1: Researching Justice: How Do You Make the Research Process ‘Just’?

Publication Date:
31 Jul 2024
Pages:
1–18
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.51952/9781529226683.ch001
Restricted access
Rights and permissions Cite this chapter
Buy article/chapter (
GBP  £20.00
)

Ideals of justice shape how we do our research even if we are not always explicit about how justice, and the way we understand how justice works within our lives, impacts on our research questions, stakeholders, methods or dissemination strategies. This chapter introduces key concepts and talks explicitly about how this edited book emerged. We argue for the importance of opening the ‘black box’ of research methods, positioning this within a multifaceted and grounded ‘justice-as-praxis’ perspective that centres justice in our lives and our research practices. The chapter moves on to consider the key elements of just research practices, reflecting on the ‘doings and sayings’ that constitute research, the need for both a broad and inclusive ‘who’ of research and to decolonize research relations and agendas, alongside the conflicting pulls of different ideologies of ‘good scholarship’. The chapter then presents the author brief and outlines the book structure, before concluding with a personal commentary from one of the editors on the perceived perils and pitfalls of honest disclosures of research practices.

  • Alvermann, D.E., O’Brien, D.G. and Dillon, D.R. (1996) On writing qualitative research, Reading Research Quarterly, 31(1): 114–120.

  • Atkinson, P. (2006) Rescuing autoethnography, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 35(4): 400–404.

  • Barnett, C. (2017) The Priority of Injustice: Locating Democracy in Critical Theory, Athens, GA: The University of Georgia Press.

  • Baxter, J. and Eyles, J. (1997) Evaluating qualitative research in social geography: establishing ‘rigour’ in interview analysis, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 22(4): 505–525.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Besio, K. (2003) Steppin’ in it: postcoloniality in northern Pakistan, Area, 35(1): 24–33.

  • Besio, K. (2005) Telling stories to hear autoethnography: researching women’s lives in northern Pakistan, Gender, Place and Culture, 12(3): 317–331.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Besio, K. and Butz, D. (2004) The value of autoethnography for field research in transcultural settings, The Professional Geographer, 56(3): 350–360.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Butz, D. and Besio, K. (2009) Autoethnography, Geography Compass, 3(5): 1660–1674.

  • Cannella, G.S. and Lincoln, Y.S. (2007) Predatory vs dialogic ethics: constructing an illusion or ethical practice as the core of research methods, Qualitative Inquiry, 13(3): 315–335.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Crang, M. (2005) Qualitative methods (part 3): there is nothing outside the text? Progress in Human Geography, 29(2): 225–233.

  • Crang, M. and Cook, I. (2007) Doing Ethnographies, London: SAGE.

  • Delamont, S. (2007) Arguments against auto-ethnography, Qualitative Researcher, 4: 2–4.

  • Denzin, N.K. (1994) Evaluating qualitative research in the post-structural moment: the lessons James Joyce teaches us, Qualitative Studies in Education, 7(4): 295–308.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (2005) Introduction, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds) The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research, 3rd edn, London: SAGE, pp 1–32.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Denzin, N.K., Lincoln, Y.S., Maclure, M., Otterstand, A.M., Torrance, H., Cannella, G.S., Koro-Ljungberg, M. and McTier, T. (2017) Critical qualitative methodologies, International Review of Qualitative Research, 10(4): 482–498.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • DePalma, R. (2010) Socially just research for social justice: negotiating consent and safety in a participatory action research project, International Journal of Research & Method in Education, 33(3): 215–227.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Dorling, D. (2010) Injustice: Why Social Inequality Persists, Bristol: Policy Press.

  • Du Toit, A., Kruger, S. and Ponte, S. (2008) Deracializing exploitation? ‘Black economic empowerment’ in the South African wine industry, Journal of Agrarian Change, 8(1): 6–32.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Fassinger, R. and Morrow, S.L. (2013) Towards best practice in quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-method research: a social justice perspective, Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology, 5(2): 69–83.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Fine, M. (1998) Working the hyphens: reinventing self and other in qualitative research, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds) The Landscape of Qualitative Research: Theories and Issues, 3rd edn, London: SAGE, pp 130–155.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Fraser, N. (2008) Scales of Justice: Reimagining Political Space in a Globalizing World, Cambridge: Polity Press.

