International Journal of Social Research Methodology

ISSN: 1364-5579 (Print) 1464-5300 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tsrm20

A Critical Reflection on Researching Black Muslim

Womens Lives PostSeptember 11th
Basia Spalek
To cite this article: Basia Spalek (2005) A Critical Reflection on Researching Black Muslim
Womens Lives PostSeptember 11th, International Journal of Social Research Methodology,
8:5, 405-418, DOI: 10.1080/1364557032000232862
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1364557032000232862

Published online: 23 Feb 2007.

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Int. J. Social Research Methodology

Vol. 8, No. 5, Month 2005, pp. 405418

A Critical Reflection on Researching

Black Muslim Womens Lives PostSeptember 11th
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Basia Spalek
Received June 17 2003Accepted April 22 2004
Taylor and Francis Ltd
10.1080/1364557042000232862
tsrm100261.sgm

This paper consists of a critical reflection of a research study carried out by a white
researcher documenting black Muslim womens experiences of victimisation and the
management of their personal safety. It is argued that whilst some aspects of the
researchers subjectivity can be linked to marginalised, outsider positions, which helped to
produce oppositional knowledge, other aspects of her self-identity served to maintain and
re-produce dominant racial and cultural discourses and power relations.
Int.
Original
Taylor
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Lecturer
BasiaSpalek
B.Spalek@bham.ac.uk
000002005
Journal
&Article
inFrancis
Community
of Social
Ltd Research
JusticeInstitute
Methodology
of Applied Social Studies, University of BirminghamMuirhead Tower 11th FloorEdgbastonBirminghamB15 2TT

Introduction
The dominance of a white, Eurocentric perspective underpinning much feminist work
has been extensively documented, illustrating how black1 women have been overlooked by the wider feminist movement, through gender essentialism, the view that
there is a monolithic womens experience (Harris, 1997, p. 11). Although feminist
research principles call for reflexivity over the research process, so that the values and
characteristics of the researcher are made visible, mainstream (white) feminists have
often assumed that there is no power differential between themselves and black
women, since as an oppressed group they have not viewed themselves as also being
likely oppressors, even though black feminist researchers have accused them of adopting theoretical positions and research strategies that take a racist perspective and
reasoning (Amos & Parmar, 1997; Collins, 2000).
This paper consists of a critical reflection of a research study that was carried out by
a white woman researcher wishing to add diversity and specificity to a research area
Basia Spalek is a Lecturer in Community Justice Studies at the University of Birmingham. She can be contacted at
the Institute of Applied Social Sciences, University of Birmingham, Muirhead Tower 11th Floor, Edgbaston,
Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK. Tel: +44 121 415 8027; Email: B.Spalek@bham.ac.uk
ISSN 13645579 (print)/ISSN 14645300 (online) 2005 Taylor & Francis Ltd
DOI: 10.1080/1364557032000232862

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B. Spalek

dominated by the documentation of white womens experiences. Muslim women

living in Britain, of Pakistani and Bangladeshi heritage, were interviewed at length and
questions were asked about the management of their personal safety. The findings of
this study have been documented elsewhere (Spalek, 2002). Three phases of the
research project will be looked at in some detail, these being the sampling, interviewing
and analysis stages. By using the notion of reflexivity that is common to feminist
research, this paper will explore the nature of the researchers subjectivity and its influence over the research process. Whilst some aspects of the researchers self that can be
linked to marginalised, outsider positions, helped to produce oppositional knowledge,
other aspects of her self-identity served to maintain and re-produce dominant power
relations. This ultimately resulted in a research project which, despite attempting to
document difference, stressed similarity between different groups of women. This
study highlights the multitudinous and situated nature of self-identity, which can
significantly influence data collection and analysis. Although western scientific authority has encouraged and legitimated binary, oppositional, either/or categories (Collins,
1998), one can be both oppressor and oppressed, as the following article will outline.

