Finding ourselves as Black women in Eurocentric theory: collaborative biography on learning and reshaping qualitative inquiry

Abstract

PurposeQualitative research consistently centers Eurocentrism through courses' integrations of ontological, epistemological and axiological perspectives. This literal whitewashing was a source of great frustration and confusion for the authors, four Black women, who found their identities omitted and disregarded in qualitative inquiry. Using Collins' outsider-within concept and collective narratives to center their experiences, the authors seek through their writing to actively repurpose and re-engage with qualitative scholarship that generally seeks to exclude Black women.Design/methodology/approachTheoretically informed by Collins' outsider-within concept, the authors use Deleuze and Parnet's collective biography to tell the stories of four Black doctoral students negotiating race, gender, class and intellectual identity, while critiquing Eurocentric theory, through coursework. The collaborative writing process provided shared space for the engagement of individual thoughts and experiences with(in) others' narratives.FindingsBlack women can interpret qualitative inquiry outside of the Eurocentric norm, and qualitative courses can provide spaces for them to do so by repositioning Black women philosophers as central to understanding qualitative inquiry.Originality/valueThrough collective biography (Deleuze and Parnet, 2007), this paper centers the voices of four Black women scholars who use a creative writing approach to think with/through theory as Black women (Jackson and Mazzei, 2012). The paper offers new discussions of and ways in which qualitative researchers might decolonize Eurocentric ways of knowing in qualitative inquiry and qualitative pedagogy from students' perspectives.

“This Person is Safe”: An Exemplar of Conducting Individual Interviews in Qualitative Research with Black Women

“…S. Kvale (1996) emphasized that expertise in individual interviewing in qualitative research is evidenced by its production of "knowledge claims that are so powerful and convincing in their own right that they carry the validation with them, like a strong piece of art" (p. 252). However, individual interviewing in qualitative research has a dismal track record in its treatment and representation of Black women by pathologizing and focusing on deviant behavior; interpreting and essentializing Black people's lived experiences through a White worldview or through one-dimensional representation (Stewart & Haynes, 2019); using samples that do not include Black women; and framing research with theories and interview methods that center Whiteness (Few et al, 2003;Stewart & Haynes, 2019;Summerville et al, 2021). In other words, individual interviewing within qualitative research has historically been framed with theories and interview methods that…”

“…More broadly, higher education has been implicated for excluding Black women researchers or keeping them out of the academic spotlight (Stewart & Haynes, 2019;Summerville et al, 2021). Finally, most social science research in communities of color is structured on deficit models and Eurocentric values, perspectives, and concepts of knowledge construction (Campbell et al, 2021;Fortier, 2017;Summerville et al, 2021).…”

“…S. Kvale (1996) emphasized that expertise in individual interviewing in qualitative research is evidenced by its production of “knowledge claims that are so powerful and convincing in their own right that they carry the validation with them, like a strong piece of art” (p. 252). However, individual interviewing in qualitative research has a dismal track record in its treatment and representation of Black women by pathologizing and focusing on deviant behavior; interpreting and essentializing Black people’s lived experiences through a White worldview or through one-dimensional representation (Stewart & Haynes, 2019); using samples that do not include Black women; and framing research with theories and interview methods that center Whiteness (Few et al, 2003; Stewart & Haynes, 2019; Summerville et al, 2021). In other words, individual interviewing within qualitative research has historically been framed with theories and interview methods that“…consistently situate Black deprivation, and not Black people, as the [research] problem in their analyses” (Stewart & Haynes, 2019, p. 1186);“do not reflect Black people in the fullness of their humanity” (Stewart & Haynes, 2019, p. 11,860);center and normalize knowledge that is founded on White values and perspectives (Mills et al, 2010); andassume that White concepts, theories, and research processes produce more trustworthy knowledge than other perspectives (Mills et al, 2010).…”

“…The interviewer shared—disclosed—with the participant what other participants shared about why they participated in the individual interview, and that disclosure resonated with the participant. The disclosure led to cultural connection between the interviewer and the participant, so much so that when the participant said “Nobody’s asking us these questions,” the interviewer and the participant knew exactly why (i.e., they are Black women, and most research has centered Black women’s experiences around deficit, deviance, exclusion, and stereotype; Few et al, 2003; Fortier, 2017; Summerville et al, 2021). Thus, the participant followed up with, “I felt myself breathe, by the way,” which was another cultural connection and validation because the identity of the interviewer—another Black woman—was important to her and a reason why she could breathe and participate in the individual interview.…”

“…Qualitative research articles and books about conducting individual interviews with Black women explore many topics. For instance, scholars have focused on racial differences in engaging, recruiting, and interviewing Black women (Gibson & Abrams, 2004); challenges Black women face when conducting qualitative research with Black women on sensitive topics (Few et al, 2003); ethical concerns in relation to contextual challenges experienced by diverse research populations (Fletcher et al, 2019); being an insider/outsider in qualitative research (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009; Summerville et al, 2021); negotiating the insider/outsider status in research, specifically with Black women (Brown, 2012; Obasi, 2012); examining how Black women researchers use cultural connections with other Black women during individual interviews (Harris, 2019); and how qualitative research has historically excluded or stereotyped Black women while considering White perspectives as the standard, even within critical research contexts (Fortier, 2017; Summerville et al, 2021).…”