Personal and collective testimony

Pranee Liamputtong

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511812705.009

7 - Personal and collective testimony

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

Pranee Liamputtong

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Pranee Liamputtong: Affiliation:
La Trobe University, Victoria

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Summary

In listening to the stories of indigenous storytellers, we learn new ways of being moral and political in the social world. We come together in a shared agenda, with a shared imagination and a new language, struggling together to find liberating ways of interpreting and performing in the world. In this way, does research cease to be a dirty word?

(Denzin et al. 2008a: 15)

By speaking collectively, women of color not only reclaim their humanity but, at the same time, empower themselves by making sense of their experience of vulnerability and subjugation.

(Madriz 2000: 843).

Based on theoretical frameworks that I discussed in Chapter 1, I now introduce some qualitative methods in this chapter and the next. I make no claim that all qualitative methods will be appropriate in cross-cultural research. This is precisely what Esther Madriz (2000: 840) has suggested: ‘Some methodologies are more suitable than others for shattering a colonizing discourse in which images of research subjects as the Other are constantly reproduced’ (see also Fine 1994; Denzin et al. 2008a; Liamputtong 2008). Thus, I will focus only on those methods that will allow cross-cultural researchers to work more sensitively with the research participants. I shall, however, provide some useful reading materials for readers to consult further at the end of the chapter.

Oral/life history, according to Valerie Yow (2005: 3), ‘is the recording of personal testimony delivered in oral form’ (see also Benmayor 1991; Banks-Wallace 2002).

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Type: Chapter
Information: Performing Qualitative Cross-Cultural Research , pp. 162 - 185

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511812705.009 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2010

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References

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