Black Feminist Critiques of Western Feminism

In questioning the many taken-for-granted assumptions underpinning so-called scientific, objective work, which failed to take into account gendered experiences, feminist
work has made a substantial contribution to social scientific research. However, the
dominance of white, middle-class analyses in feminist work is well documented:
Much of the work undertaken in the 20th century by feminists was still in English and had
largely been written for white, middle-class authors and readers The global hegemony
of western feminism, together with its access to the tools of cultural imperialism, has meant
that its conceptualisation of world territory and of womens issues has tended to be very
narrowly and parochially perceived. (Afshar & Maynard, 2000, p. 809)

The invisibility of whiteness, whereby being white is not regarded as being a racial
identity and a particular lens through which the world is viewed and experienced, but
rather, is considered to be what is normal, neutral or common-sense, has meant
that western feminists have ignored, misrepresented and misunderstood black
womens lives. The notion of a monolithic womens experience has been predominant, so that black women have been viewed as only women, and their experiences of
racist structures viewed as being part of black mens experiences:
We are rarely recognised as a group separate and distinct from black men, or as a present
part of the larger group women in this culture. When black people are talked about,
sexism militates against the acknowledgement of the interests of black women, when
women are talked about racism militates against a recognition of black female interests.
When women are talked about the focus tends to be on white women. Nowhere is this
more evident than in the vast body of feminist literature. (Hooks, 1982, p. 7)

This has been underpinned by a research approach whereby white researchers have
rarely acknowledged differences between themselves and the women that they

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International Journal of Social Research Methodology 407

research. Where difference has been acknowledged in feminist work, black writers
point out that difference has often been viewed negatively, so that racist conclusions
have been made in which black womens liberation is seen to come from the adoption
of western values, for example, by the entry of women into waged labour (Aziz, 1997;
Carby, 1997; Collins, 2000). Even when difference is viewed positively, white womens
lives and the norms that govern those lives occupy a central position against which
black womens experiences are compared and analysed (Hooks, 1990). Harris (1997)
refers to this as the nuance approach in which white researchers claim that they can
be sensitive to differences between women by offering statements about all women in
general but qualifying these with the particularities of experience of specific groups of
women, these often appearing in footnotes.
A white perspective governs what kind of research is conducted and how it is interpreted and white women become the norm, or pure, essential Woman (Harris, 1997,
p. 14). When black women have struggled to voice their hidden experiences and to
create new narratives, white feminists have viewed these purely through the framework
of racism, thereby maintaining their hegemony within the womens movement
(Hooks, 1990). The interconnected sources of black womens oppression, relating to
structures of race, gender and class, have thereby been unexamined by white feminism
(Carby, 1997). Black women writers and researchers have, particularly since the 1980s,
produced a large volume of work about their lives, suggesting that feminism must
increasingly contend with the heterogeneity of women. However, many argue that this
has had little impact upon mainstream academic disciplines, with black women
remaining invisible and silenced (Bolles, 2001; Collins, 1998; McClaurin, 2001).
A Study about Black Muslim Womens Fear of Crime
The impetus for the study presented in this paper arose from a realisation that although
feminist work has made a substantial contribution to the fear of crime debate in criminological and other social scientific arenas, revealing that underpinning womens
anxiety about crime is a fear of sexual danger posed by male intimates, acquaintances
and strangers (Kelly, 1988; Stanko, 1990, 2002), feminist analyses have insufficiently
taken into account the notion of difference. As a result, little is known about the specific
anxieties (and their meanings) of specific groups of women, particularly those who
have different cultural, religious and racial heritages from those of mainstream British
society. This study was an attempt to introduce greater diversity and specificity into
feminist work on womens fear of crime. It is also important to note that national crime
surveys, which explore crime-related anxiety, tend to use very general categories when
classifying minority ethnic groups, so that important religious and cultural differences
are thereby omitted (Spalek, 2002).
Ten Muslim women living in the Birmingham area who wear the Hijab were interviewed at length and questions were asked about their personal safety, their views on
crime and any experiences of victimisation. The reason for choosing women who veil
to take part in the study was that the researcher was interested in documenting the role
that veiling plays in the management of the womens personal safety. Veiling is a

