Abstract

Drawing on participant observation and interview excerpts collected during a critical ethnography, this article
discusses the dilemmas of applying postcolonial feminist assumptions in fieldwork. Applying postcolonial
feminist methodological assumptions from a location of racial privilege is not without its problems. Data
illustrate the researchers (un)easiness in facing evidence of personal adherence to Eurocentric power and
privilege despite having a desire to be an instrument of social change. This retrospective critical reflection
of fieldwork indicates that novice postcolonial feminist researchers need to embrace the destabilizing but
inescapable journey of cultural alterity to avoid finalizing, as Arthur Frank puts it, marginalized identities
into new forms of colonialist representations. This article reminds qualitative health and nursing researchers
that race, gender, and class create multiple tensions and contradictions making the field inherently gendered,
political, personal, and public.

Key Words cultural alterity, fieldwork, nursing research, othering, postcolonialism, postcolonial feminism,
race relations

The Impact of Race, Gender, and

Class in Postcolonial Feminist
Fieldwork: A Retrospective Critique of
Methodological Dilemmas
LOUISE RACINE
Introduction
As qualitative research enters what Denzin and Lincoln[1]
call the eighth moment, ethnography still harbours some
controversial areas, such as notions of truth, representation,
colonialism, and power.[2] This eight moment of qualitative
research focuses on critical and moral discourses on race,
gender, class, ethnicity, and social justice. Research, in
turn, becomes a means of social change and represents
a call to use reflexivity in decolonizing the production of
knowledge.[3] Hill Collins[4] contends that race, gender,
and class construct and reproduce differences in the

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research process. Hooks[5] emphasizes the double impact

of whiteness and maleness in shaping the authoritative
discourse of traditional ethnography. Among the dilemmas
of research decolonization, issues of race, gender, and class
deserve a careful examination. Frank[6] underlines the
ethical dimension of dialogical research to avoid finalizing
the participants multiple voices into inescapable essentialist
representations.
Despite the major influence of critical, postmodern, and
postcolonial theories in advancing qualitative health
research, most of the literature that describes issues of race,
gender, and social class in ethnographic research originates
from the social sciences.[7-12] The persistence of health
disparities arising from social inequities remains a major
challenge that confronts qualitative health researchers.
Sampselle[13] emphasizes that accounting for race, gender,
and class in health research can lead to promoting the
participants defined and desired health care services. The
complex intersection of race, gender, and social class on
the dialogical and dialectical relations between researchers

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and participants must be further explored if researchers are to

succeed in decolonizing health and nursing research.
This article is derived from my doctoral study. The study
received the ethics approval of the University of British
Columbia Ethics Board prior to starting the data collection.
Participants were informed about their rights as research
participants and those who decided to participate signed an
informed consent which provided me with their authorization
to conduct individual interviews varying from 1 to 2 and a
half hours. Also, participants were asked to sign a consent
form to allow for participant observations sessions to take
place in their homes. Participant observation sessions varied
from 3 to 6 hours.
Drawing on data collected during a critical ethnography
exploring Haitian-Canadians ways of caring for aging parents
at home, I discuss the dilemmas of decolonizing research
in applying postcolonial feminist assumptions in the inquiry
process. Postcolonial feminist approaches are congruent
with research decolonization, though the application of the
methodological assumptions is not without challenges for
mainstream health researchers. In this article, I present a
retrospective critical analysis of the impact of race, gender,
and class in applying postcolonial feminist assumptions with
the goal of illustrating the colonialist influences I encountered
in the field. In describing my fieldwork experience, my aim
is to demonstrate that reflexivity and cultural alterity can be
used introspectively to overcome dilemmas related to the
application of postcolonial feminist assumptions in health
research. Harding supports this reflexive exercise when she
says that no feminist inquirer has not come to understand
the inadequacy of some of her or his own earlier practices
and beliefs.[14 p25]

Locating the ontological and epistemological

underpinnings of the study
Previous studies conducted in the Haitian-Canadian
community in Quebec reported that access to health care
services is compounded by some major constraints.[15-18]
Barriers of language, misunderstanding of Haitian cultural
beliefs on health and illness, lack of cultural sensitivity, lack
of information on health and home care services, gendering
of caring, and institutional racism were found as the factors
explaining the underutilization of health services among
this population. Bibeau[15] pointed that relations between
Haitian-Canadians and mainstream health care professionals
are marked by issues of distrust. In their study, Guberman
and Maheu[16] reported a pattern of underutilization of
home care services among Haitian and Italian-Canadian

