Indisei supply paradi onane from t Editec ‘Norm: Quatit forart intends volun ‘Working the Hyphens Reinventing Self and Other in Qualitative Research MICHELLE FINE (1944) 1am waiting for them to stop talking about the "Other" to stop even deseribing how important it is to be able to speak about difference. I is not Just important what we speak about, but Mow and ‘why we speak, Ofte his speech about the "Other Is also a mask, an oppressive tlk hiding gaps, absence, that space where our words would be if ‘we were speaking If there wore silence, if we ‘Were there, This "we" is that" that “we” who inhabit marginal space that isnot site of domination but place of esistance. Enter ‘that space, Often this speech aboot the “Othe” anni hilstes, erates: "no need to bear your voice when TTean talk about you beter than you ean speak out yourself. No need to ear your voice. Only tell me about your pain. 1 wantto know your story. ‘And then T wil tel it back to you in's new way. ‘Tellitbackto youin such sway that thas become mine, my own. Re-writng you, I write myself fnew, Tam sill author, authority, Lam sil the olonier, the speak subject, and you are RoW at the come of ay alk Sop, (hooks, 1990, pp 151- 152) ‘Much of qualitative research has reproduce contradietion-filled, a colonizing discourse ofthe “Other.” This essay isan attempt to review how [AUTHOR'S NOTE: My appreciation 10 Jl (qualitative retearch projects have Othered and to examine an emergent set of activist and/or post. ‘moder tents that interrupt Othering. First, Tex amine the hyphen at which Self-Other join in the politics of everyday life. that is, the hyphen that both separates and merges personal identities with four inventions of Others. I then take up how ‘qualitative researchers work this hyphen. Here 1 gather a growing set of works on “Inscribing the Other” viewing arguments that exitcal, feminist, and/ot Third World scholars have poted about social science as a tool of domination. This sec ion collects @ messy series of questions about methods, ethics, nd epistemologies as we rethink how researchers have spoken “of” and “for” Oth- xs while occluding ourselves and our ow invest reais, burying the contradictions that percolate at the Self-Other hyphen. A renewed sense of possibility breathes i the next section, in which I present discussion of ‘qualitative esearch projects designed for social change. Here readers engage narratives weitten against Othering, analyzing not just the decontex- tualized voices of Others, But the very structures, ideologies, contexts, and practices that constitute Othering (Bhaymani, 1992). Qualitative researchers imterested in self-consciously working the hyphen— Blackman, Norman Denzi, and Yvonna Linco fr ext reading land comments. Credits ls owed iL. Mun Wong Cindy Kublk, Sarah Ingersoll. Judi Adelson, and Kim Miz for helping me develop these notions. 7”be cae fresno Working the Hyphens: Reinventing Self and Other in Qualitative ‘thats, unpacking notions of scientific neutral ‘universal traths, and researcher dispassion—wi be invited to imagine how we can braid eritical and contextual struggle back into our texts (Bur ‘woy etal, 1992: Fine & Vanderlice, 1992), ‘This essay is designed to rupture the texusl laminations within which Others have been sealed by social scientists, to review the complicity of researchers in the construction and distancing of (Others, and to identify transgressive possiblities inside qualitative texts, Selves-Others: Co-constructions at the Hyphen In September 1989, my niece was sexually assauhed bya deparmen store secur officer. He enugt her shoplifig an then spent two hours retening her ‘with prison, legal repercussions, and Bikey ave at the hands of eer women in pesos. She ad jut tured 16, and half elleved bi Filled with ter, he Ustened for $0 minates of what would ltr be saarees, and transgressions but, for the mo- sare don't have to se, sel, hear, feel oF rnd to her.” The material and diseusi¥e inyphens, again. are being denied. Paes gate (1993) narrates a similar stOry about the historic encoding. within social sien: sent bates. of the “Cun)deserving pot.” Katz Xie eetpresentations oF the poor serose socal LOCATING THE FIELD science debates and public policies. He argues {har social scientists have insinuated moral bounda- Policy, enabling researchers, policy makers, and Mhe pole to believe that we can distinguish and SEARS those who are “deserving” and neglect Fonorably those who are “undeserving” and poor. We confront, then, one legacy of social re- search that constructs, legitimates, and distances Gener, banishing them to the margins of the Cutture, Sometimes these texts are used to deprive ‘Them of services; always to rob Them of whole, Tompler, humanity. Although these poraits of per. they are not. These ‘unworthy. dangerous. victimized, and Tere is, too. a growing postcolonial critique of Othering directed at those Hteratares wetten eesumebly “for” Otbers. Homi Bhabha (1990), Pee nstance, unravels “nation-cemered” discourses for inemve idealogice of "common clare.” To (Rive their hermetie seals be argues these cul, es are written in ways that essentalize and Silence women’s bodies