Where am I? Locating myself and its implications for collaborative research.
This paper examines how a younger white female graduate student and an African American female undergraduate viewed the relationship between the graduate student and older African American working class women. This relationship was formed around a community garden project. The graduate student understood the relationship to be based on gender and class background similarities; the undergraduate viewed it based on race differences and unexamined white privilege. Both interpretations are challenged as unidimensional. Through this re-telling, questions are raised about why situating ourselves via our identities is not practiced more frequently. Possible explanations of this lack of attention to situativity include a Cartesian philosophy of science that separates objectivity and subjectivity, a general unawareness of privilege by those who have it, and a dominant scientific discourse that neglects the role of the researcher. This paper illustrates why reflexivity is crucial for the work of community psychology.
Langhout
Regina Day
RD
Department of Psychology, Wesleyan University, Middletown, CT 06459, USA. rlanghout@wesleyan.edu
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001741:Black or African American; D000368:Aged; D019058:Community Networks; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D016901:Intergenerational Relations; D008875:Middle Aged; D011593:Psychology, Social; D011822:Race Relations; D012106:Research; D012923:Social Class; D014481:United States; D044465:White People