Feminist Methodology Research Articles

Indigenous Peoples’ evaluation of health risks when facing mandatory evacuation for birth during the COVID-19 pandemic: an indigenous feminist analysis

BackgroundIndigenous Peoples living on the land known as Canada are comprised of First Nations, Inuit, and Métis people and because of the Government of Canada’s mandatory evacuation policy, those living in rural and remote regions of Ontario are required to travel to urban, tertiary care centres to give birth. When evaluating the risk of travelling for birth, Indigenous Peoples understand, evaluate, and conceptualise health risks differently than Eurocentric biomedical models of health. Also, the global COVID-19 pandemic changed how people perceived risks to their health. Our research goal was to better understand how Indigenous parturients living in rural and remote communities conceptualised the risks associated with evacuation for birth before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.MethodsTo achieve this goal, we conducted semi-structured interviews with 11 parturients who travelled for birth during the pandemic and with 5 family members of those who were evacuated for birth.ResultsParticipants conceptualised evacuation for birth as riskier during the COVID-19 pandemic and identified how the pandemic exacerbated existing risks of travelling for birth. In fact, Indigenous parturients noted the increased risk of contracting COVID-19 when travelling to urban centres for perinatal care, the impact of public health restrictions on increased isolation from family and community, the emotional impact of fear during the pandemic, and the decreased availability of quality healthcare.ConclusionsUsing Indigenous Feminist Methodology and Indigenous Feminist Theory, we critically analysed how mandatory evacuation for birth functions as a colonial tool and how conceptualizations of risk empowered Indigenous Peoples to make decisions that reduced risks to their health during the pandemic. With the results of this study, policy makers and governments can better understand how Indigenous Peoples conceptualise risks related to evacuation for birth before and during the pandemic, and prioritise further consultation with Indigenous Peoples to collaborate in the delivery of the health and care they need and desire.

Toward Eve’s Exodus

OPEN ACCESS CC BY-NC-ND Paid In an American context of reproductive injustice, the Christian right legitimizes a coercive pronatalist policy agenda by appeal to the theological belief that ‘human life begins at fertilization,’ which they ground in the biblical narrative of Genesis 1–3. Drawing upon interdisciplinary resources and utilizing an innovative feminist methodology, this article demonstrates that, while the story of pro/creation in Gen. 1–3 does not directly support ‘life at fertilization’ theology, it does provide a de facto undergirding for that conceptualization via its highly androcentric ideology of reproduction. Through symbolic, mythical narration of how ‘life’ comes to be, Gen. 1–3 constructs a central fiction of the Father God’s paternal reproductive omni-potence, which is built upon God’s colonization of agents with the capacity for maternal gestation labor and his violent destruction of those agents’ collective autonomy and capacity for reproductive anti-labor. In its ancient religious context, this rhetoric championed God’s patriarchal, patrilineal world-building project, which served those establishing and reinforcing a society that generated power and wealth for dominant men. As a story deeply socialized through lived religion over time, it operates now as a contemporary social fact that the Christian right exploits to construct its own, more extreme fiction of paternal omnipotence. Illumination of the Gen. 1–3 narrative’s oppressive constructions of women as reproductive laborers/anti-laborers – symbolized by Eve and other agents – enables feminist religio-cultural narrative intervention. A new story of life’s pro/creation is needed in both religious and secular settings to liberate ‘Eve’ and advance the movement for reproductive health, rights, and justice.

"I Was Treated Differently": Reproductive Health Care Experiences Among Women With Recent Experiences of Incarceration, Homelessness, And/Or Substance Use in a Medically Underserved Area in the Southwestern US.

Background: Women with upstream social determinants of health, particularly those with recent experiences of incarceration, homelessness, and/or substance use, encounter a series of barriers in accessing health care services and consequently face poor sexual and reproductive health outcomes. Driven by a community concern for increasing rates of syphilis and congenital syphilis among women who are structurally disadvantaged, this study focuses on their experiences with reproductive healthcare access across healthcare settings.Research Design and Study Sample: This community-basedpláticas(conversational) research project gathered 12 in-depth interviews andtestimonios(testimonies) with women who reported a criminalized upstream barrier (incarceration, homelessness, and/or substance use) in a small city in the southwestern U.S.-most of whom identified as Latina/Hispanic.Analysis and Results: Using a grounded analysis and drawing upon Chicana feminist methodologies, this study identifies four major themes: (1) homelessness and economic vulnerabilities, (2) incarceration and health care, (3) drug use, provider stigma, and motherhood, and (4) desired changes to the healthcare experience.Conclusion: Results highlight the need for economic and transportation supports, community-based preventive services as alternatives to incarcerated healthcare, along with more compassionate and structurally competent provider-patient dialogue.