and stories, Like Cornel ‘est (1988) and Kimberle Crenshaw (1992), Bhabha eee Gon at “common culture” discourses made cs ane by "the subsumption or sublation of soutal antagonism, ... the repression of social d onan the power to authorize an “iMPEr west holistic or universal discourse on the r=p- ‘onefation ofthe socal that naturalzes cultural Gtlerence and tuens it info “second” naire sifamnent” (p 242). Thus even “for” Others there Be rowing. stifling discourses that estentalize to map culture, aye yoot of this argument. whether Othering js produced "on" of “for.” qualitative researchers ie Pimto recognize that our work stands in some ‘Sration to Othering, We may self-consciously OF Tor decide how to work the hyphen of Self and ao eespow to gloss the boundaries between, and cease aippery constroctons of Others. But when look, get involved, demur, analyze, interprt: Tone, speak. remain silent, walk away, organize for ottrage, or sanitize our stories, wpe bout subjugated Others asi cher were & esa epeaus mass (of Vice ot virtue). fee-loat- Tag and severed from contexts of oppression. and ine te were neutral transmiters of voices and Setice, we tilt toward a narrative strategy that RGproduces Orbering on. despite or even “Tor.” ‘Shon we construct texts collaboratively, self vereigusly examining ovr relations with/for/de~ cores those who have been contained at OUers, Trove against, we enable esstance to. OtENInE, a| i | i i é Working the Hyphens: Reinventing Self and Other in Qualiztive Research 75 ‘This is no simple binary opposition of Self and (Other, nor of texts that inscribe and texts that resist. There is no easy narrative litmus for Oth- ering. Contradictions Her all narrative forms. ‘And all narratives about Others both inscribe and resist othering. Yetin becoming self-conscious of work atthe hyphen, researchers can see a history ‘of qualitative research that has been deeply colo- nial, surveilling, and exotic (Clifford & Mareus, 1986; Prat, 1985, 1992; Rosaldo, 1989). Now that the subjects of U.S. ethnography have come home, ‘qualitative accounts of urban and rural, poverty Stricken and working-class, white and of color ‘America flourish. Through these texts, the Other survives next door. But the privileges, interests, ‘biographies, fetishes, and invesuments of researchers typically remain subtext, buried, protected (Hard> ing, 1987; Haraway, 1988). ‘Renato Rosaldo (1989) contends that there are no “innocent” ethnographers. When innocence is sought, Roseldo writes, the “eye of ethnography [often connects with] the I of imperialism” (p. 41). ‘The project at hand isto unravel, critically, the blurred boundaries in our relation, and in’ our texts; to understand the political work of our narratives; to decipher how the tradition of social science serve wo inseribe; and to imagine how our practice can be transformed to resis, self-con- Eciously, acts of othecing. As these scenes of translation vividly convey, qualitative researchers are chronically and uncornfortably engaged in tthical decisions about how deeply te work witht Tor/despite those cast as Others, and how seam= lessly to represent the hyphen. Our work will ‘never “arrive” but must always srugale “between.” ‘Writing Against Othering {to think the intellectual should constantly dis- orb, should bear witness to the misery of the ‘word, should be provocative by being independent, ould rebel aginst all hidden and open pressures ‘and manipolations, should be the chief doobier of ‘ystems, of power and its incantations, should be the witnes ftir mendacity... AR intellectual is always at odde with ard and fast eatogories, because these tend to be instruments used by the vietors (Have, 190, p. 167) In contrast to “hard and fast” exts that inscribe and commodity Others, we move now toa set of texts that self-consciously interrupt Othering, that force a radical rethinking ofthe ethical and politi- cal relations of qualitative researchers tothe ob- {jectfsubjects of our work. In this section | review three chunks of work that write against Othering, First, 1 present those texts that insert “uppity” voices, stances, and critiques to interrupt Master [Narratives (see Austin, 1989; Fanon, 1965: Fine, 1992; hooks, 1989; Rollins, 1985). Often, but not always, these are essays writen about'and by ‘women of color, situated atthe intersection of race and gender oppression (Crenshaw, 1992) ‘Second, | examine texts in which qualitative researchers dissect elites’ constructions of Self and Other. Listening to elites as they manicure them-Selves through Othering, we hear the voices of white fraternity brothers interviewed by Peggy Sanday (1990), white high school boys in Lois ‘Weiss (1990) analysis of “working class without work," and nondisabled researchers’ analysis of| persons wit disabilities, projecting their existen- tial and aesthetic anxieties onto the bodies of disabled Others (Hahn, 1983). In each instance, the words of elites are analyzed by researchers as they evince # discourse of Othering. This work ‘enables us to eavesdrop on privileged conscious- ress ait seeks to peel Self off of Other. ‘The thitd chunk of writing against Othering comprises