Kakali Bhattacharya

1. Kakali Bhattacharya University of Georgia Ethics of Qualitative Research in Local and Global Contexts of Education

2. Layout of Talk • Impetus for research • Research questions • Aligning epistemology, theory, and methodology • Decolonizing research • Research study • Data Sources • Data Analysis • Findings • Implications • Future research agenda

3. Focus of my research I look at how I as a qualitative researcher use my local and global knowledge to understand issues of transnational migration, racial and ethnic diversity, in the context of post-secondary education.

4. Impetus For Research Increase in transnational population flow Minority enrollment in first-professional programs grew by 271 percent from 1976 to 2000, compared with no growth in White enrollment. Both graduate and first-professional enrollments for nonresident aliens have increased since 1976 (221 and 175 percent, respectively) There have been gains in the enrollment of minorities. In the past 25 years, minority enrollment in graduate programs increased 167 percent, while White enrollment increased 13 percent. Source:http://nces.ed.gov

5. Research Questions What are the material and discursive conditions of transnationalism that produce the experiences of two newly arrived female Indian graduate students in the context of higher education in U.S.?

6. Research Questions What relations and practices are enabled by the material and discursive conditions of transnationalism and how in turn do the two female Indian graduate students construct/maintain/dismiss subject positions within those relations and practices?

7. Research Questions As a transnational researcher studying other transnationals, how do I incorporate decolonizing methodologies in my research? What deliberate departures can I make to decolonize my work? What are the limits and possibilities of decolonizing methodologies given my colonized education and upbringing?

8. Epistemology, Theory, Methodology Epistemology Theory Iterative process of qualitative inquiry Representation Methodology Analysis

9. Terrain of Qualitative Research Portions modified from Lather, P. (1991), Getting Smart. Routledge: NY

10. Situating Myself Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Lave & Wenger) Decolonizing epistemologies (Postcolonialism, Feminism) Transnationalism, Cultural Foundation of Education

11. Research is a dirty word… (Smith, 2002) Ways of knowing Idealism Inscription “Other” Tensions Normalized ways of knowing and interests, ways of knowing, & resisting of the “Others” Emancipation is value laden “Others” might have stories that challenge assumptions Production, consumption,& re-production of knowledge about minority voices (hooks, Minh-ha, Said) Linked to European imperialism, colonialism

12. Decolonizing epistemologies Challenges and opens up new ways of thinking about research, producing knowledge. Then the question of research ethics also comes up – How do we researchers who are mostly trained in certain ways of thinking construct knowledge about Others?

13. Research Study • Ethnographic case study • 2 participants • Female Indian graduate students • Lived in a mostly Indian apartment complex • Pursuing graduate studies in a Southern State funded Research University in U.S. • Duration of study ~ 6 months (dissertation) + 6 months (pilot) • Applied Science, Business students • In mid 20s

14. Decolonizing Methodologies Producing different knowledge Re- presentation Analysis Design Posturing Ethics Explore Next

15. Back Explore

16. Back Explore

17. Data Sources Conversational Interviews Participant Observations Photo Elicitations Explore Object Elicitations Explore Member Check Explore Peer Debriefing Writing Next

18. Photo Elicitations I enjoy going to large cities. Reminds me of home. I have friends in Chicago and also this guy I know there. So it is always so much fun when I go to Chicago. Lots of different types of people and the city is so happening. Not like how it is like here in Aurora. In fact you will be surprised when you will see the next folder. Everyone was surprised. They didn’t know how I could have done it. Back Explore

19. Photo Elicitations S: I put a personal ad you know. I went to a photo studio and took this picture. You see my parents told me that I have to get married when I was in India. At that time I didn’t know that I was going to come to America. So they put my ad in this matrimonial website and I said ok. And some guys would write to me. And then I decided to come to America. And so then I told my parents that I am not going to get married now only later. K: Will you go for an arranged marriage? S: Most probably. I honestly don’t think that I am capable of choosing someone who is right for me. I leave that headache for my parents. Every guy I like has some issues with commitment. So I am a bit tired. Back Explore

20. Object Elicitations Well I collected this baby leaf for the experience box. I was sitting by the creamery, having coffee. I go there whenever I feel lonely and then there were all these leaves on the ground and on the table where I sat. Orange, red, brown, so many big leaves. Then there was this one small dead baby leaf. I felt so sad for that small dead baby leaf. It looked so isolated. Or may be that I am really stressed out. Back

