In-the-field politics: Multiple voices of outworkers and researcher

Abstract

In this paper I reflect on some key methodological tensions that emerged during my PhD research. The research critically analyses the political struggles of outworking1 women from Chinese, Vietnamese and Cambodian backgrounds in Sydney, Australia, for minimum wages and a monitoring of ethical networks in the clothing industry from 1997 to 2002. Rather than present 'key findings' in this paper I instead reveal how I began to think more critically and in less absolute ways about reading the multiple voices of outworkers, NGO workers and my own voice as researcher, activist and English teacher. I drew insights from Bakhtin's dialogism for thinking about research as shaped by sets of conversations. In this paper I reflect on several 'in-the-field' interactions: organising interviews, interviewing outworkers through an interpreter, storytelling in a rights-based English class setting, and how I and other participants represented outworking women in different forums. Dialogism required I take seriously the concept that knowledges are socially constructed in very particular contexts and this led to a rejection of my earlier notion of a singular authentic voice for outworking women or for me as researcher.