Feminist Fieldwork Analysis (review)

Historically, most sociologists and anthropologists learned to do fieldwork through sink-or-swim adventures with trial and error. Now, however, we are seeing a flood of writings on qualitative research methods. The best of these, in my view, are pragmatic accounts, written by experienced ethnographers who share the wisdom of their experience and thereby provide for readers the feel of an apprenticeship, albeit in a textual mode. This practical approach, rich with examples drawn from successful research, characterizes Sherryl Kleinman's Feminist Fieldwork Analysis.

Kleinman assumes a basic knowledge of fieldwork methods and an interactionist approach – that is, an interpretive sociology in which the researcher has an acknowledged presence. Her goal in this short book is to provide models for analyzing gender (as a system of social stratification) and patriarchy (the term she uses to label the male domination accomplished through that system). She understands feminism as not only a mode of thought or body of theory, but also an identity for the researcher that carries with it a moral element, an agenda for critique and change. And she emphasizes that feminists are concerned not only with gender but also the inequalities associated with race, sexuality, class and other differences. Her account of feminism draws from theorists such as Marilyn Frye, Alison Jaggar and Robin Lakoff; it is straightforward and informative for readers who may not have a background in gender studies.

Kleinman has previously written insightfully about the emotional aspects of social research, and she makes particularly good use of feminist writers who foreground emotion: building on Alison Jaggar's writing about emotion as a source of knowledge, she offers the idea of keeping an eye on one's "twinge-ometer" – that is, acknowledging and exploring one's sense of a phenomenon that calls for analysis, even if the reasons can't immediately be articulated clearly. She also discusses the emotion associated with the language(s) of feminism(s), acknowledging that, "Words like 'patriarchy,' 'oppression,' and 'privilege' are hard-hitting,"(9) but arguing that they are useful because they sensitize reasearchers and their audiences to patterns of male domination.

Following an introductory discussion of fieldwork and feminism, five chapters are organized around analytic rubrics that are often useful in revealing dynamics of gender and cross-cutting inequalities. These are introduced via brief, catchy headlines. For example, a chapter titled "Talk is action" illustrates analyses of gender as it is performed through conversation; another titled "Similarities can be deceiving" outlines a view of gender asymmetry and male dominance, which are too easily missed because of surface similarities in women's and men's behaviors. Kleinman shows, in the next chapters, how one can analyze gender even in gender-homogenous settings and how sociological approaches to emotion can enrich gender analyses. In addition, she devotes one chapter to intersectional analyses that attend not only to gender but also dynamics of race and class.

Kleinman's approach is reminiscent of Howard Becker's treatment of "tricks of the (research) trade" (Becker 1998), and like Becker, she explains clearly many of the tacit skills of the fieldworker – the turns of mind that give the researcher a feel for rich and textured data, a sense of how to look and what to describe, and in the analytic phase of research, the knowledge of how to make a coherent and illuminating analysis out of what might appear on the surface to be rather unpromising scraps (or masses) of material from the field. Those who are impatient with Becker's "aw, shucks" persona may similarly find Kleinman's tone insufficiently theoretical – especially given the increasing emphasis in feminist theory on epistemology (sometimes, in my view, to the detriment of a sophisticated discussion of research practice). The theoretical foundation for the book does not reflect the burgeoning literature in transnational feminism; for most teaching contexts, I would want to supplement it with additional material referencing international studies. Still, I believe that many researchers will find it useful. It would be accessible for undergraduates in sociology or women's studies. Graduate students and experienced...