Decolonising Research Series: Reflexive Positionality Researching Refugee Mothers as Radicalised Mother But Not Refugee

This series of podcast episodes will focus on Decolonising Research, and feature talks from the Decolonising Research Festival held at the University of Exeter in June and July 2022.

The seventh epsiode of the series will feature Laura Shobiye from Cardiff University and her talk 'Reflexive Positionality Researching Refugee Mothers as Radicalised Mother But Not Refugee.'

 

Music credit: Happy Boy Theme Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

 

Transcription

 

00:09

Hello, and welcome to rd in the in betweens. I'm your host Kelly Preece. And every fortnight I talk to a different guest, about researchers development, and everything in between. Hello, and welcome to this the seventh episode of our series on decolonizing research. This episode features Laura shrubby from the University of Cardiff and her talk reflexive positionality, researching refugee mothers as a racialized mother, but not as a refugee.

 

00:51

I'm absolutely not, and would not call myself a decolonial, researcher, a decolonial, specialist, or anything along those lines, I think that it is a very complex area. And there are people that specialize in it and do it very well, that I have found very inspiring and that I have learned from. So my work is influenced, be by decolonial approaches, I'd like to think I'm taking some decolonial approaches, but I wouldn't put that label on how I've gone about everything at all. So if you hear things you don't quite fit or or you're not sure. That's partly partly why I've chosen to talk about positionality. Because this is something that I really reflected on in my work, and the title slide kind of gives away, why in a way that I found positionality a really interesting concept when I learned about it. But I really didn't know in some ways how to apply it to myself, and what it might mean for my work. And so had some learning to do, and continue to learn in that respect. And I've come to believe that like reflexive positionality, and in some research is well in all research. But in some in particular, it's really important. And for me, the reason why it was important was well, I'll talk you through that. But initially, just because I'm I'm part of a racialized minority, I'm a mother, I was researching with mothers. And but I was researching with mothers who are to keep the phrase short for now, from refugee backgrounds, which I'm not. So I think, all of us here with an interest in in decolonial research, potentially have that dilemma of how do I sit with, with the social group that I'm researching with my participants in the spaces that I'm going into for one reason or another, either because we are researching with our community, or we're aware that we're coming in as an outsider. But for me, it's a bit of both. So some of who I am, was really, really important. Yes, I was a researcher, a student, a doctoral researcher, but that is absolutely not the be all and end all of who I am. And it's definitely not who I've always been. And who when i Obviously I started the PhD, who I'd been for probably the shortest period of time in my life, compared to all my other identities and all the other characteristics that I have. And I didn't feel that I'd be going into those research spaces as just a researcher. My project is, as I'll talk about more is, is heavily qualitative, focused on subjective experiences. And so I had to think about my own subjective experiences and who I would be to my participants in those spaces, and and it would gatekeepers and who I was for myself as well. So I'm British, this isn't from London, but living in Cardiff. It sort of became more relevant as we went along. I'm a woman My wife and mother sister daughter, not a blacks mixed race. Dodgy typer. I am black mixed race. So Black Heritage, white as well. So mixed race. And I've taught ESL, to English to Speakers of Other Languages, I've taught English as a foreign language. So I've worked with migrant groups. I have

 

05:30

on the one side, a migrant background, although I was born a British citizen. And I've taught I've got PGCE qualification. I've also done project management, I have a whole load of other things and skill sets and and who I am. And I need to question do I bring that into my my research? Do I bring that into spaces where I'm doing research how much so and how much will come with me, whether I intend it to or not. And that's where reflexive positionality becomes really important. Because we may think one thing at the start, but as we go along, we need to be continually for me continually reflecting continually thinking. But all of that, for me matters in relation to who we're doing the research and for me who we're doing it with. So I was doing research with mothers, who were also asylum seekers, refugees, sanctuary seekers, force migrants displaced, sorry. And for those of you who don't know much about the asylum system, and immigration immigration systems, in the UK, I won't go into lots of detail on the terminology. But an asylum seeker is someone who enters the UK. For them, they're a refugee. And then they claim that they claim the right to refugee status through an asylum claim. So they're called an asylum seeker. It's a concept that does not exist in much of the world, in fact, much of the world, from where, from the areas where asylum seekers that reached the UK may have come from. And there are international conventions. And if I were not talking about positionality, today, I'd go into those in more detail. But in summary, international conventions, the same types of conventions that set up many various rights and international laws in the two or three, post Second World War decades, there is an international convention on refugees, often referred to as the Geneva Convention and a protocol that goes with it. And it's got the criteria for what should count as a refugee. It also enshrined in law, that right to claim asylum, absolutely. Everybody on the planet. According to that international law has the right to claim asylum. And you'd be granted asylum, on the other hand, on the grounds specific grounds in that convention to do with persecution, war, and so on. And in the UK, you may be granted asylum, and granted refugee status, which comes with leave to remain, which is usually five years now. But there are other outcomes. So that's not the only outcome, you may be granted permission to stay leave to remain, but you don't fit. The individual doesn't fit the criteria of the Refugee Convention and the UK legal systems interpretation of that. So then you might be granted humanitarian protection, discretionary leave to remain, and so on, or protection as a stateless person is particularly relevant. And why I've gone into this level of detail here for for women, because when the conventions were written, the fact that sexual violence is used as a tool of war wasn't, wasn't acknowledged or recognized. The consideration of an individual being in danger for reasons of their sex, or as it would have been seen, then I And for things such as domestic violence, again wasn't, wasn't really considered. So that is difficult to argue. Women are part of a social group. But if that whole social group isn't under threat or a large proportion of it, it's just that

