For this blog, I am going to discuss some of the techniques
and methodologies presented in Professor Naber’s book, as I think these ideas
will be useful for my own methodology (and paper for this class!). I
appreciated being able to finally read a book that uses the methodologies that
we have been discussing as it
helped me to see what theory looks like in
practice.
First, I appreciated Naber’s concern with and discussion of
her research as “airing some voices” while “creating some silences” (23). She
acknowledges that this is true of any project, and she points out the places in
which she sees herself as a “guest” or as starting with “only minimal
relationships of mutual trust and respect.” As I was reading this, I was
comparing it to my own (failed) attempt at writing a positionality statement
(as you may recall from my first blog). One difference I saw is that in my own
statement, I spend the first part explaining that I am not the same social
location as my participants and then the second part justifying why I am
allowed to speak for them anyway. Naber approaches this dilemma differently. When
talking about queer Arab activists, Naber explains that she weaves their
stories throughout to avoid both ignoring the community and also speaking for community
to which she doesn’t belong: “it made more sense to weave queer Arab narratives
throughout the book and to situate them in relationship to the complex web of
subject positions and concepts and practices of gender and sexuality that
constitute the Arab Bay Area” (24). I appreciate this position, and I am still attempting
to find a way to take a similar approach in my work. Using Naber’s model, I
have two new ideas. First, perhaps I can approach my own position by
acknowledging the silence; not only the voices that I did not hear and the
stories that I do not tell, but also the words the participants did not speak
because of me. While I already frame my work in terms of what the participants do say because of me, I think this
acknowledgment of the silence would be beneficial in fitting myself into the
story. It no longer assumes that I have the privileged position of pulling specific
information out of them but rather that my very presence might have impeded
full information. Secondly, I can do a better job at seeing the complex
relationships between myself and the boys and men I interviewed; I can see,
especially after the readings from this class, that I failed on many grounds to
see the “complex web of subject positions” and instead had very shallow
understandings of power in race and gender.
The second thing I appreciated was Naber's discussing of “life
stories” versus “life histories” and ultimately “activist stories.” Relying on
Behar (who I should read!), Naber suggests that any story should be understood
as historically grounded. Activist stories, she explains “are those of
individuals who strive to be effective not just for themselves but in order to
develop a broad understanding of their group within its particularized historical
and political realities” (20). I have already considered the idea of doing a
type of life history for my dissertation, and I think the model (in the most
practical sense) in Naber’s book is helpful. I liked the format, such as in chapter
4, where Naber presents long blocks of information about the identify formation
of various women in the LAM movement. She calls the “documenting activist
stories,” because instead of simply presenting a short quote or a story outside
of historical/political framing, she both gives significant voice to the
participant and situates this voices in relationship to one another. She chooses
“fragmented and partial stories” (163) that work together to form an integrated
picture. Although it is far too early for me to think of how my participants’
voices would fit together, I can imagine changing the questions that I ask in
order to get at information that could be situated closely among participants.
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