those texts that press social research for social activism, Engaged with struggles of social transformation, these researchers rase ques- ions about the etbies of involvement and the cthics of detachment, the illusions of objectivity and the borders of subjectivity, and the possbili- ties of collaborative work and the dilemmas of collusion (Burawoy et al, 1992; Fine & Vi ‘erslice, 1992: Kitzinger, 1991; Lykes, 1989). ‘From the qualitative works discusted here sur- faces the next generation of ethical and epistemo- logical questions for qualitative researchers com- mite to project of social justice, These writers! researchers mark a space of analysis in which the motives, consciousness, politics, and stances of informants and researchers/wrters are rendered contradictory, problematic, and filled with rans- ‘pressive possibilities. Scene 1 Rupturing Texts With Uppity Voices Gayatsi Chakravorty Spivak (1988) contends that scademics/researchers can do little to correct the “material wrongs of colonialism.” She argues ‘that “In the face ofthe possibility thatthe intel leetual is complicit in the persistent consittion of Other at the Sells shadow, a possibility of political practice forthe intellectual would be to ‘atthe economic ‘under erasure’ ” (p. 280). Like bel hooks and Joan Scott, Spivak asks that re~ Searchers stop trying to know the Other or give ice to the Other (Scott, 1991) and listen, in- Sead, to the plural voices of those Othered, as ‘constrictors and agents of knowledge.Indisc mathe supp parad onar anda: Qualt doing forst. avan inep Contr ande anh fromt Te ES, 16 Although I would quibble with Spivak’s sense of the diminished capacity of researchers to par- ticipate in the inveruption/rancformation of s0- cial conditions, central to Spivak’s and Scow's project isthe noxion that researchers/wrters need {olisten and alto reveal As researchers, we need t0 position ourselves as no longer transparent, but as lassed, gendered, raced, and sexual subjects who Construct our own locations, narrate these loca tions. and negotiate our stances with relations of domination (Giroux, 1991). But toward what end? “Chantal Mouffe (1988) would implore activist academies to determine what conditions are nec~ esuary for specific forms of subordination to pro- ‘duce struggles that seek ther abolishment and to fuse these as links ina ‘chain of equivalence’ * (@. 99) Like Mouffe, Corel West (1988) details $ liberotory agenda for social research in which ‘we undersake ingury ino the supremacist logics ‘of domination, into the micropractices of daily fubjogation, and into the maerostructural dynam- jes of class and politial exploitation. Urging us te document evidence of struggle, resistance, and ‘ounterhegemony (p. 22), West presses for = Search agenda steeped in movements for social Juste. ow engaged researchers become with for, against, despite Othering constitutes a political decision that is never resolved simply “in the feat” by “not geting involved” and “doing Science” instead, As Stanley Aronowitz (1988) has writen, "Science purpons to separate the domination of nature from human domination and fegards itself as ideologically neutral” (p. $27). “The decision to reieat from scenes of domina- tion in the name of Science is oxymoronic wit essing injustice without outrage. The Other is Constituted. The Self is shadowed. Science is pre Served. Prevailing politics prospers. Objectivity is assumed, As Spivak (1988) warns. the benevo- lent “construc(tion of] a homogeneous Other” conly reassures “our own place in the seat of the Same or the Self" (p. 288). Although most quali tative work has refused t0 engage intentionally ‘with the politics of justice, a few texts have im- ported Others to crack the binary oppositional scours within social science andthe law. Much fof this work comes from Alican Ameri¢an women iting at the intersection, as Kimberie Crenshaw (1992) explains: “The particular experience of Black women in the omainant eulture cology of American society an be conceptualized 3 Intersectonal Intersec- onaity captures the way in which the particslar focation of Black women in dominant American Social relations e unique an in some sense unas Smilable o the discursive paradigms of gender and race domination. (p.2) LOCATING THE FIELD Using the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas bear- ings asthe ground for her analysis of intersection- ality, Crenshaw maintains that although dita Hill sat atthe nexus of racelgender oppression, she was presented "as if" she were the prototype ‘white woman harassment vitim pitted against the prototype black man accused of rape. Crenshaw tses these images to explode. as both theoret cally inadequate and strategically problematic, the narrow cultural frames that have contained race as black and male and gender as white and female. Contending that black women's experi- ences are not binary but profoundly intersection, land therefore radically threatening to existing frames, Crenshaw sees Anita Hill's stam as "sit ‘ted within two Fundamental hierarchies of social wer (gender and race),” and says that “the cen- {ral disadvantage that Hill faced was the lack of available