Feminist Participatory Methodologies in Geography: Creating Spaces of Inclusion
Abstract
This
introduction prefaces a special issue on the topic of feminist participatory
methodologies in geography. Drawing upon the experiences of the contributors in
developing new tools and methods to facilitate interaction with participants
and working with groups that tend to
be forgotten, subordinated and/or alienated, we argue for the methodological
significance of instating a feminist perspective to participatory research. Although
much theoretical debate has taken place among feminist and post-colonial
scholars on unequal research relationships between “researchers” and “research
subjects”, the literature on how to operationalize greater equality remains
quite limited. We attempt to fill this research gap by bringing together
scholars working in both the Northern and Southern hemispheres in order to
illuminate the multifaceted ways in which these methods can be used not only to
debunk hierarchical research relationships, but also to produce new scientific
insights with greater validity.