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.

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Breakout Session B

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Jan 11th, 3:15 PM Jan 11th, 3:35 PM

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.