Colorblind Spots in Qualitative Methods Training

Abstract

Academia, like many other institutions, is experiencing a racial reckoning. As part of this reckoning, members of institutions of higher education are reflecting on how their structures and cultures reproduce racial inequality and how to disrupt the cycle. One aspect of this conversation that has escaped scrutiny has been methodological training, which can be central to the reproduction of inequality via the marginalization of researchers of color. Qualitive methods guidance and instruction has been criticized for leaving scholars of color unprepared to navigate the complex racial dynamics they confront in the field. In this article we build on these conversations by discussing colorblind spots that surfaced in our graduate-level qualitative methods course in Sociology related to one-time field exercises and fieldwork in a continuous site. We conclude with reflections and recommendations for ethnographic training courses.

For a Du Boisian economic sociology

“…In this paper, I set forth an alternative perspective on how to address race and racism in economic sociology, as sociologists across subfields grapple with similar reckonings (on “colorblind spots” in methods training see Sue et al., 2021). To truly rise to the Du Boisian challenge, scholars need to critique racialized modernity and expand upon Du Bois “by embracing an intersectional perspective on the study of subjectivity and agency” (61) and “incorporating the work of other scholars denied…such as Ida B Wells, Anna Julia Cooper, Pauli Murray, CLR James, Frantz Fanon, and others” (192) as Itzigsohn and Brown (2020) importantly argue.…”