1-4 Methodological framework

Most people understand research as something that one group of people (the researchers) do to another group of people (the research subjects). Following an already developed plan, the researchers would observe, ask questions, measure, make notes. Their position - or standpoint - should be singular, neutral, and value free. Using scientific methods, they should try to be as objective as possible, not letting opinions or prejudices interfere with what they saw, heard, measured, or recorded. The relationship between the researchers and the research subjects should be tightly controlled. The researchers should try to keep all parts of themselves - their personal, professional, or political selves - outside of the research situation in order not to contaminate it.

Evelyn Jacobs (1988) summarizes traditional research in this way.

In a traditional research study the research design is usually formulated tightly in advance of data collection. Data might be collected through some form of systematic - sampling, using predetermined coding categories, and then analyzed quantitatively. Researchers' personal knowledge of subject aspects of human life would be regarded as irrelevant.(p.37)

This traditional understanding of research comes from a particular perspective, often called Cartesian. It contrasts sharply with what many call a critical or a feminist perspective. From this second perspective, no one can act in a way that is neutral and value free because everyone is a product of their particular experiences. Those experiences come from who we are. They come from where, when, and how we live our lives. They come from our social and historical context.

Engaging in research from a feminist perspective means that we do not intentionally draw distinct boundaries between those who are doing the research and those who are being researched. While we acknowledge that each person has a different relationship to the work - being done, those relationships do not necessarily lead to distance and separation. Similarly, we understand that each one of us enters into research as more than a rational, independent being. Instead, we recognize how we are all embedded in ,our historical location, that we are all socially organized by such things as class, race, gender, age, sexuality, abilities, citizenship status. Gagger & Bordo, 1989, p. 3; Stanley, 1990, p. 38)