Exploring gender, age, time and space in research with older Pakistani Muslims in the United Kingdom: formalised research 'ethics' and performances of the public/private divide in 'the field'.
Exploring gender, age, time and space in research with older Pakistani Muslims in the United Kingdom: formalised research 'ethics' and performances of the public/private divide in 'the field'.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1017/s0144686x14001378
复制
发表时间：
2015-05
期刊：
影响因子：
2.5
通讯作者：
Victor, Christina
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Zubair, Maria;Victor, Christina
近年来，人们对研究西方少数民族人口老龄化的兴趣日益浓厚。然而，在有关适当研究方法的广泛讨论中，来自这些少数群体社区的老年人相对较少受到关注。通过批判性地反思我们为经济和社会研究理事会“老龄化新动力”研究“南亚社区的家庭与关怀”进行实地调查的过程，本文列出了我们面临的关键方法论和伦理挑战，并在此过程中强调了为此类人群的研究制定适合社会的研究方法和伦理框架的重要性。通过反思性的方法，我们专门探讨了性别、年龄、时间和空间对田野调查过程以及研究过程各个阶段形成的“田野”关系的意义。特别是，我们探讨了三个关键的新问题，这些问题与我们的正式研究方案相冲突，并对我们和年长的巴基斯坦穆斯林参与者提出了特殊的挑战：（a）日常生活中的时间结构； (b) 公共和私人空间的性别使用； (c) 非正式社会背景和关系的口头表达。我们利用实地工作中的插图揭示了这些问题对我们的实地工作经验和公共/私人身份的表现性的特殊意义，我们强调了进行受资助研究的正式道德和方法论维度与“现场”现实之间的重要紧张关系。我们在本文的总结中强调，不仅需要进一步探索研究人员在与研究参与者互动的微观层面上采用对社会和文化更敏感的数据收集过程和方法的方式，而且还需要将研究人员及其参与者在更广泛的研究框架和议程以及他们生活和工作的更广泛的社会背景方面所经历的特殊挑战联系起来。
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in researching ageing ethnic minority populations in the West. However, older people from such minority communities have received comparatively little attention in wide-ranging discussions on appropriate research methodologies. By a process of critically reflecting on our experiences of undertaking fieldwork for our Economic and Social Research Council New Dynamics of Ageing study of ‘Families and Caring in South Asian Communities', this paper maps out the key methodological and ethical challenges we faced and, in the process, highlights the importance of developing socially appropriate research methodologies and ethical frameworks for research with such populations. With a reflexive approach, we specifically explore the significance of gender, age, time and space to the fieldwork processes and the ‘field’ relationships formed at various stages of the research process. In particular, we explore three key emergent issues which conflicted with our formal research protocols and presented particular challenges for us and our older Pakistani Muslim participants: (a) structuring of time in daily life; (b) gendered use of public and private spaces; and (c) orality of informal social contexts and relationships. Using illustrations from our fieldwork which reveal the particular significance of these issues to our fieldwork experiences and performativities of public/private identities, we highlight important tensions between formalised ethical and methodological dimensions of conducting funded research and the realities of being in ‘the field’. We conclude the paper by emphasising the need to explore further not only the ways in which researchers can adopt more socially and culturally sensitive data collection processes and methodologies at the micro level of their interactions with research participants, but also contextualising the particular challenges experienced by researchers and their participants in terms of the wider research frameworks and agendas as well as the broader social contexts within which they live and work.