From focus group to activism: A phenomenology of an empowered researcher
Location
3032
Format Type
Event
Format Type
Workshop
Start Date
January 2018
End Date
January 2018
Abstract
During the summer of 2016, I conducted a focus group with women to explore constraints they experience in family travel in relation to the division of labor. As I analyzed the data from the focus group afterward, the most compelling theme that emerged from the data was the experience of empowerment participants experienced during the focus group. When I was analyzing data and formulating results, the election of 2016 ended. I was personally struggling with the outcome and attempting to come to terms with my place in an unexpected reality. Never before vocal in politics, I now found myself passionate about several causes and not knowing how to respond. Through writing about the empowerment my participants had experienced and how we as researchers needed to seek to empower people in a variety of situations, I was experiencing this empowerment myself. Findings from my study had implications for those seeking to empower people who experience discrimination and marginalization in a variety of settings, which I came to realize was also myself. I became empowered to face discrimination in my workplace and in national issues, and am becoming involved in my community in women’s and refugees’ issues. Through incorporating the words of critical theorists such as Freire and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the findings of my study have become real in my own life. We as researchers and activists must accept the responsibility to facilitate dialogue and create social change, and my participants helped me start to do this in my own life.
From focus group to activism: A phenomenology of an empowered researcher
3032
During the summer of 2016, I conducted a focus group with women to explore constraints they experience in family travel in relation to the division of labor. As I analyzed the data from the focus group afterward, the most compelling theme that emerged from the data was the experience of empowerment participants experienced during the focus group. When I was analyzing data and formulating results, the election of 2016 ended. I was personally struggling with the outcome and attempting to come to terms with my place in an unexpected reality. Never before vocal in politics, I now found myself passionate about several causes and not knowing how to respond. Through writing about the empowerment my participants had experienced and how we as researchers needed to seek to empower people in a variety of situations, I was experiencing this empowerment myself. Findings from my study had implications for those seeking to empower people who experience discrimination and marginalization in a variety of settings, which I came to realize was also myself. I became empowered to face discrimination in my workplace and in national issues, and am becoming involved in my community in women’s and refugees’ issues. Through incorporating the words of critical theorists such as Freire and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the findings of my study have become real in my own life. We as researchers and activists must accept the responsibility to facilitate dialogue and create social change, and my participants helped me start to do this in my own life.
Comments
Breakout Session B