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symbol of Islam, a physical signifier of difference, so that these women might become
targets of hate crime. At the same time, the researcher wanted to explore the role of the
Hijab in terms of womens lives in relation to men. The women who were interviewed
were aged between 19 and 30. The interviews were conducted between May 2001 and
December 2001 and thus the terrorist attacks in the US of September 11th took place
whilst the research project was being carried out. These attacks had serious repercussions upon Muslim communities around the world, and many individuals were
attacked (and killed) or subjected to abuse, and mosques also became the targets of hate
crime. The interview data therefore also include the womens experiences of harassment and violence in the aftermath of September 11th. The following quotation is an
example of how some Muslim women changed their behaviour as a result of an
increased perceived and actual threat following September 11th:
During the first few days after the attack on America my family was very cautious. My
mother began to pick me up from work as I work in the city centre and when I am going
home I pass by many pubs and clubs where people go to spend their evenings. My mother
was also wary that the people whom I work with might also become prejudiced, but thankfully this has not happened The event has definitely changed the way my family and I
move around. My mother avoided going into central town to shop until she had no choice.
(Spalek, 2002, p. 64)

The Muslim womens anxiety was explored and the multifaceted aspects to veiling
recorded, including the Hijab as liberational since many of the women argued that the
Hijab frees them from the male (sexual) gaze:
If you take that away from the equation, the womans body, thats one less thing for men.
If they do look at you they are not looking at you in a bad sense, theyre looking at you
because of what you are wearing as in a scarf or a veil. (Spalek, 2002, p. 68)

The Importance of Exploring the Researchers Subjectivity in the Research Process

Feminist research principles call for reflexivity over the research process, this being
seen as a key way of ensuring rigorousness and reliability when carrying out research.
The fallacy of so-called value-neutral or objective research has been exposed and feminists have successfully claimed that the beliefs and behaviours of social scientists influence the perception and documentation of social experience. As a result, it is
considered to be important to articulate the often hidden values and characteristics of
the researcher and their impact on the research process so as to enable the research to
be fully scrutinised (Edwards & Ribbens, 1998; Harding, 1987).
Work carried out by black critical feminists particularly illustrates the multitudinous nature of subjectivity, since black womens lives are marked by a multitude of
race, class and gender positions, thereby highlighting the multiplicity of subject locations and the simultaneity of oppression that can be experienced:
Those of us who live on the margins of society have always embodied multiple roles, straddled multiple social arenas, negotiated multiple effects of power and fashioned multiple
identities to survive. (McClaurin, 2001, p. 55)

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International Journal of Social Research Methodology 409

The notion of double consciousness has been raised, highlighting how distinct aspects
of self can co-reside, and so as well as there being aspects of the self linked to marginalised positions, there may also be parts of the self that can be linked to the perpetuation
of centres of power (Collins, 1998; McClaurin, 2001). This suggests that different
aspects of a researchers self-identity will influence the research process at different
times. Exploring which aspects of self-identity become dominant during research and
examining the impact that these aspects have on the study being undertaken can
enhance our understanding of the relationship between self-identity and research, and
can highlight the micro-processes involved in perpetuating dominant knowledge
constructions and power relations. The following account of a research study that was
carried out by a white researcher examining black Muslim womens lives illustrates
how different aspects of self were played out by the researcher during the course of the
study, some of these serving to perpetuate dominant knowledge constructions, thereby
marginalising minority experiences.
Sampling Decisions: Deciding Which Black Muslim Women to Interview
A subject position that I held throughout the research study, and which had a significant impact upon the sampling approach that was taken, was that of the western
researcher. According to Collins (1998), western scientific discourse has created the
illusion of binary oppositions, so that human differences have been viewed simplistically in opposition to each other. My sampling approach resembles this compartmentalised view of the world, since I operated according to the binary of free choice versus
no choice. I tried to target women to take part in the study who, in my point of view,
were likely to have freely chosen to wear the Hijab. For me, free choice meant that
the women were under no pressure from their families and wider communities to veil
but rather, had decided to do so for themselves. Women attending the university at
which I was based were asked to take part in the study, the rationale here being that
these women were less likely to experience patriarchal authority at home, and, being
educated, were more likely to belong to an increasing number of young Muslim people
in Britain who resort directly to the Quran and hadiths as a resource in Islam rather
than accepting the traditional views passed on to them from their parents (Joly, 1995).
Preliminary discussions were conducted with Muslim female students and those
women who talked about veiling in relation to their own interpretations of Islamic
doctrine were selected to take part in the study.
However, in pursuing the approach outlined above, rather than valuing Muslim
womens lives, I served to perpetuate a demonised Other. This is because by
constructing the binary opposition free choice/no choice this served to perpetuate
dominant western misrepresentations of Islam, relegating the no choice side of the
binary to a deviant, oppositional Other. A more sensitive approach would have been
to interrogate western perceptions of free choice and to explore how Muslim women
understand choice in relation to veiling. A particularly worrying aspect of this
discussion is how unquestioningly, subconsciously even, I assumed that concepts
readily in use in my own everyday life, and in wider western society in general, were

