Studying Intimate Matters: engaging methodological challenges in studies on gender, sexuality and reproductive health in sub-Saharan Africa by Barbara Ann Barrett and Christian Groes-Green (review)

Intimate matters have always had a place, even if it is a hidden one, at the heart of the research agenda concerning Africa. From the description of marriage in ‘tribal’ societies in colonial societies, or concerns regarding the population and environment during the decades after independence, to worries about the future of nations since the advent of AIDS, sex and sexuality have been widely studied and described. The collection of essays in the book Intimate Matters tell us that concerns regarding the research epistemology of studying intimate matters is, and remains, pivotal. Focusing on methodological challenges, this book is a timely intervention in the burgeoning field of development studies, sexual and reproductive health studies, HIV/AIDS studies, and other fields where personal and/or sensitive issues lie at the heart of the research agenda. It deals with topics related to people’s reproductive choices, sexual practices and gendered affairs based on research from a variety of geographical locations.

As can be learned from the various chapters based on insightful case studies and candid (self-)analyses, questions of representation, ethics and validity remain central to fieldwork practices. Mkhanawazi’s and Groes-Green’s chapters on South Africa and Mozambique discuss how to deal with the discrepancy between what people say they do and what they actually do. Both authors conclude that qualitative research is a crucial, if not the only, way to study the ambiguities and contradictions people experience in, and communicate about, their private lives. This is not a new observation (to the contrary) and Mkhanawazi shows both that the researcher becomes positioned by participants and the importance of the researcher’s active self-positioning in any social setting. Similarly, Phiri compares the course of two studies she conducted. These developed differently because the social positioning of the researcher is often beyond her or his power. Several authors’ references to the problem of discrepancy between description and experience point to the large body of literature focusing on the use of ethnography to disentangle individual desires, social expectations and economic necessities. It looks as if the battle against the dominance of epidemiological surveys in the study of sexuality in Africa prevented certain authors from relating to this legacy. Building on another tradition, Kakuru’s chapter warns us against complacency about gender inequalities; she speaks out against the reproduction of gender bias in research practices, as well as promoting the potential of research to oppose gender bias.

Izugbara, Kabiru and Ezeh’s chapter introduces a novel perspective on the matter of sensitive research. Rather than describing in what ways sex(uality) is a sensitive topic in itself, they discuss how researching reproductive health choices is a sensitive study area because of religious difference and regional patriotism in northern Nigeria. Whereas all chapters deal with the dilemmas researchers face regarding representation, validity and responsibility, Bukenya writes frankly about his personal challenges in the field as a researcher who is also a Catholic priest among impoverished youth in rural Uganda. Similarly, Kisia-Mondi also describes how her research among female sex workers on the Kenyan tourist coast became emotionally distressing as she got more and more drawn into women’s desperate lives. The way in which research participants interpret a study – its potential benefits, risks, et cetera – compared with the perspective of the researcher(s) is a leading motif in all chapters. Pinkowski Tersbøl confronts the reader with a question posed by one of her research participants: the elderly lady had seen various researchers and projects come and go, and eventually demanded, ‘What’s in it for us?’ Point taken.

The interconnections between sexuality, gender and reproduction lie at the heart of how we fashion our lives as individuals, communities and societies, making them a delicate matter. The chapters by Oxlund and...