Abstract
It is no secret that recent outcries in the United States against police violence and systemic injustices have challenged institutions, professions, and even individual researchers to evaluate the ways in which we can infuse anti-oppressive and anti-racist perspectives into our daily policies and practices. Written by Dr. Venus E. Evans-Winters, Black Feminism in Qualitative Inquiry: A Mosaic for Writing Our Daughter’s Body offers a timely reflection that challenges researchers to reimagine the ways in which we engage in qualitative inquiry. Utilizing critical race theory and black feminist/womanist perspectives, Evans-Winters interrogates commonplace practices of qualitative research and demonstrates the utility of centering black women’s voices in qualitative scholarship. Relying on her formal training as a scholar and cultural experiences living as a black woman, Evans-Winters leads by example in this charge. Through the poignant use of field notes, the text purposely tests the boundaries of research and theory to explore the ways in which one can convey the complexities of the human experience, specifically that of black women and girls.
In addition to offering a myriad of ways to represent black women’s voices and experiences through data, these field notes provide an intimate view into Evans-Winters’ scholarly ponderings. For example, Field Note 2 utilizes prose and poems to explore questions regarding positionality within qualitative research. Specifically, Evans-Winters explores the question, “How does early socialization, culture, identity, and place shape how one produces, consumes, and disseminates knowledge? How do we conscientiously bring forth our ways of knowing, and performing knowing, into the research process?” (p. 3). In Field Note 4, Evans-Winters grapples with the acknowledgment of black women’s particular experience in the social world and theorizes how these intersecting identities may impact the relationship to knowledge and knowledge production. By telling the story of her childhood friend, Evans-Winters questions the abilities of traditional qualitative methods to capture complex stories of black women and girls. For instance, how can we capture communication styles that are culturally grounded and specific (i.e., nonverbal communication such as rolling one’s eyes or the use of black vernacular)? Do our current techniques allow for authentic representation of these ways of communicating? In this stimulating field note, Evans-Winters affirms the importance of trust between researcher and participant while questioning whether traditional methods can truly affirm and articulate the complexities of black women’s experiences. Through the use of an ethnographic narrative and reflection, Field Note 7 provides an intimate look into Evans-Winters’ internal struggles when grappling with the ethical nature of researching young girls in West Africa. During this particular project, Evans-Winters chooses to bring her daughter with her, a decision that elicits an internal conflict between the “rationality” and the “emotionality” of the research process. Throughout this field note, Evans-Winters speaks in the voice of her “academic self,” which represents her formal training as a scholar; the voice of “cultural reflections,” which represent understandings of the social world that are primed by one’s primary culture; and through “mother speak,” which represents a collection of formal education, socialization, and intuition resulting from her identity and experiences as a mother. By demonstrating how these voices move from disagreement to congruence, Evans-Winters highlights ethical and moral struggles that arise when attempting to represent another human being’s experience in writing. In Field Note 9, the author seeks to answer the question, “How do we bring our research to life in a way that audiences can feel what we feel as we walk this world as young/Black/woman/researcher/participant?” (p. 6). In order to answer this question, Evans-Winters begins with a discussion of how we can create data analysis techniques that are reflective of the cultures and lived experiences of black girls and women. Through an example of an action research effort anchored in youth participatory action, Evans-Winters demonstrates how nontraditional data sources can serve as multiple forms of representation.
In her final field note, “De-coding the Covenant: Daughtering as Methodology,” Evans-Winters responds to a call for the dissemination of anti-oppressive methodologies within qualitative research. Specifically, she introduces the idea of daughtering as a methodological approach uniquely suited to the experiences of black women. In Evans-Winters’ explanation, daughtering emerges as both an epistemological and a social worldview that black women are uniquely positioned to engage in. Daughtering as a qualitative methodology considers the intersectional social positioning black women have experienced throughout history. Daughtering, as a result, is transdisciplinary in nature. Daughtering acknowledges the ways by which systems of white supremacy continue to shape knowledge creation and attempts to deconstruct universal truths by embracing multiple forms of data representation. Finally, daughtering not only seeks to speak for communities that have been marginalized but also recognizes the oppressive nature of research and considers how it can be utilized as a pathway toward liberation.
In reviewing Dr. Evans-Winters’ Black Feminism in Qualitative Inquiry: A Mosaic for Writing Our Daughter’s Body it is my opinion that the author not only met but exceeded the book’s stated goals. Evans-Winters provides a compelling analysis of how the unique expertise of black women can inform the research pursuits of a broad scholarly community. Considering this text’s contribution, the book could be enhanced with further discussion of the extent to which daughtering methodologies should be integrated with formal research methods and to what extent they should seek to dismantle these perspectives. Despite this brief critique, Dr. Evans-Winters’ book is uniquely positioned to challenge qualitative researchers and the scholarly community at large to actively seek answers to these questions. Moreover, as we are interested in raising a new generation of scholars who challenge the status quo, this text would be invaluable for use in graduate-level coursework in social work, anthropology, and other social and human sciences. In addition to its application to a broad interdisciplinary audience, this book may provide key insights for community leaders, advocates, and policy makers who are interested in working directly with black women and girls to ensure that their perspectives are pivotal in the reshaping of social policy and programs.
Lastly, the value that this text holds to inform the work of black women in academia merits emphasis. Considering their intersectional experience, black women often reexperience everyday forms of marginalization within academic institutions. Far from adding to black women’s oppression in university and college settings, Evans-Winters’ work celebrates the perspectives and expertise of black women researchers. For me, Evans-Winters’ work provides an inspirational and poignant reminder of my own positionality as a black woman and a researcher. Daughtering, as a methodology, reminds me that it is not only formal training that guides my research work but also a lifetime of cultural experiences and instincts that inform how I see and translate the world around me.
Researchers have long recognized the potential dangers of relying on quantitative research when researching marginalized communities; critical scholars continue to engage in conversations regarding the potential of qualitative research to illuminate the unique experiences of these communities. But in a time where the demands for anti-oppressive and anti-racist research methodologies become ever-more urgent, Evans-Winters’ Black Feminism in Qualitative Inquiry: A Mosaic for Writing Our Daughter’s Body offers a timely critique of the ways in which academia can further center upon and learn from the experiences and expertise of black women scholars.