 

10:18

that one woman as it were, it gets trickier. So, women in those types of situations may be granted another type of status. And which may be less than than five years leave to remain, there are generic terms or, or catch all terms because of these layers of complexity that get used. In Wales, which is where I conducted my research, sanctuary seekers, people seeking sanctuary is a term that is used to cover asylum seekers, refugees, anybody else who may need that, that protection and safety that sanctuary. Forced migrants is a term that is often used displaced persons, force migrants, some people love some really don't like and they get those other cat catch all for one of a better phrase terms are used for things such as climate change refugees, so we hear that expression now. But again, that that wasn't that's not a reason set climate change isn't a reason in in the international law. So in summary, to go back over all of those databases of waffled now, mothers, any any mother who says that she was seeking sanctuary is residing in Wales or was residing in Wales at the time that I was conducting my fieldwork in all of those aspects, that of self identifying I accepted participants truths, their identity and their immigration status. I it was, it's about their experiences, their perceptions, I wasn't about to check gender identities, I wasn't about to check claims of motherhood, nor was I going to ask for their legal documentation and go down the road of bordering with my research. So, but there was more more to that, that was those those three points were really effectively my my recruitment criteria, as it were. But there are other aspects to consider. They were visible and all Gristick minorities are for people who are racialized in the UK, they could be married, separated, single, divorced, widowed, they might be living with their children, they might be living separate from their children or some of their children. I did leave scope for for pregnant women. Or those who might be becoming mothers, by other means, student mums, working moms, they might be stay at home mums, which might be a choice or might have been their previous life or their current life. And that might be through choice or through enforced circumstances. All of these were things too, that I considered, that I knew were possibilities, but also that I found as I went along and learn about the women that agreed to participate in my research. So that is all really important for me, and I will continue to explain why in terms of reflexive positionality and the overall kind of overriding reasons why we're here today. And so it's kind of a question of what I was asking, What am I doing? Why am I doing it? So I have my own personal reasons for coming into this. No, it's no coincidence that I was a mother and I researched mothers. My research focusing on their educational and learning experiences, not a coincidence, I taught that I was a student, mother myself. And I'd worked with asylum seekers and refugees in the past teaching and as a volunteer on projects that had led me to a personal interest that had developed over time, but I really didn't want that personal interest to be that kind of that white gaze. So when I was then looking at that academic influences on my work and research kind of approaches, I'm really became informed by in summary Black and intersectional feminism and critical race theory.

 

15:07

black feminism intersectionality. Thank you, Kimberly Crenshaw, racial capitalism and theories of social reproduction within social capitalism as well. These are all relevant because they help explain the lens, the theoretical lens and the perspective. But overall, I was approaching my work through and looking at it through particularly, the more I did my initial reading, the position that British immigration policy is was, was and is both gendered, racist and racialized. I think, with the issues with Rwanda, and the questions that have come up with the treatment of Ukrainian refugees over others, I think that idea has become quite well accepted quite quickly, in some circles, but when I started my PhD, there were, in fact, I don't even know few months ago, there were people that would still still struggle to understand the structural systemic racism of the British immigration system. So I was looking at and I look at the experiences that women talk to me about through that lens. With that, I discovered decolonial approaches, and which I found relevant, because while there are the forms of model imperialism, which force people to flee from their homes, economic imperialism, political imperialism interference in other countries, the bombs that the US UK like to drop on places,

