The need for and challenges of culturally sensitive qualitative research

1. The need for and challenges of culturally sensitive qualitative research Mary Maynard University of York

2. Overview • Thinking about cross-cultural research: 4 personal reasons for dwelling on issues of cultural sensitivity • The nature of culturally sensitive and cross-cultural research • Issues for qualitative studies • Conclusions

3. Reasons • 1. Collaborative research on gender and ageing in the UK which included minority ethnic groups • Supervising international students who undertake qualitative research at home • Globalization and social work becoming an international profession • The need to think about research in relation to comparative and international issues

4. The Initial Prompt • Main research question: how do older women understand and evaluate their quality of life and how might this quality be improved or extended? • Empowerment and Disempowerment: a Comparative Study of African- Caribbean, Asian and White British Women in their Third Age • The only unproblematic words here are those in lower case

5. The Initial Prompt • Empowerment and Disempowerment as dualistic • Definition of ethnicity • Social construction of ‘old age’ • Issues of able-bodiedness • Recent attempts at providing more positive models of ageing: managing ageing and resisting stereotypes • Active ageing = successful ageing: consumer society, moral responsibility for a youthful body, identity and social life

6. The Initial Prompt • But concept of successful ageing is laden with western liberal assumptions where ‘success’ is linked to detachment from others and self-reliance • Associated with autonomy, independence, self- empowerment and agency • But those women who do not/cannot act in this way do not necessarily feel disempowered or disengaged • Ideas about successful ageing and quality of life cannot be applied across cultures. Saturated with values and meanings

7. The Questions • What are the issues when conducting cross-cultural research at ‘home’? • What is ‘home’ and who is defining the perspectives to which this gives rise? • Are there differences between cross-cultural research in one country and that which takes place internationally or comparatively? • Do qualitative research methods travel? • How far are our assumptions affected by western liberal views?

8. Cross-cultural, International and Comparative Research • Focus on quantitative approach, surveys, statistics and government data • Often poorly defined and terms used interchangeably • Some acceptance of qualitative research but it needs to be promoted

9. Qualitative Cross-cultural Research • Gives people a voice, learns about and from their experiences, listens to personal narratives and uses participants own language. In order to understand people’s behaviour we need to understand the meanings and interpretations they give to this behaviour. A particularly useful approach to social work research

10. Qualitative Cross-cultural Research • Writing about what she terms positivistic research, Liamputtong says;’ It is impossible to ‘measure’ people, or to ‘generalise’ about people, if the researcher wishes to understand people within the context of their own society and culture...Social scientists have a moral obligation to do something to improve the lives of many marginalised people in different cultures and it is more likely that a qualitative approach will allow us to accomplish this task ‘ (2010).

11. Qualitative Cross-cultural Research • There is a history of qualitative work in areas such as development studies and anthropology but paucity of critical engagement with research issues • In the past ethnographers have been seen as taking and using people’s accounts for their own purposes and exploiting their generosity • Assumption that qualitative research can be unproblematically transported cross-culturally. Not much on culturally sensitive methodologies

12. Qualitative Cross-cultural Research • Qualitative research texts tend not to discuss cross-cultural or comparative work • This is not seen as part of the mainstream methodology agenda • Shared lessons to be learnt methodologically • Danger of uncritically imposing a methodological canon • Significance of de-colonizing research and methodologies (Mutua and Swadener, 2004; Smith 1999; Denzin et al. 2008)

13. Qualitative Cross-Cultural Research • Assumptions containing Eurocentric philosophies and paradigms • Relates to: established minority ethnic groups; indigenous people; recent arrival of those with different cultural and linguistic backgrounds as immigrants, asylum seekers or refugees; international research, which may or may not have a comparative dimension • PraneeLiamputtong (2008 and 2010)

14. Issues • Culturally sensitive approach involves treating cultural knowledge in its own right. Can be used as a standpoint for framing the research • A decolonizing approach against that which can be seen as a colonizing construct • They came, they saw, they named, they claimed – the methodology of imperialism

15. Issues • Tillman’s (2006) culturally sensitive approach: • Culturally congruent research methods • Culturally specific knowledge • Cultural resistance to theoretical dominance • Culturally sensitive data interpretation • Culturally informed theory and practice

16. Research Method Issues • Different kinds of qualitative methods work differently in different situations • What is meant by ‘work’ here may have a cultural dimension as does ‘good pracice’ • Issues of access and gatekeeper involvement • Informed consent: signing; literacy; confidentiality; gender; individual v collective. Trust and rapport rather than a mechanistic act

17. Research Method Issues • Reciprocity: money; information; action • Place of interviews • Insider/outsider issues and power • Gender, class, age, status • Language and communication: whether the researcher is an indigenous speaker; what can/cannot be discussed/researched; translator or interpreter involvement; translation issues • Writing cross-cultural research

18. Can this be Empowering? Should it be Empowering? • At least three ways in which this might be possible on an individual basis: • Personal empowerment through participation • Therapeutic effect of reflecting on an re-evaluating their experience • Some kind of transformation of situation for self and/or group • Not immediate but later enhancing of others • Effect on researcher

19. Empowerment and Disempowerment • Difficult to define and to find an alternative • Not just about providing services or agency • Different kinds. Access to resources alone may not translate into empowerment but is related to the perception of their value • Can differ according to the individual and changes over times – a process • Relational concepts – not a definitive state

20. Jo Rowland’s (1998) Model • Critical of connotations of autonomy and self-help. • Power-sharing. 4 kinds to which research might aspire • ‘Power over’ (top down ) • ‘Power to’ (advocacy/group leadership) • ‘Power with’ (collective activity) • ‘Power from within’ (sense of self, identity, belonging)