Gastrofeminism

Gastrofeminism traces the centrality of food within diverse feminist narratives of agency and resistance. This manifesto introduces the theoretical, pedagogical, and methodological scope of Gastrofeminism to rethink feminist genealogies, legacies, and new embodiments of a radical future. It calls for a reckoning of both established and emerging feminist engagements with food, consumption, and culinary practices. This introduction underscores conjunctures where feminist methodology and pedagogy intersect in variegated social, cultural, and historical settings to engender dialogues on food, eating, and culinary practices. It emphasizes everyday acts of negotiating feminist boundaries and subverting dominant perceptions of food. Furthermore, it contests the practices whereby food is used to reproduce social norms and hierarchies. Gastrofeminism remaps the boundaries of gendered relations through food practices in sites of conflict as well as everyday resistance to gendered norms of domesticity through technological innovations around cooking, eating, and representation of food. This manifesto assembles feminist scholarship and pedagogies committed to pushing the boundaries of traditional food studies and taking it into new, inclusive directions. Gastrofeminism spans across disciplines and praxis to engage with sensory documentation of food, gendered forms of intimacy, appetites and embodiments, food memories, affects, and nostalgia, new feminist pedagogies, foodways, ecosystems and sustainability, and food access, conflict, and social justice.

Features of Feminist Approach to Scientific Research

Feminist philosophy is one of the leading areas of contemporary philosophy. It has been actively developing over decades and has significant contributions in various areas of theoretical and practical philosophy. Feminist philosophy of science is particularly interesting, as it is primarily responsible for feminist formulations of basic methodological statements of feminist approach to scientific research. The goal of this article is to determine the main features of feminist approach to scientific research. In order to achieve this goal, the article analyzes the main ideas of feminist philosophy of science regarding the criticism of the ideal of value-free science, reviewing and rethinking the meaning of objectivity, and reflections on feminist methodology. Accordingly, the article consists of an introduction, three parts, and conclusion. The first part is dedicated to the causes and effects of feminist criticism of the value-free ideal of science. In the second part, feminist reflections about objectivity are outlined, drawing on the views of such prominent feminist philosophers as Sandra Harding, Helen Longino, Elisabeth Lloyd, and Heather Douglas. The relevance of these reflections for feminist historiography of philosophy is also noted. The third part addresses the question of whether there is a feminist method and explores the traits and typical properties of a feminist methodology. In conclusion, the main features of feminist approach to scientific research are formulated. These include attention to the role of values in producing and applying scientific knowledge, a preference to explanations that account for details and complexity over simplification and generalization, consideration of women’s experience, consideration of usefulness of diversity within scientific communities to mitigate assumptions and prejudices, belief is compatibility of objectivity and value-ladenness, openness to criticism, and self-reflection.

Positioning and Resistance: a Narrative Inquiry of Undocumented Mexican Domestic Workers in New York City

This study explores the life experiences and empowerment of five emblematic undocumented Mexican domestic workers in New York City (NYC). Employing identity as a conceptual framework, we delve into the intricate aspects of the participants' lives, utilizing narrative inquiry and feminist methodologies to analyze the dynamics between their performative identities and the prevailing ideologies concerning undocumented immigrants. The narratives unveil feelings of rejection and exclusion among the participants in NYC. Additionally, the focus is on their efforts to challenge societal norms, resist dominant ideologies, and devise strategies for resistance. All five participants express a sense of empowerment derived from their experiences, enabling them to reconstruct their past and present themselves as resilient, proactive individuals, activists, and proficient English speakers. Ultimately, the findings demonstrate how the participants assert their narrative identities, reclaiming their subjectivities and subverting patriarchal norms by transcending conventional societal roles.