 

17:13

and then walk away from or

 

17:17

question why people are then fleeing from the linguistic colonialism that remains today, as a result of the full legal and political empire, with a legacy that much of the world speaks and learns English, which does have an impact on why asylum seekers may come to British shores. But it also had its impact on me. And why I'm only English and fluent and fluent in English, despite having one parent who wasn't only fluent in English. And the context of conducting a research in the UK where the vast majority of people don't speak more than one language fluently. Although in Wales, obviously, it's a by the UK is bilingual, but Wales bilingual nation. But I needed to consider that I wasn't expecting my participants to be able to speak Welsh, but that I would need to consider translation or interpretation or be conducting my research through the medium of English. It also again, coming back to that positionality and some of those things that I mentioned at the beginning about myself and about my participants was just acknowledging my own privilege as someone who has been a British citizen from birth, and my own potential risks of Savior ism, and that Savior Ristic voyeuristic approach that can be taken in research. And just because I'm from a racialized minority myself, doesn't mean that I'm incapable of being Savior stick. Some of this then also led me towards other methods for qualitative research, beyond observations and interview is dialogical interviews and looking at creative visual, participatory participatory action and collaborative methods. So those influences have led me to lead me to form kind of the overall shape of my approach. Direct, which is ethnographic. And it took me a long time, till quite recently to feel comfortable using that that word about my research because of some of the negative connotations associated with it. And to be sure that I perhaps had hadn't taken that voyeuristic extractive save your Ristic approach entirely. Qualitative, collaborative, longitudinal. And then multimodal, which is the the language and visuals, research. So my word supports more forms of expression and communication than just words, which I'll talk about more next week. I focused on both presenting and analyzing and use the word displaced but perspectives on educational experiences in Wales. I've tried my best to share stories, share voices and share. When I say their humanity as my participants. I haven't given them voices. They had voices already. And I'm not telling their stories. Hopefully, I'm I'm sharing them. And actually, today when I was checking the slides, I changed some wording that I'd used in the past, again continuing to reflect and it's a very humanizing people that have been dehumanized is how I would describe it in the past. But you know what? That in itself may start a started to make me feel a bit uncomfortable, but cloning realistic, perhaps I don't know the language but just sharing their humanity they would never dehumanize. That's something other people

 

22:06

have done to this group of women. I conducted my interviews, as mother to Mother conversations with creative methods, which I talk about more as I go along. I say Mother to Mother conversations. And, again, I'll touch upon this later. But because of the in my case, the particular perception of which my participants and gatekeepers have of the term interview. And I think when you're reflecting on your position, it's really important to consider the context of who you are, where you're doing your research, who you're doing with your research with where you're doing your research with. Me and I get in there with the thesis and papers, and multimodal, thematic and narrative presentation. And multi modal thematic and narrative analysis. So I've considered how I present my research, not just how I generate, I use the term generate not collect data, and how I analyze it. To me, it's an entire process end to end, and Western academic traditions. There's still a lot of work to be done there. I think in terms of decolonial ality, and the style in which academic work and academic research is presented. So what does all of that mean for my positionality? Well, really, it was mixed, like me, I have that is an intentional plan, in case you're wondering, and it was messy. So for those of you that have started to do some research, or reading around positionality, who know a little bit, there's debates around aren't you have an insider? Or are you an outsider? Are you a black woman researching black women for so an insider? Or are you a white man, researching black woman and therefore an outsider, and then it's not that straightforward for most. So what determines an insider what determines an outsider? Was I both with whom? When and where? And so if I was both was I both in the same ways at the same times in the same places? Was that consistent? Now it's was no, it was really mixed and messy. So to explain that I did my fieldwork in In refugee community and support groups, so yes, I've used the term refugee but again for that for all sanctuary seekers, their support groups, community support groups, women's groups, in particular, and they did that around Wales. For someone who claims asylum in the UK, if they and they need support to VAs vas 90 or percent do financial support, then they are displaced, which means they are sent with no choice to anywhere around the country to dispersal areas. At the time I was doing my work Wales had for the dispersal system is it changing, particularly in Wales in terms of how many there are, but that's how it was set up. And then for those who come through schemes like the Syrian voluntary resettlement program, or the Afghanistan one, and they are, are sent to other areas, so not dispersal areas. The idea of this came with the 1999 Immigration Act and you labor to spread the burden, lovely term. So that it's not wasn't just London and the Southeast and poor areas that we're we're getting the majority of asylum seekers. And that's how the majority of sanctuary seekers come to the UK now, it is as individual asylum seekers, not through schemes. So I traveled around Wales to the four dispersal areas and another area and spent time in these groups. But each part of Wales each of these four cities, has its slightly different makeup has different proportions of the asylum seekers and refugees population in Wales. So, but half are in Cardiff, which is the most diverse city in Wales versus Wrexham, which only has about 5% of asylum seekers dispersed there. And it's a very white population. So yes, that made a difference. To be honest, there also, I am in Cardiff. So some of those groups I spent time in, I took my children to I volunteered in and I just spent time hanging out as just another person there. Others I couldn't get to on such a regular basis. So I went for the purpose of, of generating data, of interviewing participants. But I also tried to spend time just on those visits, just hanging out as it were, as well. And, obviously, I was able to go to women's groups, because I'm a woman. So in that respect, I was an insider, they were run by women, they were attended by women in some of the spaces. They were centers and location where it wasn't just women present. But I tended to be in the room or in the group or there at the time that was dedicated to women or women and children. And I'm visit visibly black, or brown, depending on people's interpretation. And, and a mother and I took my children. So I was visibly a mother, where I didn't take my children to talk about that in a bit. I did make myself visibly a mother, but also audibly British. And I was talking about this earlier today, in some of those spaces. In Wales, where the population is 95% White in those spaces, it was assumed more than once that I was there as an asylum seeker or refugee. Which was interesting. And I don't think unimportant, I think it helped gatekeepers feel more comfortable with me. Arguably, it helped some of the women feel more comfortably comfortable with me, and we could talk about issues of race as well as motherhood and womanhood. But I was also British talking to people with very, very precarious legal immigration status while I have a very, very certain one.