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applicable to documenting the experiences of black Muslim women. I would argue

that professional western training in social scientific research methods fails to sufficiently encourage researchers to critically explore the inherent biases in the socially
constructed worldviews that underpin research. An approach that asks questions
about the researchers place in an academic disciplines intellectual discourse should
be actively pursued (Edwards & Ribbens, 1998; McClaurin, 2001).
A focus upon the emotions experienced by a researcher as they carry out their work
can help to illuminate her/his subject positions. An emerging body of feminist work
considers emotionality to be a central part of documenting and examining the nature
of the researchers subjectivity (see Pickering, 2001). Traditionally, this form of introspection has not been pursued, amid concerns that researchers who explore their feelings might attract accusations of unhealthy absorption or emotional exhibitionism
(Pickering, 2001, p. 486). Nonetheless, this work suggests that by analysing emotionality, there is the potential to reveal hidden decision-making processes which can be
linked to power hierarchies inherent in research (Pickering, 2001). As part of this process, researchers examine the emotions that they experience as they carry out their work.
The emotions that are identified are then used as markers which can help reveal aspects
of both the researchers and participants biographies that have a significant, if hidden,
effect upon the research process. By reflecting upon the emotions that I experienced as
I interviewed black Muslim women, I found that this helped to illuminate the multitudinous nature of my subjectivity and its influence over the research process, as will be
outlined below.
Emotionality when Interviewing Black Muslim Women
The semi-structured interviews took place at locations convenient to the participants,
on university premises and also in quiet cafes in Birmingham city centre. The womens
reasons for veiling, their feelings of personal security and their experiences of victimisation were explored and recorded on a tape recorder, and then later transcribed.
Edwards (1993) writes that many feminist researchers have claimed that a special
woman-to-woman connection exists between female researchers and female interviewees, enabling interviewees to disclose personal and sensitive information. Nonetheless, Edwards (1993) questions this claim, arguing that divisions between women in
terms of race and/or class can undermine any such link or understanding.
After reflecting upon the feelings that I experienced as I interviewed the women, and
after reading through the interview transcripts, it is clear that I was engaged in emotion
management (Williams & Bendelow, 1998), whereby I tried to suppress some
emotions whilst actively encouraging others. The emotions that I experienced as I
conducted the interviews related to my positions of being a woman, being white and
being a western academic and my interaction with the interviewees. Uncomfortable
feelings, such as guilt and anxiety, were suppressed whilst other, more reassuring and
comforting emotions were pursued. Negative emotions arose from my position of
white western researcher. Having never experienced racial abuse myself, it was difficult to know how to approach the issue of racial violence with the interviewees, as I had