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family caregivers in Quebec. The underutilization of services

would be associated with specific cultural beliefs on aging
and caregiving, and with issues of institutionalized racism
encountered in some health care facilities. These studies
contributed to the identification of problems in the delivery
of health care services to Haitian-Canadians, however, the
results must be carefully interpreted, since caregiving seems
to be defined from a culturally deterministic perspective.
Stuart Hall,[19] a postcolonial theorist, contends that
culture cannot be dissociated from not culture due to their
reciprocal influences in shaping peoples experiences of
racial, gendered, and classist discrimination. In other words,
Hall claims that culture cannot be limited to exploring
peoples subjective experiences but must encompass an
examination of the historic, social, and material conditions
within which subjectivities are constructed. Based on Halls
argument, I claim that the experiences of Haitian-Canadians
must be studied through an ontological, epistemological,
and methodological approach that examines the historical
and socio-political context within which caring activities
unfold in their everyday lives.[20,21] The following interview
excerpts, drawn from this critical ethnography, illustrate
Halls point on culture and not culture. A family caregiver
working in a health care facility spoke about racism at his
workplace:
One day at work, a woman co-worker told me:
Youre just a damned Negro. It doesnt matter since
I know that I am a Black man, a Negro, and I dont
care about it. It doesnt matter if you are Indian or
Black because I didnt pick the color of my skin. I had
no choice.
A middle-aged woman, juggling many roles as health care
practitioner, primary caregiver for her aging parents, and
mother of young children reported how racial and gender
discrimination operated at work:
When I was working at (name of a clinic), I had a few
problems with a healthcare professional and this was
extremely difficult. It was almost a disaster. I was very
depressed (Silence).
May I ask you the nature of the problem you
encountered? Please feel free to answer or not.
(Remained silent but she nodded her head for yes).
He said things to me (Silence)
Can you tell what he said?
He said: People who come to this clinic are very
educated, very educated, and you cant work here.
He told me that it was not a matter of being well
dressed and nice. He told me: Do you know what
I mean? He even told me that I was chasing clients
away.

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These two short interview excerpts show that race, gender,

and social class cannot be isolated from the broader
historical, cultural, and sociopolitical context, within which
living in a racialized and gendered world influence HaitianCanadians ways of caring. In both instances, participants
worked in health care facilities. The socio-cultural context
of the workplace influences Haitian Canadian caregivers
perceptions of mainstreams health care services and health
practitioners.[22] As a methodology, critical ethnography
challenges ideologies that may impinge on the access
and the utilization of health care services by racialized
groups. Informed by a postcolonial feminist approach,
critical ethnographers explore health phenomena with
methodologies that examine racism, sexism, and classism
as an interlocking oppressive system that shapes peoples
experiences of health, illness, and access to health services.
Allen, Chapman, Francis and OConnor[23 p227] mention:
Critical ethnography delves beneath the surface to
examine the power relations and influences affecting
phenomena by using field methods to identify
not only culture, the consciousness or the lived
experiences of others, but also exposing the political,
social, and material disempowerment of individuals
and disadvantages groups in order to elicit change.
Anderson underlines the importance of examining
how specific oppressions at specific sites influence
nursing research.[24 p12] Carspecken argues that critical
ethnographers deal with the nature of social structure,
power, culture, and human agency to refine social theory.[25
p3] According to Thomas critical ethnography represents
the reflexive process of choosing between conceptual
alternatives and making value-laden judgments of meaning
and method to challenge research, policy, and other forms of
human activity.[26 p4] In other words, critical ethnography
reveals dominant ideologies that drive the agendas of
dominant groups to challenge the status quo and bring about
changes.[27,28] In health and nursing research, critical
ethnography crosses the boundaries of objectivity and
neutrality in exploring health issues that intersect with race,
gender, and class to shape peoples experiences of health
and illness. In drawing on postcolonial feminist approaches
to guide critical ethnography, researchers illuminate
subjectivities that would otherwise be silenced through
the use of positivist and postpositivist paradigms. Denzin
and Giardina point out that critical qualitative research
generates transformative knowledge that challenges
prevailing forms of inequities, poverty, human oppression,
and injustice.[29 p15]
Finally, the choice of postcolonial feminism as a theoretical

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approach to guide a study draws on the ontological and

epistemological strengths of postcolonialism and Black
feminism.[30] Black and postcolonial feminism focus on
the interlocking nature of oppression arising from racism,
sexism, classism, and other forms of discrimination that
may affect racialized mens and womens health and access
to health care. Before discussing postcolonial feminisms, I
will delineate the central tenets of postcolonialism and its
ontological and epistemological assumptions.