Una lucha contra las violaciones de los derechos humanos en Guapinol, Honduras: la metodología feminista decolonial en las narrativas de resistencia

This article addresses the flagrant human rights violations in Guapinol, Honduras, between 2018-2022, emphasizing the decolonial feminist methodology used in a participatory action investigation. In recent years, the region has witnessed numerous human rights violations, especially related to the defense of the Guapinol River against the mining company Inversiones Los Pinares. The main objective of this article is to explore the methodology employed in the collection of the resistance narratives of five women who are all relatives of the "Guapinol Eight," the water defenders who were imprisoned for their defense of the river. Adopting a human rights perspective, the decolonial feminist methodology revealed the crucial contribution of women in resistance, providing a comprehensive methodological map for understanding the dynamics of oppression, intimidation and violence imposed by Inversiones Los Pinares. The results underscore the essential role of women in the struggle against human rights violations. The article concludes by highlighting the importance of sharing the methodology used, not only as an analysis of the violations in Guapinol, but also as a call for the continued collection and sharing of stories of resistance. The author hopes that this approach will inspire future research that gives voice to the experiences of resistors and promotes social justice.

Gendered Harm and Social Abandonment: Stories of the Dooars Women Tea Garden Workers

The Tea Tribes of the Dooars in West Bengal are of the numerically preponderant culturally and socially dispossessed Adivasi population of Chota Nagpur and make up 80% of the tea plantation labour force. These tribes especially its women who form around 60% of the labour pool in the Dooars, serve as crucial social capital for the sustenance and burgeoning of the plantation industry. The tribes exhibit localised and hybridised social customs that have historically been in a dialectic relationship with the culture of commerce that predominates a capitalist bureaucratic organisation. This acculturation and an unfortunate reign of neglect have given birth to distinctive social arrangements, with the article examining the curious social currents of lone motherhood and abandonment of women shaping the household and thereby the social reproduction cycle of the tea industry. By invoking a feminist methodology, qualitative in-depth interpretive interviews of lone mothers and deserted women have been conducted to understand their renditions of gendered neglect and subliminal violence, while attempting to discover their position in the communitas of the tea industry. The study was conducted in the district of Jalpaiguri, with a heavy concentration of the Scheduled Tribe (62%) of the Adivasi subgroup found in its 89 registered tea gardens. The ‘thick’ descriptions of women’s narratives reveal nuanced notions of gender and intimate partner abuse, that shine light on violence characterised by its distinctive low intensity and its latent and subliminal nature evinced in the breach of a social compact. The nature of mistreatment and abuse that they describe opens up conceptual chinks in existing feminist literature on violence while providing further avenues to deliberate upon them. Imperfect, yet partial access to education, social media and government outreach as tools of modernity are however stoking aspirations for social justice, ineffectively handled by poorly trained and gender unresponsive socio-legal and bureaucratic agents.

Gender Inequality Portrayed in Hansberry’s A Raisin in The Sun and Hill’s Heart in The Ground

Gender inequality is the term used to describe how men and women are treated differently. The target individual or group typically suffers or is disadvantaged as a result of inequality. This study's goal is to describe several types of gender inequality as they appear in Mansour Fakih's theory. Aside from that, consider how female characters approach gender inequity. Using data from the dramas A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry and Heart in the Ground by Doughlas Hill, this study adopts a feminist methodology and Mansour Fakih's concept of gender inequality. Literary criticism is the technique employed. Then, information is gathered by reading and documenting information that is pertinent to the theory and research issues. The results obtained from this study are (1) The two dramas each have three types of gender inequality. In Heart in The Ground there are subordination, violence and double burden. Three different types of women's inequality such as subordination, stereotypes, and marginalization are present in Hansberry's second play, A Raisin in the Sun. (2) Four ways to achieve their rights: rebelling, threatening, and talking about it, focusing on their goal.Keywords: Feminism, Gender Inequality, Drama

Using a novel approach to explore women's caesarean birth experience

How a woman experiences birth is influenced by how she is treated, and who has power and control in the birthing environment. Focus on ‘delivery’ of an infant disregards the transformative event for the woman, with poorer physical and psychological outcomes. New evidence is needed to understand how to prevent trauma and improve maternal wellbeing. This paper presents a feminist methodology to view the lived experience of caesarean birth. Feminist birthing theories integrated with a phenomenological perspective provide insight for those working in maternity care and create a novel framework for researchers considering the position of women in a medicalised healthcare system. Feminist phenomenology with a theoretical feminist overlay refreshes the methodological framework for a new understanding of how this perinatal event impacts women.