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International Journal of Social Research Methodology 411

no personal experience to draw from which could be used to increase rapport. At the
same time, I felt acutely aware of my privileged racial position over the interviewees,
where being white is constituted in opposition to its subordinate other, the not-white,
the not-privileged (Lewis & Ramazanoglu, 1999, p. 23). This deep-rooted awareness of
racial privilege, one which wasnt openly acknowledged but which nevertheless influenced how I felt as I conducted the interviews and therefore influenced the data that I
gathered, can be linked to the racial structuring of my material environment. I can
remember a number of instances whereby I have occupied a racially privileged position, for example, as a teenager taking the bus to school and seeing white pupils verbally
and physically abuse black pupils. Rather than intervening and helping the black
students, however, I was relieved that I was not the object of such violence. These sorts
of experiences have shaped my white identity, leaving behind complex feelings
towards racial Others (see Frankenberg, 1993).
As a feminist researcher, struggling against patriarchal power, it is difficult to
acknowledge that women can, as well as being oppressed, be oppressors. Mama (1996)
cogently argues that violence against women is not intrinsically male, as many white
feminists have portrayed, but rather, white women (as well as white men) have participated in race attacks. As a feminist researcher, I was extremely uncomfortable with the
notion that due to my white identity I might belong to the category of oppressor. So I
focused upon an aspect of my identity that I could claim constituted the oppressed,
which means that instead of examining the racial dimensions to the interviewees lives,
I directed the line of questioning towards the womens general experiences of violence
from men. This means that although I recorded some instances of racial abuse, these
were not explored in any depth as I did not use follow-up questions to enable the
women to elaborate further upon these experiences.
I was also acutely aware of my position as western academic and of the negative
stereotyping of Muslims in western discourses. Many white, non-Muslim social
commentators and journalists have propagated false images of Islam, and so the interviewees may have viewed me as being a part of this white, western, establishment, and
so may not have fully revealed their experiences to me. Moreover, due to the verbal and
physical abuse suffered by Muslim communities in the aftermath of the September 11,
2001 terrorist attacks, the interviewees may have distrusted my interest in their lives,
which means that although I documented some examples of the womens postSeptember 11th worries, I cannot be sure how adequately and thoroughly I did this. As
Gorelick (1991, p. 464) observes, a subject population does not tell the truth to those
in power.
Through emotion management I also suppressed the cultural and religious dimensions to the black interviewees lives. This can be illustrated by the following example.
One of the interviewees argued that:
I used to get approached quite a lot before, hassled on the street by men pointing and
shouting names and all that sort of stuff. But since Ive worn the veil Ive not had any problems. None at all, absolutely none, its been two years. I mean even in the street when I used
to walk down I used to get Asian men whistling or pointing fingers or whatever it was and
I havent had that since two years. (Quoted in Spalek, 2002, p. 61)

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As can be seen above, this woman clearly refers to the abuse she suffered from Asian
men, yet my subsequent questioning did not explore why in particular this woman
highlighted that it was Asian rather than white men that were bothering her.
Researchers have previously cautioned against constructing the lives of people of
different ethnicities as being deviant or bizarre (Maynard, 2002). My fear of otherising the research subjects, as well as my wish to emotionally bond and establish
rapport with them, led me to stress the commonalities of experience of the interviewees as women. In doing so, however, my work can be criticised on the basis that
I insufficiently captured the ethnic and cultural aspects to these womens lives. Yet
as Mamas (1996) work on domestic violence against black women shows, there is
often a specific cultural context to the violence, as in the case, for example, where
some men use religion to assert their control over women. Perhaps one way of
avoiding stigmatising Muslim communities when documenting the abusive aspects
of some Muslim womens lives would be to carry out a project that examines the
experiences of a wide range of women from many different cultures, including white
womens experiences, so that womens plight as a result of the actions of men would
not appear to be solely a Muslim issue. This type of cross-cultural approach has the
added advantage of enabling researchers to document how certain experiences are
shared across different communities, as well as allowing for differences to be
acknowledged (Maynard, 2002).
In contrast to the anxiety that I felt in my position of white western academic, I
drew comfort from my position as woman, due to feeling an intimate connection with
the interviewees with respect to the issue of men. National and local crime surveys
reveal that actual and potential harassment and violence from men frames many
womens lives (Kelly & Radford, 1998; Mooney, 2000; Stanko, 2002). I have, for example, encountered many difficult and frightening situations with men. I have been called
abusive names by men, I have experienced physical and sexual intimidation, and
indeed, a whole array of disturbing instances has punctuated my life. These situations
have left behind strong emotions. It is these emotions that I used to help me to establish
rapport with the interviewees and to uncover and record their anxiety about men, as
the following transcript data illustrates:
Most women, I mean if I was walking down a dark alley and I saw a man I would instantly
feel scared, Id fear for my life. Most women feel like that. Its always in the back of your
mind. Even in the daytime not necessarily in the dark so I do have that fear all of the time.
(Quoted in Spalek, 2002, p. 58)

