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The Journal of Higher Education 73.3 (2002) 427-431



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Book Review

Multiple and Intersecting Identities in Qualitative Research


Multiple and Intersecting Identities in Qualitative Research, edited by Betty M. Merchant and Arlette Ingram Willis. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum, 2001. 146 pp. $36.00 ($18.50)

Multiple and Intersecting Identities in Qualitative Research is a fresh, authentic, and important collection of narratives exploring the web of connections between personal identities and scholarly inquiries. Each author weaves together, in both seamless and tangled ways, the threads of personal subjectivities and multiple identities, cultural knowledge and heritage, and research interests and contexts in a way that gives rise to provocative questions and insights. In particular, "this book is a collection of reflections of researchers as they have attempted to analyze the personal and professional context in which research is conducted" (p. ix). Furthermore, because the authors are early in their professional careers and for the most part, persons conducting research in their own communities, each wrestles with important questions that emerge for them in relation to the research process and their academic "success." As the editors write in the preface to their book:

Taken as a whole, these seven chapters offer a serious challenge to the overly simplistic, often dichotomous descriptors (e.g., 'insider' vs. 'outsider') that have dominated the research literature for far too long. The authors write directly and courageously about the ways in which their multiple identities and positionalities harmonize, and at times conflict, with those of their research participants; in doing so, they call attention to important complexities in the qualitative research process that have, until now, received little or no attention. (p. x)

Because of what I, a White woman, also young in her academic career and whose work focuses on the area of multiple identities using qualitative methodology, [End Page 427] understand as the purpose, message, and spirit of this edited volume, I write this review drawing upon the authors' own voices as much as possible through ample quotations from the chapters in this book.

The first chapter, "Negotiating the Boundaries and Sometimes Missing the Mark: A White Researcher and a Mexican American Research Assistant," written by Betty Merchant, is a candid reflection on the issues that emerged from collaborative research. Describing a study of experiences of education among Mexican immigrants, Merchant examines the complex dynamics emerging from a research context in which one researcher was White, the other Mexican American, the teachers were nearly all White, and the participants in the study Mexican American. Merchant's willingness to acknowledge and grapple with these complex issues and to question her own positionalities and subjectivities results in the illumination of issues rarely brought forth in academic writing.

This chapter, when read in tandem with the one written by Merchant's graduate student research partner, Martha Zurita, and entitled "La Mojada y el Coyote: Experiences of a Wetback Researcher," provides unique perspectives on the research process and the influence of personal identities and histories on how research is conducted and why. For example, Merchant comments, "My perceptions of the similarities between us tended to obscure important differences between us, which prevented me from realizing that we were experiencing the process very differently from each other" (p. 4). Merchant's candid and authentic admission of the limits of her understanding are refreshing and lead to important insights. For example, although Merchant indicates that she was familiar with the literature on the tendency of White researchers to "give voice" and co-opt the experiences of "the other," this was not enough. She writes: "Familiarity with this literature was necessary, but not sufficient, for adequately monitoring my own subjectivities during the research process. Furthermore, the substantial work that I have done with Native American educators, which, by agreement, is directed by their needs, goals, and preferences and is situated within their cultural context, was not enough to prevent me from lapsing into culturally biased patterns of research" (p. 15).

Zurita in her piece chronicles her growing frustration with a research process that focuses on understanding rather than action, intervention...

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