Reflexivity and Environmental Justice Scholarship: A Role for Feminist Methodologies

Abstract

This article explores the potential analytic and practical benefits that a reflexive, process-oriented approach to research and representation might hold for community-based environmental justice scholarship. Reflexive analysis can challenge the supremacy of positivist methods, illuminate the social production of knowledge, attend to the remaining influence of hierarchies of power and privilege, and aid academics and community members in developing realistic expectations of the collaborative research process. This article uses three vignettes from the author’s ethnographic study of food justice and farmers’ markets to demonstrate one model of what reflexive analysis of community-based environmental justice research might look like and to illustrate theoretical insights gained through this technique.