Presser

Negotiating Power and Narrative in Research: Implications for Feminist Methodology, by Lois Presser is the last article I will discuss for the week. In this article, the author explains a study of incarcerated individuals that have been convicted of violent crime, with an interest in the power relations inherent in the study. Interestingly, the author points out that much research done by women on men convicted of violence (specifically against women) lacks the depth of reflexivity needed to do research from a Feminist methodology.

The points I took away from this article are:

• Accounts are situated
• Cross-Gender research typically yields different results
• Female researchers are part of an implicated power struggle when researching men considered violent

"Accounts are Situated," is a subtitle used by the author. I found this to be relevant on two levels. First, accounts given by the men discussed in the article are less than objective. Of course, these accounts are grounded in the perceptions the men have of themselves, the perceptions they think/fear the researcher will have of them, and lastly, how they would like to represent themselves(if that is different from who they believe they really are).
Secondly, as the author states, the accounts of female researchers are also situated. How they react to the men they are questioning, and how they respond emotionally have to do more with gender than with objectivity.

In terms of methodology, I found it very interesting and useful that Presser, in her study, showed literal dialogue, and then shared the notes she had taken at the time the dialogue occurred.

My second point of interest is Cross-Gender research. Presser, starting on page 2071, explains that during research, depending on the gender of a subject, a  researcher of one gender might be able to obtain more or more in-depth information than the other. This, though it does not surprise me, is certainly interesting. Even though one might consider themselves a social scientist and a professional, gender still plays a part in the interaction of subject and researcher.

Concerning my third point: I found the most profound part of the study to be the section in which the author explains the power struggles she faced with male inmates. Presser explains that men would use terms of endearment with her. She also explains that some of the men would see participating in the research to be a sort of redemptive act; they were helping a woman, and this showed that they had changed and no longer conceived of women in the ways they once did, ways that led them to engage in violence. I was not hitherto unaware of such power struggles, but I found the anecdotal evidence to be extremely interesting in these cases.