http://fozmeadows.wordpress.com/2014/03/28/female-bodies-a-weighty-issue/
I approached this post as a way to empower women to be themselves, and love their bodies. These types of articles have more frequently been circulating the internet (from what I’ve seen). I then saw it in the light of our “qualitative” perspective. Perhaps perspective is more influential than we realize, even when it comes to what has always been considered science. Although this is not necessarily a credible source, it says something about the way societies tend to take “facts” and assume they are correct, or more relevantly, the norm.
I think Bethany’s article relates to the two articles we read about Henrietta Lacks because of how science used this woman’s body, without consent or even notification. One of the most interesting points that Kumar mentions in critique of Skloot’s book is about how Skloot claims that her text is non-fiction and that she had to work really hard to get all of the data. Yet, Skloot uses Henrietta’s body in ways just like the doctors by telling a narrative of what Henrietta thought and did in the bathroom. If no one was there, and Henrietta can’t speak for herself, how would Skloot know this? Skloot and other researchers need to recognize that it is okay to try to tell a holistic story of the account of someone’s life and experiences but that we also need to acknowledge that the writers/researchers often interpret the story and “data” in ways that they, themselves see it. I agree with Kumar that Skloot needed to state evidence in ways that were not so positivist. She would have benefitted from using language similar to Anne Fadiman’s in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, where she often told the reader about her limitations and projections about the data she was presented with.
Related to the articles about Lacks and the St. Pierre piece, as young researchers, how do we ensure that we do not get too caught up in the data that show what we were exploring and looking for? What are some of the ways we can present information without positioning ourselves as the “know all” researchers? How do we make sure we balance our interpretations of knowledge from the knowledge construction of those researched? I know these are questions that we have been discussing throughout the semester but I still believe these are issues worth discussing and recognizing as we continue to learn more about all types of research.
Kumar (2012) details the “stark hierarchy” between Skloot and her subjects in The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. I suppose this hierarchy is present, to some extent, in every research project, but is more pronounced in research of historically oppressed populations.
-How can we as researchers act to deconstruct this hierarchy?
-How does this hierarchy operate in the methodologies that we have covered thus far (grounded theory, phenomenology, CDA, etc.)?
-What techniques can we use in each methodology to deconstruct this hierarchy?
-How does this hierarchy operate in the two assignment in class (interview and observation)?
-What techniques can we use in each assignment to deconstruct this hierarchy?
Kumar (2012) also highlights many ethical issues present in Skloot’s work.
-Name three ethical issues. How could these have been avoided?
Imagine that you are Rebecca Skloot at the beginning of her research of Henrietta Lacks.
-What would you have done differently?
-If you strongly believe that the medical community mishandled and exploited Henrietta Lacks, would if have continued with your research? If so, how would you have addressed this issue? How would it change your research design?
Kumar points out the problem with situating the writer/researcher as the voice of reason, and the research subjects/participants as requiring intelligent or academic interpretation for sense or meaning to be made of their world/lives/culture/etc. Phenomenology addressed this by emphasizing the need to draw on and understand the interpretive frames of the people who are being studied. How might St. Pierre still find this insufficient? How might other research methodologies (e.g., PAR) address this problem? How does the researcher manage the position of interweaving his/her own knowledge with the knowledge of the subjects/participants he/she is studying, especially when the forms of knowledge held by each differ, sometimes substantially? Or should research focus on others’ ways of understanding, and privilege less the empirical/interpretivist ways of making meaning that dominate the academy and research?
Kumar also points out the untenability of separating the roles of writer and activist when telling a story such as Lacks’s. How is the selection of a research topic, and the selection of a research population, including the decisions whether to study them or to “give voice” (including whether this notion is problematic) always a political act? How much should research be explicit about the politics and ideologies behind such decisions? What are the implications of not being transparent about these politics? Should research be more “political” and have more political/ideological conversations? If the roles of researcher and activist are not separable, should research have clearer links to “action steps”?
I read the St. Pierre article first and summarized the epistemologies she describes as such: either information exists independent of those who would/could know it (people, researchers, etc.) or information only exists once it is measured/observed/interpreted. It reminded me of the adage of a tree falling in the woods without anyone around and the question of whether it would make noise. Unlike the appearance of data, we have, as a society, come to a common understanding that noise consists of sound waves due to energy transfer and that its existence is not dependent on receptors (ears). We haven’t, as a society/culture/group of people come to a consensus about what data are and therefore we don’t/can’t agree on how they come into appearance. This paradigm gets amazing confounded when issues of morality come in to play, as in Lacks story. I think that rationally, and especially in the hypothetical, many of us may agree that data are inherently subjective when thinking about innocuous qualitative interviews that don’t provoke moral concerns. However, when we feel so strongly that the person subjectively making meaning of the data is doing so in the wrong (e.g., racist) way I think we tend to view their meaning making as wrong. Undeniably, these stances exist on a spectrum; they are not all or nothing. In reading the St. Pierre article in conjunction with the Lacks stories, did you question where you fell on that spectrum? Personally, I want to be ok with the subjectivity of meaning making, but feel guilty if/when that stance implies that I am ok with racism. Can we support subjective meaning making and disallow others to create their own meaning through immoral lenses? Is it possible to agree with Kumar’s interpretation of Skloot from an interpretivist point of view? Or, is the very act of condemning Skloot for her racist interpretation evidence of one’s positivitist ideologies?
Kumar began her open letter strongly when she claimed: “Skloot practically announces her racism on the first page of the book when she insists that her writing ‘is a work of nonfiction'” (2nd paragraph). Similar to our classmates this week, I call on others to consider how our word choice might influence the reader’s perception of the author, and identify ways to communicate our limitations to readers.
How do we consider audience in our research? Do you think that Skloot considered her audience? Who was she writing for?