and widely comprehended narratives to ‘communieate the reality of her experience as a Black woman tothe world” (p. 2). Crenshaw ar- gues that the double marginality of black women, Suppressed within both gender and race nar tives, is exacerbated by the silencing of black women within the pact of race solidarity between black women and men. Hill hd to be deraced 10 be recognized as a survivor of sexual harassment, and, Crenshaw contends, this is why so many women of color rejected her story as authentic. ‘Repositioning Hill at the renegade survivor resisting a the intersection of race and gender Codes, unwilling 1 be silenced, Crenshaw sits ‘open white feminism and black solidarity as cul- tural narratives that fundamentally marginalize the experience, complexity. and critique of black ‘women. Crenshaw concludes, “The vilification of ‘Anita Hill andthe embracing of Clarence Thomas reveals that a Black woman breaking ranks to ‘Complain of sexual harassment is a much greater threat than a Black man who breaks ranks over race potiey” (p. 32). In Sapphire Bound! atext authored some three years earlier, Regina Austin (1989) makes visible those ideologies surrounding back women’s bod- fes and minds as they are buried in seemingly coherent legal texts. Austin first inserts autobio- eraphie outrage: ‘When was the last time someone told you that your way of approaching problems . . . was all frrong? You ate too angry, too emotional too Subjective, t00 pessimist, too political. 10 an edowal and too instinctive? I never krow how to fespond to such accusations. How can I legitimate ‘ny way of thinking? I know that lam not used to ‘ying off the handle. seeing imaginary insults and problems where there are none. am aot 2 witch folely by nature, But by circumstance and choice swe. [suspect that what my erties really want to say i that | am being oo self consciously blackFT TY be ese phi AFRe Working the Hyphens: Reinventing Self and Other in Qualitative Research n (Grown, yellow, red) andlor female to suit their tastes and should “lighten up” because Iam mak ing them feel very uncomfortable, and that i not tice, And want them to think that am nie, don't Tor “womanisk"?... The chief rourees of oot theory should be black women's eiiques of = society that is dominated by and structured 19 favor white men of wealth and power. We shoald also find inspiration in the modes of resistance black women mount, individually and collectively. (9.540) ‘Austin then detail the legal ease in which Crystal Chambers, an African American adult woman, single and pregnant, was fired from Omaha Girls Club because, as the justices argued, “while a single pregnant woman may indeed provide a {good example of hard work and independence, fhe same person may be a negative role model ‘with respect tothe girs" club objective of dimin- ishing the numberof tenage pregnancies" (p. 551). ‘Austin writes: ‘A black feminitjerisprudenti! analysis of Cham- bets mutt eeriovily consider the possiblity that young, single, sexually active ferle and nurur- ing black ‘women are teing viewed ominously because they have the temerity to atlempt to break ‘ut of the rigid, economic, social and political Categories that 2 racist, sexist and less stratified society would impose upor them... Like a tear fonout ree, Crystal turns up unmarried and Pregnant, As soc, she embodied the enemy... 10 the eaute of black coltral containment. (9.551) With the body of Crystal Chambers, Austin levers critical analysis of African American women as they collectively embody the Other in the law. ‘Austin writes against Otheriag through aurobiog- raphy, and through the embodied story of Crystal Chambers, In an extension ofthis stance, Austin (1992) argues in a more recent paper, tided “The Black Community,” ts Lawbreakers and a Poll- ties of Identification, for whst she alls a “politics of identification,” in which there is crical en- fpagement of lawbreakers by the black middle lass, in an effort to invent and resuscitate, dis- ‘corsively and materially, “the (black) commu- nity” (p. 1815) ‘Mari Matsuda (1989), another critical feminist legal scholar of enor, self-consciously wresagunst (Othering by reimagining a legal eanon written out ofthe experience of Others. By analyzing how the Taw buries vies" voiees and how it protects an abusive elite, Matsuds invents legal text that would privilege the experienees of victims. She not only Jegitimates voices of subjugation, but presumes them to be the most substantive wellspring for critical legal knowledge: “There isan outsiders jurisprudence growing and Aieiving alongside mastream jurisprudence in ‘Americas law schools. The new feminist jurispr- fence is 2 lively example of this A related, and lest celebrated outsider jurisprudence is tht be- longing to people of color. What is t dat charac terizes the net jrisprudence af people of color? Firsts a methodology grounded inthe particulars ‘oftheir social reality and experience. This method ‘is consciously both historial and revisionist {emptng 1 know history from the botiom. From the fear and namelessness of the slave, from the broken treaties of the indigenous Americans, the desire to know bistory