I joined the Department in 2008. Before that I was involved in research, teaching and training in Higher Education and in the voluntary sector. I have worked for the Open University, Southampton University and the University of Central Lancashire. My undergraduate degree in sociology is from the London School of Economics, where I also completed my PhD (Department of Social Policy). I am particularly interested in knowledge transfer and participative methodologies as they relate to both research and teaching (giving recognition to what we learn and how from students and colleagues).
Request Academic Copy
Please copy the ISBN for submitting review copy form
Description
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION - THINKING THROUGH KNOWLEDGE, METHODS AND POWER Researching `Race' and Ethnicity A `Treacherous Bind' Working with and against Racial Categories PART TWO: DEBATES AND DILEMMAS IN `INTERRACIAL' RESEARCH Faking `Race' or `Making Race'? `Race-of-Interviewer-Effects' in Survey Research Messy Work Qualitative Interviewing across Difference PART THREE: THE DOINGS AND UNDOINGS OF `RACE' - RESEARCHING LIVED EXPERIENCE Looking for `Race'? Analyzing Racialized Meanings and Identifications `What Do You Mean?' Insecurities of Meaning and Difference Threatening Topics and Difference Encounters in Psycho-Social Space Towards Multi-Sited Research Connection, Juxtapositioning and Complicity
'This is a welcome book for those engaged in policy and empirical work with an active research agenda. There are three parts to the book, with the most persuasive being the second, which looks at the thorny questions of what the author describes as 'race of interviewer effects' in other words does it matter what race or ethnicity the interviewer is in social research. Gunaratnam looks at this problem in terms of the social construction of the nature of research on racialized groups in Britain. The very fact that the race/ ethnicity of a researcher is posed as a problem for reflection and questioning is the starting point for the author. In this way, the race/ethnicity of the researchers matters as a source of methodological concern, but there is no correct method for all contexts. Indeed, there is a level of theoretical sophistication in the text which is often missing from texts concerned with methods in this area. But this does not take away from socially committed comment on the author's fieldwork area of hospice provision. Here we find the application of some of the methodological issues raised in the book in the author's own work. The only criticism is the specificity of this research area for the general ideas that are presented, a more general overview of research in the arena (a difficult and wide ranging task) and how it may apply to the framework presented would have been more useful. However, this is still one of the few books, out of Britain, which takes seriously the issues of methodology and race' - Race Relations Abstacts 'This is a thought-provoking and challenging book which demonstrated the fractured and fluid nature of difference and power in the research process. Importantly it offers a guide to the ways in which research can be effectively and productively used in challenging the status quo' - Diversity in Health and Social Care