Williams and Bendelow (1998, p. xvi) define emotion as existentially embodied

modes of being which involve an active engagement with the world and an intimate
connection with both culture and self. Williams and Bendelow (1998) argue that not
only do emotions reflect individual experience, but also, they point to the reproduction
of wider social structures. Through my emotional management, I would suggest that I
was reproducing the invisibility of black women in feminist discourses, thereby maintaining the hegemony of white feminism. Being white involves existing in a structurally located position of oppressor, a position that is rarely identified and acknowledged,

International Journal of Social Research Methodology 413

its invisibility helping to reproduce racism. I would argue that through managing my
emotions I was reproducing racist structures:
In a racially hierarchical society, white women have to repress, avoid and conceal a great
deal in order to maintain a stance of not noticing colour. (Frankenberg, 1993, p. 33)

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By pursuing reassuring feelings during the interview situation, feelings which were
linked to my position of woman, this led me to stress the commonalities of experience
between the black Muslim interviewees and women in general. This would suggest that
in cases where a researcher claims to have an affinity with her research interviewees she
may be engaged in emotion management, either consciously or subconsciously. This
means that she may be overlooking important differences between herself and her
research subjects and instead stressing their similarities so as to avoid uncomfortable
feelings. This then becomes part of the process of feeling:
Emotions always involve the body; but they are not sealed biological events. Both the act
of getting in touch with feeling and the act of trying to feel become part of the process
that makes the feeling we get in touch with what it is. In managing feeling, we partly create
it. (Hochschild, 1998, p. 11)

This would suggest caution when claiming any kind of rapport or understanding
between the researcher and the research participants. Comfortable feelings may be the
product of successful emotional management rather than any valid relationship
between interviewer and interviewee. At the same time, it is also important to note the
cultural dimension to the articulation of emotion, since according to Hochschild
(1998), people draw upon an emotional dictionary in order to articulate their feelings,
this dictionary being culture-dependent:
Each culture has its unique emotional dictionary, which defines what is and isnt, and its
emotional bible, which defines what one should and should not feel in a given context. As
aspects of civilising culture they determine the predisposition with which we greet an
emotional experience. They shape the predispositions with which we interact with
ourselves over time. Some feelings in the ongoing stream of emotional life we acknowledge, welcome, foster. Others we grudgingly acknowledge and still others the culture
invites us to deny completely. (Hochschild, 1998, p. 7)

A wide range of emotions is likely to be experienced during a research study, and so

cultural and social factors will influence how comfortable a researcher is with experiencing and acknowledging certain feelings. Emotion management can take place not
only during an interview situation but also in the write-up of a study, when decisions
(conscious and subconscious) are made regarding which feelings the researcher
decides to reflect upon and how those feelings are re-presented. Particularly negative
emotions may be filtered out from the write-up of research studies, due to their
powerful potential of revealing aspects of our subjectivities and power positions that
we dislike. Hollway and Jefferson (2000) use the psychoanalytic theory of Melanie
Klein to argue that the researcher, as well as the participant, is a defended subject,
meaning that the self is forged out of unconscious defences against anxiety. When
reflecting upon a research project, then, researchers may be avoiding addressing the
particularly difficult or uncomfortable emotions that they experience. So the nature