 

29:53

So I've talked about some of this already, and that in some of my spaces, some of the spaces my status wasn't clear you immediately, and in some it was, and in some, it wasn't. In some it was perhaps unclear. But I didn't try and hide who I was, I was very honest and open open. And at times, I would be in some spaces as just a woman and a mother, a member of the local community joining in. And other times I was there, as the researcher, or flitting between the two and at sign times, I was both, I was in the space as both. And so it wasn't Not, not at all. clear cut. I'm just gonna check. Yeah. So on the right hand side of these slides, you can see that I've got a little clipboard. And I'm going to whiz through now some of the last slides. So I've been talking too much and give a chance for some questions. So what some of this mean, in terms of the practical realities of of how I went about things. So I had, as I said, that deliberate contextual ethical distinction from other forms of interviews, that asylum seekers and refugees may have gone through journalists, perhaps home office interrogations, police interviews in the UK or elsewhere. And that was really important. And I wouldn't have been allowed into one space by one gatekeeper if I hadn't made that distinction. And that I was coming in, as a woman and as a mother, to speak to women and mothers. In that regard, in that way, mother to mother not to go through a list of questions and interrogate. Now, for me, this was really important because I wasn't there to extract data, or extract information, I was having a dialogue kind of conversation with them. So but having a chat over a cuppa, for one of a better analogy, and sometimes quite literally, if it was in a space where I hadn't taken my children, I might introduce myself as a researcher, yes, but also as a mother and show photos of my, of my kids on my phone, they might show me photos of theirs or call their children over and chat with them. That rapport was built so that I could have that dialogue with them, not to fake friendship. And there is a literature that that discusses that. But to to build that rapport and have that dialogue that is, was conversing with with empathize, sympathize, we laugh together a lot, I laughed a lot in interviews with women. And I've maintained friendly contact between interviews, as I was planning a longitudinal, I say planning, because the pandemic got in the way, but I was planning a longitudinal piece of research, which meant I would be returning to the women to ask them if they want were willing to speak with me again. So I'm in contact contact in between. Again, if I'm you know, honest, there's there's something for me as the researcher alone to gain from that making sure I've not lost participants, but also is not being that extractive here I turn up when I want something from you and only then do you hear from me type approach and continuing that consideration so as I said, I generated generated data with my participants, not from them. So dialogue with them, they drew you can see some of the joints here. I provided the materials and they did the drawings with them for like photo elicitation. So that's with them. They chose the photos, they gave the description. I then edited photos later, and they approved my editing.