Feminist methodologies in migration research

Feminist methodologies in migration research

RESEARCH IN TIMES OF EMERGENCY: METHODOLOGICAL AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS IN IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RESEARCH

ABSTRACT In this paper, I discuss the methodological challenges and ethical questions that emerge when conducting fieldwork with refugee and immigrant populations in a moment of emergency. I draw on research conducted in Missoula, Montana, between 2021–2022 as Afghans arrived in U.S. communities following the United States withdrawal from Afghanistan. I draw on vignettes from fieldwork to foreground the methodological, emotional, and ethical implications of recruiting recently displaced people in moments of emergency into an ongoing research project. I discuss how I navigated these sudden changes in the field, reflecting on my positionality as a researcher and training as a feminist geographer. I contextualize my decision to forgo conducting interviews with a recently displaced population and overburdened service providers within scholarship on feminist methodologies, migration studies, and ethics of care. In doing so, I reflect on the ambivalent nature of research, and what it means to conduct research on, with, and/or about refugees and immigrants.

Analysis of Methodologies for Producing Decolonized Geographies in the South

Even in the post-colonial era, the enduring impact of colonial legacies on former colonies persists, not just in terms of historical facts but also through the continued application of Western methodology. There is a pressing necessity to formulate a technique that actively helps to the establishment of decolonized geographies in the Southern regions. This study used the method of literature review to examine the potential transformation of post-colonial feminist methodology into a pro-Southern methodology, with the aim of mitigating the discernible and imperceptible impact of Western influence. This study contends that the post-colonial feminist paradigm, when compared to its Western feminist counterpart, has the potential to mitigate the tendencies towards exclusivity and capitalization that are inherent in Western capitalism. In an effort to present a full understanding of post-colonial feminist methodology, this study ultimately acknowledges several limits pertaining to its practical implementation.

Why Print Was an Excellent Conceptual Vehicle for my Project ‘Speak Up’

“I give away my power. In side-stepping, in not calling out the sexist remarks, I act as if they are in the right, I act as if women should not have voices, and I act as if I am not a feminist.” (Pine, 2019. p.188)
 Influenced by the continual sharing amongst my friends and colleagues of experiences of sexism, sexual harassment and assault happening to us in public where no one spoke up at the time, my MA major project, ‘Speak Up’, used a feminist methodology to research the reasons why we don’t speak up when these incidents occur. It concluded by both representing these incidents and why they weren’t called out in print-based artworks, with the intention of prompting dialogue.
 This paper will explore the hypothesis that print was an excellent ‘conceptual vehicle’ (Harding, 2013. p.107) for this project.

Feminist Methodology and the Collective Moral Damage in the Public Civil Action of Pinheirinho

Resumo Trata-se da revisão da sentença que extinguiu, sem resolução de mérito, a ação civil pública proposta pela Defensoria Pública por danos morais coletivos pela ação violenta perpetrada no desalijo da comunidade Pinheirinho. As autoras concentraram esforços na análise do dano moral coletivo para aplicar uma metodologia feminista a um caso em que os titulares de direito não são apenas mulheres. Os estudos de gênero como uma categoria de análise dos processos sociais auxiliam a compreensão das tramas mais submersas das relações que estruturam o direito, o poder e o Estado. Por isso, mesmo em um caso em que a questão de gênero não aparece na superfície do fenômeno jurídico, o uso analítico dessa categoria nos revela sérias consequências que refletem nas estratégias institucionais para a proteção de direitos contra a discriminação e a desigualdade.

Dominant Discourses at Play: How Children’s Soccer Coaches of Mixed-Sex Programs in Ontario, Canada, Understand Sex and Gender

In this study, we explore how soccer coaches of children’s mixed-sex programs in Ontario understand sex and gender in the context of their coaching practices. Informed by feminist science studies and feminist methodologies, we conducted semistructured interviews with 11 coaches. Through critical discourse analysis, we identified the coaches’ (re)production of three discourses: (a) gender is constructed but categorical; (b) inevitable and hierarchal sex differences necessitate sex segregation; and (c) girls’ sport is vulnerable, and girls in sport require support. The results of this study indicate that these coaches’ understandings of sex and gender are heavily informed by discourses of sex essentialism and sex and gender difference, which together legitimize the need for a binary sex/gender model of sport. Understanding the ways in which sport enforces and is shaped by the limited binary and naturalized notions of sex and gender is one step in reimagining a more just and inclusive model of sport, including children’s sport, and in creating sport spaces where players of all genders can thrive.