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of the researchers subjectivity and its influence upon the research process may never
be sufficiently exposed or analysed.
Some researchers advocate an approach in which participants should be given a
greater role in the research process by allowing them to express their emotions and
views about taking part in a particular study. Special characteristics of race, class,
gender and so forth influence the nature of the relationship between researcher and the
researched and so it is argued that it would be useful to explore how research participants view the researcher and the likely impact of this on the study (Edwards, 1993).
However, this stance is problematic if, as Collins (1998) cogently argues, a collective
secret knowledge can be found in marginalised groups, which is only shared in private,
away from the surveillance of elite groups. So in terms of the study set out in this paper,
it is debatable whether or not the black Muslim women would have shared their
perceptions of the research process with me, and whether they would have openly
expressed any views that they might have of me in terms of my representing an elite that
serves to commodify difference rather than create oppositional knowledge.
Analysing the Interview Data Generated by Black Muslim Women
Turning now to the data analysis stage of the research project outlined in this paper,
again I faced certain challenges and dilemmas. Many of the women who were interviewed argued that the Hijab frees them from the male gaze:
I think Im dressing like this because I dont trust men but also I feel confident and
comfortable in my clothes I think that most men, all men are like potential rapists. You
cant trust any man, I wouldnt trust them. (Quoted in Spalek, 2002, p. 58)

Some women believed that by veiling they reduced their risk of being the victims of
harassment or physical or sexual assault:
It gives me a sense of that maybe they wont attack you because I am covered. (Quoted in
Spalek, 2002, p. 59)

Looking at western feminist accounts of womens management of their personal safety,

it has been argued that under the dominant system of male heterosexuality, women
stand before the male panoptical gaze (Bartky, 1998). Certain expectations are therefore placed on women in terms of how they look and how they behave, which in turn
translate into womens self-policing. Women who do not conform to the expected
behaviour of the Good Woman to avoid harassment and violence from men may be
judged as undeserving of societal protection (Stanko, 1997, p. 486). Feminist writers
seek to challenge the ways in which society holds women responsible for mens behaviour, arguing that it is mens behaviour that needs to be changed (Dobash & Dobash,
1998).
When trying to analyse the data generated from the interviews that I conducted, my
first reaction was to see if I could frame the womens accounts within the literature
outlined in the above paragraph. So one interpretation of the interview data could be
that these women wear the Hijab as a result of community expectations about how they
should dress, since they have internalised community values regarding how the Good

International Journal of Social Research Methodology 415

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Woman should behave in order to avoid physical and sexual violence. Indeed, a study
by Ghazal Read and Bartowski (2000) illustrates how some Muslim clergy and Islamic
elites prescribe veiling as a custom in which good Muslim women should engage as
they are held responsible for their families honour. However, I was uncomfortable in
interpreting the womens accounts in this way, as by solely focussing upon the role of
societal and cultural traditions in Islamic practices, this would ignore the centrality of
faith. For many followers of Islam, the Quran is the actual word of God that was
recorded by Muhammad during the early part of the seventh century (Watson, 1994).
For many followers of Islam, there is thus a legitimate, moral authority upon which the
lives of men and women are based. In the Quran women are told:
And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their modesty, and not to
display their adornment, except that which ordinarily appears thereof; and to draw their
veils over their necks and bosom, and not to reveal their adornments except to their own
husbands, fathers (24: 31). (Yacub, 1994, p. 32)

And:
O Prophet, tell your wives and daughters and the believing women, that they should cast
their outer garments over their persons (when out of doors): That is most convenient, that
they should be known (as such) and not molested (33: 59). (Yacub, 1994, p. 32)

The representation of female and male sexuality in the Quran and the responsibility
placed upon women to manage mens behaviour means that issues of personal safety
cannot be separated out from their religious beliefs (Spalek, 2002). Thus, one of the
interviewees in the study reported in this paper argued that:
If you present yourself in a way that is not very modest then in a way youre making them
(men) cause sin of looking at you with bad intentions so if you protect yourself you protect
them from sinning. (Quoted in Spalek, 2002, p. 60)

