Feminist Fieldwork Analysis

Book excerpt: Feminist Fieldwork Analysis teaches researchers how to think in terms of the feminist perspective and how to translate their research into feminist practice and analysis. This "tricks of the trade" guide gives researchers the principles for doing qualitative work, examples of solid feminist studies, and analytic questions to help identify feminist issues while in the field or at the desk. These issues aren't just about gender. Rather, they are about inequality. Feminist research sheds light on inequality so that people can undo it. Author Sherryl Kleinman offers angles for feminist analysis, or the things to keep in mind when doing fieldwork and developing an analysis. Key Features: Gives researchers five principles for doing, qualitative work and research: Each chapter provides a guiding feminist principle (which corresponds with the chapter title): Talk Is Action, Similarities Can Be Deceiving, Sexism Can Be Anywhere, The Personal Is Political, and Everything Is More Than One Thing. Contains real world examples of feminist fieldwork analysis: Engaging examples illustrate the principles as feminist researchers apply their findings to their everyday lives. Poses questions to bring to any feminist qualitative project: Kleinman incorporates analytical questions at the end of each chapter that encourage researchers to think about what to ask, where to look, and how to make sense of what they've seen and heard. Covers the entire research process: The principles and questions found in this book can be used at any stage of the research process, including choosing a setting, analyzing an observation, and writing a report. Helps researchers interpret data in new ways: By applying what they find in this book, researchers see things in the field they would not have noticed otherwise, or they might see connections between pieces of data that previously appeared unrelated. Book jacket.