  • Hannerz, U. (2003) Being there … and there … and there! Reflections on multi-site ehtnography, Ethnography, 4(2): 201–216.

  • Held, M.B.E. (2020) Research ethics in decolonizing research with Inuit communities in Nunavut: the challenge of translating knowledge into action, International Journal of Qualitative Methods, 19: 1–7.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Herman, A. (2018) Practising Empowerment in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Wine, Ethics and Development, Abingdon: Routledge.

  • Igwe, P.A., Madichie, N.O. and Rugara, D.G. (2022) Decolonising research approaches towards non-extractive research, Qualitative Market Research: An International Journal, 25(4): 453–468.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Jaeger-Erben, M. and Offenberger, U. (2014) A practice theory approach to sustainable consumption, GAIA, 23(3): 166–174.

  • Janesick, V.J. (1994) The dance of qualitative research design: metaphor, methodolatry, and meaning, in Denzin, N.K. and Lincoln, Y.S. (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research, London: SAGE, pp 209–219.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Khan, F.R. (2007) Representational approaches matter, Journal of Business Ethics, 73: 77–89.

  • Kobayashi, A. (2003) GPC ten years on: is self-reflexivity enough? Gender, Place and Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography, 10(4): 345–349.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Kouritzin, S. and Nakagawa, S. (2018) Toward a non-extractive research ethics for transcultural, translingual research: perspectives from the coloniser and the colonised, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 39(8): 675–687.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Lefebvre, H. (1991) The Production of Space, Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

  • LeGuin, U. (1969) The Left Hand of Darkness, New York: Ace.

  • Lowe, L. (2015) The Intimacies of Four Continents, Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press.

  • McDowell, L. (1992) Doing gender: feminism, feminists and research methods in human geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 17(4): 399–416.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Noth, W. (2003) Crisis of representation? Semiotica, 143: 9–15.

  • Rose, G. (1997) Situating knowledges: positionality, reflexivities and other tactics, Progress in Human Geography, 21(3): 305–320.

  • Rossman, G.B. and Rallis, S.F. (2010) Everyday ethics: reflections on practice, International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 23(4): 379–391.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sandel, M.J. (2010) Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do? London: Penguin Books.

  • Schatzki, T.R. (2002) The Site of the Social: A Philosophical Account of the Constitution of Social Life and Change, University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Schiellerup, P. (2008) Stop making sense: the trials and tribulations of qualitative data analysis, Area, 40(2): 163–171.

  • Shove, E. (2014) Putting practice into policy: reconfiguring questions of consumption and climate change, Contemporary Social Science, 9(4): 415–429.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Sparkes, A.C. (2002) Autoethnography: self-indulgence or something more?, in Bochner, A.P. and Ellis, C. (eds) Ethnographically Speaking: Autoethnography, Literature and Aesthetics, Walnut Creek: AltaMira, pp 209–232.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Spivak, G.C. (1988) Can the subaltern speak?, in Nelson, C. and Grossberg, L. (eds) Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture, Basingstoke: Macmillan, pp 267–310.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Staeheli, L.A. and Nagar, R. (2002) Feminists talking across worlds, Gender, Place and Culture, 9(2): 167–172.

  • Sultana, F. (2007) Reflexivity, positionality and participatory ethics: negotiating fieldwork dilemmas in international research, ACME, 6(3): 374–385.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Warren, C.A.B. and Karner, T.X. (2005) Discovering Qualitative Methods: Field Research, Interviews and Analysis, Los Angeles: Roxbury.

Content Metrics

May 2022 onwards Past Year Past 30 Days
Abstract Views 75 75 39
Full Text Views 2 2 0
PDF Downloads 3 3 0

Altmetrics