It seemed inappropriate, therefore, to utilise western feminist frameworks to make

sense of these Muslim womens lives, as by referring solely to societal traditions and
expectations this would serve to undermine the authority of the Quran and the importance of faith. Indeed, the women taking part in my study agreed with the differences
between men and women that are set out in the Quran, arguing that in many situations
these distinctions serve to empower women. My findings thus echo Afshar and
Maynards (2000) contention that:
Muslim women have contested the mainstream feminists quest for equality, arguing
instead for the need to achieve a balanced gender complementarity They have used the
theological basis of Islam to carve their own path towards freedom They have argued
that Islam, as a religion, has always had to accommodate womens specific needs. Islamist
women have chosen to reject some of the most important goals of mainstream western
feminism. (Afshar & Maynard, 2000, p. 811)

This illustrates the potential danger of trying to frame the voices of particular groups
of women within a dominant academic discourse. Edwards and Ribbens (1998) argue
that womens voices may be silenced or misunderstood through the utilisation of
academic disciplinary procedures and categories. Yet they also maintain that a

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416

B. Spalek

researcher must inevitably translate research participants stories in order to present

them in a way that is understandable to a Western audience. In order to minimise the
potential for re-shaping and re-defining participants experiences, Edwards and
Ribbens (1998) suggest that it is important to listen carefully to participants accounts.
This would suggest the need for western feminists to adopt a greater sensitivity when
learning about the lives of women who occupy other standpoints. This is both timeconsuming and demanding work. One of the most challenging aspects of the study
reported here was attempting to understand Islamic beliefs. Meeting the interviewees
on more than one occasion in order to discuss religious doctrines and practices was
particularly helpful.
Although the interview data produced themes that were common to many of the interviewees, the generalisability of my work was limited due to the heterogeneity of people
who follow Islam, and the many different schools of Islamic thought that exist (Joly,
1995). This means that I felt I should try to avoid making knowledge claims about Muslim
women in general. Nonetheless, adopting such a relativistic stance proved to be problematic as certain oppressive structures frame many Muslims lives. For example, Islamophobia was heightened in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, and so I would
argue that generalising about how Muslim womens lives had been affected after the
terrorist atrocities could serve as an important political tool to gain adequate responses
to the womens plight. This illustrates the political power in highlighting the shared experiences of groups of women, so that using a wholly relativistic position is undesirable,
a point which has also been argued by other researchers like Moi (1990) and Luff (1999),
and demonstrated by critical black feminists (Collins, 1998; McClaurin, 2001).
Conclusion
This paper suggests the need for increased reflexivity over the nature of a researchers
subjectivity and its relationship to research, since the discussions featured here illustrate the complex, multitudinous and situated nature of self. Adopting a feminist methodological and political position is insufficient in protecting against biases from
critically influencing a research study, and consideration must be given to aspects of
self that are linked to the perpetuation of dominant structures of knowledge. This article further highlights the limitations of western feminist critiques when applied to
cultures different from mainstream western society. It illustrates the need for the development of analytical tools which are culturally sensitive and which do not evolve
around western feminists understandings of patriarchy and female empowerment.
Finally, when interviewing research participants who hold different racial, ethnic and
cultural positions, the researcher needs to be sensitive to the possibility that due to their
(conscious or subconscious) wish to establish rapport with the interviewees, they may
be overlooking, or insufficiently exploring, importance aspects of the interviewees
lives, aspects which are linked to racial/religious/cultural/class power hierarchies of
which the researcher may be a part. The researcher therefore needs to critically reflect
upon their emotion management during the interview situation and in the subsequent write-up of a study.

International Journal of Social Research Methodology 417

Notes
[1]
1.

The term black used in this article takes Mirzas (1997, p. 3) approach as consisting of the
shared space of postcolonial migrants of different languages, religions, cultures and classes
through the shared experience of racialisation and its consequences.

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