21. Member Check • Posturing • Can I abandon the will to know? • Tension between presumptive agency and multiple other loyalties • What does it get me? • Reflexivity becomes a key theoretical, design, methodological, analytical, and representation component • Who am I, what do I bring to the table, how does that inform my research, and how does it limit the way I understand my research? Back

22. Qualitative Data Analysis Concepts Process Analysis Fieldwork, headwork, textwork Description, Analysis, Interpretation Sort, categorize, synthesize Code, categorize, Memos, revisit purpose, rich thick descriptions, patterns, metaphors, analogies, relationship building, themes Theorize data Narrative Analysis Ethnographic Grounded theory Conversation Constant comparison Discourse Phenomenological Data reduction

23. Representation in NVivo

24. Rhizoanalysis – A web of ideas • Points on the rhizome need to connect to something else • Rhizomes are heterogeneous and not dichotomous • Rhizomes are made up of a multiplicity of lines that extend in all directions • Rhizomes break off, but then they being again, either where they were before or on a new line • Rhizomes are not models; they have no deep structure • Multiple entry and exit points • Example: ginger root, the web

25. Tensions

26. Assemblages

28. Data Analysis

30. I am so invisible People see right through me They pass me by in the hallways Our eyes meet and lock And I am invisible, like a ghost They walk right through me They slowed down to give me the finger, the middle one For what reason I don’t know I was just going my own way. I didn’t say anything to anyone I didn’t even know who they were I was doing something American I was not displaying my Indian-ness I was jogging, they were driving Coming back from the football game Thinking how people were just wrestling Did not find that interesting Score was 16-3. How did it get there? Walking back alone from the game With pom poms in my back pocket Feeling scared So many drunk people around White guy with a huge pitcher of beer Asks me if he could touch my pom poms I said no. He laughs me off. Tells me, Give it to me, I need it, just once I said no. I walk faster He asked me why I hate him I walk faster. All I could say was No! Data Poem (Saheli)

31. Rhizomatic Validity • Unsettles from within, taps underground • Generates new locally determined norms of understanding • Proliferates open-ended and context-sensitive criteria • Works against reinscription of new regime • Always in play • Multiplicity • Puts conventional discourse under erasure Lather, 1993

32. Substantive Findings • Shift of privileges highlights inequalities that produce racialized and gendered experience in higher education • Participants’ realization of their newly acquired minority status becomes a point of negotiation • Shift of privileges makes them create communities of support • Participants hold various forms of memberships in different communities of practices which at times seem more rigid in its gate-keeping than anticipated

33. Communities of Practice

34. Theoretical Findings • Participants are agentic and build their own discursive networks to subvert their marginal status • Participants’ negotiations highlight socio-cultural foundations of higher education that contributed to the production of their experiences through memberships in communities of practice • Politics of adjustment/indoctrination is not responsive to participants’ sensibilities

35. Academic Audience An Unbalanced Relationship Politics of adjustment Participants Cultural specimen Learning To Be a Good Student

36. Methodological Findings • Contesting ethics • Need to make small departures • Space of research needs constant decolonizing • Critical gaze on self • Unlearning • Abandoning will to know can produce very salient accounts of experience • Constant interrogation of data exposes limits and possibilities of research (used NVivo) • A process in the middle needs multiple starts and restarts

37. Implications/Questions? • What role do we play as educators to be responsive to multiple populations in higher education? • How do we integrate a pluralistic curriculum? • How do we construct knowledge with and about others as we realize the limits and possibilities about our beliefs and ways of knowing and understanding? • How can qualitative research respond to issues of transnational shifts and population flow in higher education? • How can communities of practice be constructed and reconstructed so that boundaries between new-comers and old-timers become blurred quicker? • What methodological construction of knowledge is required to make decolonizing research more accessible?

38. Future Publications • An edited book of qualitative research methods from multiple epistemological perspectives (have gathered list of interested authors) • Qualitative Inquiry and Qualitative Studies in Education – Decolonizing methodologies and ethics of qualitative research in higher education (2 articles, one on presumptive agency, one on ethics and departures) • Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies - agentic and strategic negotiations in authoring limits and possibilities of chosen and imposed subject positions • Diaspora – Transnational shifts and gendered experiences • Visual studies – Unlearning the will to know through photo and object-elicitation • Educational Researcher – Findings – communities of practice

39. Future Research Agenda • Decolonizing research methodology and ethical implications • Work with other populations in higher education (or K-12) to explore the responsiveness of curriculum to multiple sensibilities • Role of technology in qualitative data • Transnational shifts and local and global implications

40. Why Should We Care? Blurred Boundaries Multiple ways of knowing Material cost Could we afford not to? Mental cost Marginalizes silences