Women researching in Africa: The impact of gender

Abstract

Researching ‘gender’ through a wide variety of disciplinary lenses is ubiquitous. Equally, there are vast numbers of books on research methodology, many of which engage with the positionality of the author/researcher ‘in Africa’ or elsewhere. Yet, there are still few opportunities in academic writing for ‘critical self-reflection on one’s biases, theoretical predispositions, preferences…and of the inquirer’s place in the setting, context, or social phenomenon ’ (Schwandt 1997 in Kleinsasser 2000, p. 155, emphasis added). By asking the women in this volume who have all conducted research in Africa to reflect about how their gender impacted on their research experiences or on how their research impacted on them as a woman, we have deliberately provided them an opportunity to create a new text making ‘new connections between the personal and the theoretical’ (p. 157). In doing so, many of the contributors have produced new and often unexpected findings outside their disciplinary boundaries. Each author was asked to consider their place or position as a woman in the research process, and to write a subjective interpretation of their experiences; we hope their stories challenge and inform other researchers in Africa (both women and men) to consider how their gendered experiences are part of the research process.