from the botiom has forced these scholars to sources often ignored: journals, poems, oral histories and stories from thet own fxpericnce of life ina hierarchically arranged ‘work (Outsiders thus search for what Anne Seales has called the ratchet—lega tools that have progres five effect, defying the habit of neural principal toeeirench exiting power. (p. 11) Crenshaw, Austin, and Matsuda force readers to hear subjugated voices not as Others but a5 primary informants on Othering and asthe source for radical rethinking of the law. Like these lepal theorists, sociologist Judith Rollins (1985) stud- jes domination enacted by elite white women on the women of color who work for them as domes- tics. Committed to the theoretical inversion of (Othering, Rollins inerrupts what @ white reader ‘would recognize as the traditional equipment of nareativelegimacy, Rollins delivers her analysis from the vantage of the women employed as do- testis, Reversing who would typically be relied Spon to tell the “real” story and who would be portrayed as Othe, Rollins allows readers to hear hhow much subjugated women know about them- Selves and about Others. At the same time, she ‘analyzes how privileged women lack knowledge fof Self and knowledge of those who work for then: “Thus, domestics" suonger consciousness of the (Other Funeions not only to help them survive in {he occupation but also to maintain their self re- Sponse. The worker in the home has 2 level of [Knowledge about familial and personal problems tha few outsiders do, I i not surprising that domestic workers do not ake the insulting 2t- tudes and judgments of employers seriously: they ae in position to make seathing judgments of theie own. (p. 215) Jean Baker Miller, in her book Toward a New Paychology of Women (1976),arpues a point similar to that made by Rollins. In colonizing relations, ‘what Mile calls “dominant-subordinate relations.”_—_——a 8 subordinates spend much time studying the Other. ‘They carry, therefore, substantial knowledge about Self and dominants. Given their need to anticipate and survive, they contain this knowledge and femain silent about the extent to which dominants ‘depend on them. Rarely do they display/aunt their knowledge of the Other. At the same time, the dominant Other suffers for lack of knowledge of self or others. Patricia Hill Collins (1990) develops stand- point theory (see also Dorothy Smith, 1987, 1992) through African American women, who have been potitioned as “outsiders within" the academy and {hereby enjoy a" peculiar marginalit.” She urges ‘women to venture into this marginality and un- carth a “collective self defined Black feminist Consciousness” by listening to black women's ‘ories as they confront and resist images of them- selves as Other, Collins recognizes that dominant ‘groups havea "vested interest in suppressing such ‘houghi," and for that reason she encourages women, to engage in just such subversive work—in con- texts where we'te wanted and notin communities that feel comforting, and in those we know to be strange and dangerous. ‘Rupturing narratives allow us to hear the uppity voices of informants and researchers who speak against structures, representations, and practices ‘of domination, In these ex, reverchers are work Jing the hyphen, reconciling the slippery construc tions of Self and Other andthe contexts of oppres- sion in which both are invented, Scene 2: Probing the ‘Conssiousness of Dominant Others ‘This second slice of scholarship written self- ‘consciously against Othering probes how indi- ‘viduals inhabiting a space of dominance construct their sense of Self through the denigration of (Others. These social researchers unpack how dom nants manufacture and conceptualize thir rla- tions with tubordinated Others through violence, denigration, and exploitation, For instance, Peggy Sanday (1990) has studied how white fraternity brothers create a collective sense of brotherhood through acts of homopho- bia, racism, and sexism, which enables them 10 deny their homoerotcism. By stadying these young, men as elites who abuse power over women and over men of color, Sanday articulates the psy- hodynamies of collective homophobia st breeds “outgroup” violence, allows “in-group" home- croiciem, and hyperconfirms “ie brothers™ public heterosexuality. im parallel intellectual form, disability scholar Harlan Hahn (1983) has reviewed the works of, nondisabled researchers of disability, only tocon- Clade that by reading their work we learn more LOCATING THE FIELD about these researchers terror of disability than ‘we do about the persons with disabilities about ‘whom they presumably have written, Haha theo- ‘izes that nondisabled researchers carry existen- tial and aesthetic antieties about bodily dis-integ- rity that they project onto the bodies of persons with disabilities. Their narratives are laced with anxieties 25 if they were simply in the bodies of “them rather than (ua)setled within the (ua}eon- sciousness ofthe researche ‘As a last example, I draw upon the work of ethnographer Lois Weis, who has spent much time interviewing white working-class adolescent males in a town whose economy has been ravaged by