Collaboration as Resistance? Reconsidering the processes, products, and possibilities of feminist oral history and ethnography

Abstract

As multiple norths emerge in the so-called souths (and vice versa) and nongovernment organizations (NGOs) become important partners in knowledge production, it becomes imperative for feminist actors to envision new collaborative methodologies that can simultaneously resist the 'deradicalization of feminist politics' in the increasingly corporatized academy as well as in the increasingly donor-driven, professionalized, and state-identified NGO sector. Based on an extensive reading of literature on oral history and critical ethnography, this viewpoint identifies four interrelated areas where reflexive interventions by feminist collaborators working across geographical, sociopolitical and institutional borders can advance such a project: rethinking the relationships between processes and products of collaboration; more conscious interweaving of the collaborative theories and methodologies; producing knowledges that can travel across the borders of academia/NGOs/people's movements; and reimagining reciprocity in collaboration.

Becoming a networked public: digital ethnography, youth and global research collectives

“…Part one A hybrid online and face-to face methodology: the research collective as site of live and digitised ethnographic engagement Benson and Nagar (2006) write that 'the territory of (re)imagining collaboration is infinitely vast and full of creative possibilities' (590). Finding appropriate and innovative approaches and methods has been a major concern in multisited international research in the field of education (Bray, Adamson, and Mason 2007).…”

‘Being useful’ after the Ivory Tower: combining research and activism with the Brixton Pound

“…She writes that although human geographers ‘are always already in the field … to have these conversations in a way that is distinct from everyday life, we must have “a field” marked off in space and time’ (1994, 67). Benson and Nagar set out how this demarcation ‘sidelines the activist parts of the project to “informing scholarly research” ’ (2006, 585). They implicate such devaluing of activism and activist knowledges in the irrelevance of academic breakthroughs to the groups being studied.…”

“…My research into the Brixton Pound evolved to incorporate activism as a result of concerns – initially raised by the Brixton Pound group – about ‘give and take’ (Kitchin and Hubbard , 196) and ‘who‐gets‐what’ in relation to research projects (Benson and Nagar , 589). I had not previously been involved in local currency initiatives, nor did I begin with a firm intention to get actively involved in the Brixton Pound.…”

“…Combining activism with research offers the possibility to work with a more extended notion of reciprocity that recognises a diversity of ways of knowing as having legitimacy and authority. Benson and Nagar argue for the need to recognise the authorship of ‘not only the activities that translate into concrete products of collaboration … but also the labor of sustaining long‐term, on the ground [sic] struggles’ (2006, 589). Participating in those everyday activities of activism, as a researcher, is one way in which to both learn from and develop such ways of knowing.…”

‘Doing it with men’: feminist research practice and patriarchal inheritance practices in Welsh family farming

“…Price a reluctance to acknowledge the pervasiveness of socio-spatial patterns influenced by capitalism have led researchers to shy away from recognising and interpreting patriarchal oppression on behalf of other women. The idea of 'empowering' women has also become problematic with researchers struggling with their ability to produce critical scholarship and/or to overthrow patriarchy (Benson and Nagar 2006;McDowell 1992). However, as is argued here, patriarchal spatial patterns of social relations and practices should not be ignored when they exist.…”