 

34:30

The photos were particularly important with the impact of the pandemic as I moved to remote methods and chose not to continue with such an a focus on interviewing because it didn't feel ethically okay. I chosen to go into women's spaces and take myself into their spaces, not bring them into mine. Because ethically that felt the right thing to due for their comfort for their report or for their well being in case they disclose things and got upset or distressed, I didn't feel I could do any of that. In the same way while working remotely, I didn't feel I could hang up the phone and leave potentially a distressed woman and not know what might have happened, that she might be on her own, she might have a children with her, they hear some of it should my children hear some of it, as well as digital exclusion reasons. So the photographs became more important. So I was hoping to collaborate and I tried to collaborate, but without putting a heavy burden of labor on my participants, so and different people will take different approaches to this. But for me, I can't pay asylum seekers, I didn't have the budget to pay people anyway. And I didn't want to be asking a lot of time and labor from women. I felt that would feel unfair. But neither did I want to be extractive so is that that balancing ground that I constantly and again, constantly considering my positionality, and how best to do that, to be collaborative to continue that contact and check ins get their approval through the photo editing worked, or I created visual digital stories as a little mini visual story at the top there. Where they were created of individual narratives and stories, they were pre approved, again by the individual participant, so done with them. That with me taking the burden of labor. So I had the privilege of time and funding to be able to do this work doesn't always feel like it as a PhD student that you've got time or or money. Not everybody has funding, of course. But I did. Whatever we think of the levelers of stipends. I could empathize with the women and as a mother, but I had an experience of seeking sanctuary in Wales or being coming from refugee background. I was trusted, I am trusted, as a mother of respected as a researcher. But is it always that way round. And I made mistakes, because I don't share experiences. And that privilege, comes with the thoughts of power imbalances. And I did have one to one interviewing where the power balance felt very wrong. I was there to get information to use that explore extractive type phrase. But really, this was a woman who was only speaking to me because she was desperate, desperate, being the right word for information. So I help provide that information and have not included, cut the interview short, and if not included that in my work. And again, continuing to consider my positionality why the woman at a speed agreed to speak with me what she hoped to get from me from what she knew of me and who I was and why I was there. And I skim this a little bit, just to say I had some, some really wonderful feedback. There are next several difficulties, but someone telling me I'm so glad you're doing this, some of them even reflecting me in their creative methods. So on this image here on the right, I'm represented by the lines of jewels at the bottom. And she's represented her family through the rest of the jewelry. So quite touched by that and we're still in touch. Women saying I'm inspiring to them, can't say I necessarily would agree. But equally, I felt that the other way around. I felt that some of the women were really inspiring to me. Some of the women agreed to talk with me wanting to learn more about what's all involved, but that felt more

 

39:27

equal than the or more better balanced for one of a better term actually, than the situation I described before. And I was definitely able to gain access to spaces as I said before, because of who I am, not just because I'm a researcher and and I was able to build a rapport and friendships in ways that a man maybe even a white woman might not have been able to And yes, I did make friendships. And that's something I can can discuss later. That's something that people do consider the boundaries of. But these aren't things are not positive, unless I was an ethically responsible, which means continuing to reflect on my positionality. So should I be doing this this research? No, I'm not if I don't have that asylum seeking refugee background, am I the right person to be doing this? And how can I use the privileges that I do have? And the experiences that that, that I have both of of that relative privilege, but also of the discrimination and difficulties that I have faced as a, as a black Miss mixed race, woman Mother, how can I use those to support to amplify and to liberate, not to consider that I'm saving or that I'm speaking for, or that I'm discovering? Considering that presentation, and representation matter? And they really do, but when I'm not representative in an always on again, is that possible? Of the group that I'm researching with? How do I achieve that? And I've done that through some of my more visual and collaborative weights, the ethics of anonymization. And I talked about more about this next week, but particularly with photographs of people, and whether anonymizing is disempowering. And allowing people to real names to be used is liberating. And whether there are times as a researcher whether you need to decide for your participants or is that infantilizing. No straightforward answers. And in case anyone's wondering, I kept anonymized everything anonymized for various reasons. And this is a doctoral event. So in within the academy even, but also elsewhere, that racism isn't only about phenotypes. It's relevant for my positionality. It was relevant for my permissive, epistemological framework, relevant for my participants, they might be white, as it were, visibly, but maybe still racialized, based on their accent, their first language, their immigration status in particular. And this was deeply relevant, as I said, for my approach.

 

43:04

And that's it for this episode. Don't forget to like, rate and subscribe. And join me next time where I'll be talking to somebody else about researchers development and everything in between.