In this article we propose a framework of credibility and approachability for researchers to use as they prepare for fieldwork and write up their data. Highlighting intersectional perspectives from two women and scholars of color, this framework translates the important theoretical critiques of dichotomous thinking (for example, insider-outsider) into methodological practice. We argue that credibility and approachability are not just performed by researchers, but are also perceived by respondents and placed on researchers' bodies. By conceptualizing credibility and approachability as both performed behaviors and perceived characteristics, we are able to incorporate the researcher's positionality, the standpoint of the researched, and the power-laden particularities of the interaction in our data analyses and fieldwork reflections for the benefit of both researchers and readers.
This article explores how racial socialization in poor and working-class Afro-Brazilian families conveys messages about racial features that reproduce and resist racial hierarchies. Relying on 116 semi-structured interviews and ethnography in fifteen Afro-Brazilian families conducted in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil, I argue that racial socialization consists of discursive strategies, concrete practices and affective displays that stigmatize black racial features. This study examines racial socialization within the intimate context of parent and sibling relationships, highlighting how Afro-Brazilians negotiate racial features such as skin colour, hair texture and nose shape during day-to-day interactions and life transitions. To illustrate the complexity of Afro-Brazilian families, I discuss critical moments when socialization simultaneously reproduces and inverts racial hierarchies. I conclude by arguing that racial hierarchies are constantly negotiated in Afro-Brazilian families, but racial socialization most often reinforces dominant racial structures in ways that compromise the affective quality of family relationships.
A 2016 Pew report reported that 24 percent of Hispanics identify as Afro-Latinxs, but researchers know very little about the significance of Afro-Latinx identity and how it develops. Using survey data administered to 94 self-identified Afro-Latinxs and in-depth interviews with selected survey respondents, the authors examine the socialization experiences that shape their identity formation. The authors illustrate that Afro-Latinx identity formation rarely occurred as a result of racial affirmation from families (as observed for other Black-identified groups in the United States). In the context of their families, Afro-Latinxs report the normalization of colorism and consistently negative appraisals of “black” racialized features (skin, hair, and facial features), silence about race and racism, and the encouragement of Latinx ethnicity contrasted with the stigmatization of blackness. Afro-Latinxs’ early racial socialization is marked by ethnoracial dissonance: a feeling of disidentification with, and from, racial schemas made available to them. Most respondents report that this dissonance is punctuated in secondary school and rarely reconciled through familial experiences. However, college experiences and participation in online communities ultimately exposed them to the history of the African diaspora, introduced them to the term Afro-Latinx, and offered alternative constructions of blackness that led them to adopt an Afro-Latinx identity.
Despite advancements, there remains relatively little research about how researchers navigate their bodies and emotions in the context of field research. Perhaps because it represents a threat to ideas about objective or value-free research, qualitative researchers may receive the least amount of practical training about how their bodies and emotions matter in the field. The prevailing assumption is that researchers will eventually find their way or organically develop the pivotal relationships that they need to conduct their work. This uncertainty can be a tremendous source of anxiety for researchers new to the field and even for those seasoned researchers initiating new projects. In this article, I explore the factors that shape the meanings that research participants attach to researchers’ bodies and emotions and, similarly, how researchers’ emotions are implicated in their research. Drawing on constructivist grounded theory and critical feminist methodologies, I use specific examples from my ethnographic research in Brazil to highlight the complex and contradictory ways that researchers’ bodies and emotions are perceived by potential research participants and can be managed in order to enhance ethnographic research. Ultimately, this presentation is intended to explore the challenges and possibilities created when researchers marshal their bodies and emotions to bring their whole self to research.
The increasing visibility of Afro-Latinxs in the United States has catalyzed interest among researchers about this group’s unique experiences of racialization. However, much less attention has been given to the relationship between Afro-Latinx identity formation and perceptions and/or participation in social movements. Drawing on web-based survey data with 115 Afro-Latinxs, we examine how Afro-Latinxs view the Black Lives Matter Movement with a focus on the extent to which they perceive that this explicitly anti-racist movement is relevant to their own lives. We theoretically ground our analysis in research related to collective identity and group consciousness to explore how Afro-Latinxs’ unique understanding of their ethno-racial identity and group position impacts their participation in the movement. We find that overwhelmingly Afro-Latinx respondents believe they should participate in Black Lives Matter, but how they articulate their support sheds light on the diverse ways they position themselves vis-à-vis other Black-identified groups in the racial hierarchy.
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