans (Eds.), Social movements and culture (pp. 41–63). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Mkhize, N. (2004). Psychology: An African perspective. In D. Hook (Ed.), Critical psychology (pp. 24–52). Lansdowne, Cape Town: University of Cape Town Press.
Mohanty, C. T. (1991). Under western eyes: Feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. In C. T. Mohanty, A. Russo, & L. Torres (Eds.), Third world women and the politics of feminism (pp. 51–80). Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Munt, S. R. (2011). Journeys of resilience: The emotional geographies of refugee women. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 19, 555–577.
Narayan, U. (2000). Essence of culture and a sense of history: A feminist critique of cultural essentialism. In U. Narayan & S. Harding (Eds.), Decentering the center: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world (pp. 80–100). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Okin, S. M. (2000). Feminism, women’s human rights, and cultural differences. In U. Narayan & S. Harding (Eds.), Decentering the centre: Philosophy for a multicultural, postcolonial, and feminist world (pp. 26–46). Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Parker, I. (2005). Qualitative psychology: Introducing radical research. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Pereira, C. (2000). Feminist knowledge. African Transitions, 490, 77–85.
Pereira, C. (2002). Between knowing and imagining: What space for feminism in scholarship on Africa? Feminist Africa, 1.
Pratt, G. (2004). Working feminisms. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Reissman, C. K. (1993). Narrative analysis. London: Sage.
Rojas Silva, B. (2017). Book review: Narrative imagination and everyday life. Feminism & Psychology, 27, 385–388.
Seidman, I. (2006). Interviewing as qualitative research-A guide for researchers in education and the social sciences. New York: Columbia University; Teachers College Press.
Sjoberg, G., & Nett, R. (1968). A methodology for social research. New York: Harper & Row.
Sokoloff, N. J., & Dupont, I. (2005). Domestic violence at the intersections of race, class, and gender: Challenges and contributions to understanding violence against marginalised women in diverse communities. Violence Against Women, 11, 38–64.
Squire, C. (2008). Experience-centred and culturally-orientated approaches to narrative. In M. Andrews, C. Squire, & M. Tamboukou (Eds.), Doing narrative research (pp. 41–63). London: Sage.
Stephenson, N. (2001). “Speaking like a woman”: Agency in intersubjective communication. Australian Psychologist, 36, 19–26.
Tamboukou, M. (2008). A Foucauldian approach to narratives. In M. Andrews, C. Squire, & M. Tamboukou (Eds.), Doing narrative research (pp. 102–120). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
van Schalkwyk, S., & Gobodo-Madikizela, P. (2015). Introduction. In S. van Schalkwyk & P. Gobodo-Madikizela (Eds.), A reflexive inquiry into gender research: Towards a new paradigm of knowledge production & exploring new frontiers of gender research in Southern Africa (pp. xi–xxxv). Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
van Schalkwyk, S., Boonzaier, F., & Gobodo-Madikizela, P. (2014). ‘Selves’ in contradiction: Power and powerlessness in South African shelter residents’ narratives of leaving abusive heterosexual relationships. Feminism & Psychology, 24, 314–331.
Walshaw, M. A. (2010). The researcher’s self in research: Confronting issues about knowing and understanding others. In L. Sparrow, B. Kissane, & C. Hurst (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd annual conference of the mathematics education research group of Australasia Incorporated 2010: Shaping the future of mathematics education (pp. 587–593). Australia: Freemantle.
Wright, S., & Nelson, N. (1995). Participatory research and participant observation: Two incompatible approaches. In N. Nelson & S. Wright (Eds.), Power and participatory development: Theory and practice (pp. 43–59). Southampton; London: Intermediate Technology Publications.
Yuval-Davis, N. (1997). Gender and nation. London: Sage.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2018 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
van Schalkwyk, S. (2018). Collective Biography: A New Chapter for Exploring Agency in the South African Context. In: Narrative Landscapes of Female Sexuality in Africa. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97825-3_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97825-3_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-97824-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-97825-3
eBook Packages: Behavioral Science and PsychologyBehavioral Science and Psychology (R0)