Designing and Conducting Research with Marginalized Communities

Abstract

Justifying a particular method when designing and conducting research with vulnerable participant groups can be a challenging process owing in part to the methodological challenges related to issues such as deploying techniques for communicating abstract ideas to participants, enabling participants to express their views and finding ways for research to act responsively and inclusively (DeBlaere, Brewster, Sarkees, & Moradi, 2010; Reyes Cruz & Sonn, 2011). For example, Smyth and McInerney (2013) insisted that it is vital to acknowledge that ‘all researchers have interests, declared or otherwise’, and they proposed ‘the notion of advocacy ethnography’ as one approach to designing and conducting research ‘that is inclusive of the lives, perspective[s], experiences and viewpoints of the least powerful’. Similarly, Chilisa and Ntseane (2010) contended that, contrary to the researchers’ intentions, ‘the application of Western gender theory and policy in Botswana has tended to reduce women and girls’ experiences to the categories of “victim” and “other”’ (p. 617). From a different perspective, Ochieng (2010) cautioned that there are likely to be separate challenges arising from situations where researchers and participants are from the same ethnic background in striving to keep separate ‘their professional self and personal life experiences’ (p. 1725).