Feeling ‘like a minority . . . a pathology’: interpreting race from research with African and Caribbean women on violence and abuse

Abstract

Qualitative researchers are often advised to use their emotional responses to data, and participants’ experiences are understood through those of researchers’, how this process unfolds is less clear. This article is about the role of feelings for the qualitative researcher at different stages of the process and offers strategies for working through, ‘using’ and ‘feeling together with’ participants’ reflections on lived experiences. I interviewed nine African and Caribbean heritage British women about their experiences of violence and abuse where one described feeling ‘like a minority . . . a pathology’. This article describes my responses to experiences of racialised and gendered intrusion in interviews, later reflection and analytic work. The article brings recognition to a stigmatised and hidden process within qualitative interviews and data interpretation. This serves to amplify the impact of injustice and adverse experiences for participants, and researchers, and to a wider audience, and to validate its existence and emotional burden as a legitimate and crucial stage of qualitative data analysis.