Reflecting on a feminist methodology through the work of the Pandora Theatrical Collective

Resumen: El presente estudio reflexiona sobre las potencialidades de una metodología feminista a partir del proceso creativo de la obra De género. El opresor no sería tan fuerte si no tuviese cómplices entre los propios oprimidos de Pandora Colectivo Teatral, Chile. Para el cometido, realizo una caracterización del patriarcado como forma de producción de conocimiento vigente que estructura las relaciones sociales y todo vínculo con la vida. Indago en las contestaciones de distintos feminismos desde dimensiones epistemológicas y metodológicas, y reflexiono cómo es que el trabajo teatral de Colectivo Pandora se articula como una metodología con principios feministas y cuáles son sus potencialidades. Nuestras luchas como mujeres en el mundo nos exigen subvertir los límites normativos de una construcción del saber patriarcal, para reconocer, valorar y potenciar prácticas que nos permitan repensar el conocimiento más allá de las fronteras académicas.

Low-carbon Energy Transition from the Lens of Feminist Theories

Climate change mitigation pledges require decarbonization of the economy and the creation of a carbon-neutral society. Men and women contribute differently to climate change and have different roles in low-carbon energy transition. Gender roles influence career choices, abilities to invest in low-carbon solutions, power of decision-making, dissimilar mobility and energy consumption demands, and different values and consumption profiles, shaping the individual carbon footprint and behavior. A feminist methodology in gender- just low-carbon energy transformation goes beyond the introduction of certain gender-equal redistribution measures and aims to deal with the core roots of the different unequal practices in all fields of society life. It seeks to rebalance prevailing power arrangements, centering the most marginalized individuals and groups. There are various frameworks developed for the analysis of linkages between climate change and women following the feminist theory, like gender impact assessment (GIA); gender equality training (GET) model, and so on. The paper applies the feminist theory approach to the analysis of low-carbon energy transitions. The main purpose of using a feminist lens in this study is to enable the discovery of how people interact within energy systems and to offer solutions to confront and eradicate oppressive structures for just low-carbon energy transition in the EU.

Feministinės dėstymo metodologijos lyčių studijose: kryžminė praktinio taikymo trijuose universitetuose analizė

In this article interpersonal communication in Gender Studies teaching is mapped and compared in feminist pedagogy in three universities: Södertörn University in Sweden, Novgorod State University in Russia and Vilnius University in Lithuania. The aim of this article is, first, to compare the uses of feminist methodologies in teaching during the first semester undergraduate Gender Studies courses in a cross-case comparison. And secondly, to suggest developments needed to pursue teaching in Gender Studies in the three countries. Scholarly discussions about feminist pedagogies are accounted for and characteristics from the field are identified and compared in the three empirical cases. The article further draws on qualitative feminist methodology and concludes that while the contexts investigated are different, the methodologies used have similarities. In all three universities the teaching methods focus on students’ experiences and differences, teacher’s reflexivity, working in smaller groups, highlighting community building and empowerment. In the conclusion these teaching holdings are discussed, and further development of interpersonal communication in Gender Studies teaching is suggested.

Affectionate Research

Abstract This paper delves into the dynamic relationship between research and the researcher within Kurdish Studies, focusing on emotions, responsibility, and solidarity. Drawing from personal experiences and employing decolonial intersectional feminist methodologies, the author presents their research on state violence and resistance in Kurdish cinema. Through this exploration, the paper underscores the pressing need for intersectional queer-feminist research within Kurdish Studies and elucidates the connection between theoretical and methodological choices and the author’s personal experiences in academia and activism. Additionally, the paper discusses applying feminist intersectional approaches as a methodological lens and emphasises their benefits in understanding positionality and shifting subject positions. By highlighting the imperative for critical reflexivity and diversification of onto-epistemological methods in the field of Kurdish Studies, this paper advocates for a transformative and inclusive approach to knowledge production.