Theoretical framework: postcolonialism and

postcolonial feminism
As a paradigm of inquiry, postcolonialism reflects the
multidisciplinary influences of political science, cultural
studies, sociology, literature, anthropology, and linguistics.
Paradigms of inquiry are social constructions that cannot be
seen as being either true or false, good or bad, because they
are inherently human constructions. Guba and Lincoln state
that no construction is, or can be, incontrovertibly right
any particular construction must rely on persuasiveness
and utility rather than proof in arguing their positions.[31
p108] Postcolonialism transcends the collective efforts of
non-Western and Western scholars to critically analyze the
colonial aftermath and challenge the hegemony of Western
science.[32] The word postcolonial does not mean the end
of the colonizing process per se. Quayson[33] explains:
To understand this process [postcolonializing], it is
necessary to disentangle the term, postcolonial,
from its implicit dimension of chronological
supersession, that aspect of its prefix, which suggests
that the colonial stage has been surpassed and left
behind. It is important to highlight instead a notion
of the term as a process of coming-into-being and of
struggle against [italics added] colonialism and its
after-effects. In this respect the prefix would be fused
with the sense invoked by anti. [p9]
Inspired by poststructuralism, Said[34] refers to the word
Orientalism to express the hegemonic school of thought that
governs Western science and the stereotypes that such science
generates about non-Western peoples. Fanon[35] describes
how colonialism and psychiatry contributed to reinforce
the French colonial system in dehumanizing Algerians and
judging them as needing to be subjugated. Bhabha underlines
that postcolonialism represents a perspective that enables the
authentication of histories of exploitation and the evolution
of strategies of resistance.[32 p6] Quayson[33] argues
that the central feature of postcolonialism is to deconstruct
ideologies that create the material effects of subjugation.
Finally, Quayson[33] contends that postcolonialism is a
process that addresses social inequalities in a world marked

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by the interlocking influence of neocolonial forces, such as

globalization, transnationalism, and neoliberalism.
For other postcolonial theorists, postcolonialism represents a
process that serves to deconstruct the hegemony of Western
science to decolonize non-Western knowledge.[36,37]
Postcolonialism is also a practice of political resistance
and identity affirmation used to counteract oppression
and subjugation.[38] Furthermore, Quayson[33] contends
that postcolonialism cannot be conceptualized as a single
and universal theory, but as an umbrella of ontological
and epistemological assumptions used to allow the
disenfranchised knowledge of colonized populations to be
heard and acknowledged. As such, in using postcolonial
approaches, researchers make visible the exclusionary
effects of race and class on health disparities that arise from
social inequities.

Defining postcolonial feminisms

Farganis[39] proposes that feminist theory and method
challenge the traditional view of science by critiquing the
notion of an objective, clearly discernible reality that can be
understood through processes of rationality and deductive
reasoning. Because race, gender, and class are context-related
factors, they can hardly be universalized into predictive
and prescriptive theories without the risk of committing
theoretical imposition.[40] Drawing from Schutte,[41] I
refer to postcolonial feminisms in its plural form to indicate
the multiple voices and locations from which postcolonial
feminist scholars speak. Inspired by Anderson,[42-43]
Reimer, Kirkham, and Anderson,[44] Meleis and Im,[45] and
Smith[46] postcolonial feminism may be defined as a critical
perspective aimed at addressing health issues stemming from
social inequalities that have an impact on the health of nonWestern populations. According to Denzin and Lincoln[47]
the term critical refers to an array of interpretive paradigms
like feminism, Marxism, poststructuralism, postmodernism,
and postcolonialism. Critical paradigms are rooted in a
materialist and critical realist ontology that supports the idea
that racial, gendered, and social discriminations occur in the
everyday lives of racialized groups.[48]
A postcolonial feminist epistemology not only focuses on
patriarchy as a source of oppression, but that also examines
how social inequalities are inscribed within a historical,
political, social, cultural, and economic context that
influences health and health care delivery. This underlines
why issues of race, gender, and class are important to
explore in health and nursing research. Discrimination

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within the health care system is acknowledged to exist and

to be socially constructed along the lines of race, gender,
and class. Postcolonial feminisms disrupt the relations of
ruling that silence the culturally different voices by allowing
for the integration of subjugated knowledge into health and
nursing theories. Finally, postcolonial feminist researchers try
to equalize the power asymmetry with participants to foster
the development of transformative knowledge and avoid the
pitfalls of cultural essentialism.[22]
Postcolonial feminisms strengthen health and nursing
research endeavours by not isolating gender as the unique
source of peoples (and womens) oppression. Rather,
postcolonial feminist approaches unmask the interlocking
oppressive effects of race, gender, and social class. In other
words, postcolonial feminist approaches unpack the cultural,
historical, social, and economic factors that intersect to shape
different oppressive contexts that affect health and well-being.
These contexts must be apprehended from the participants
standpoints instead of the researchers perspective. This
brings me to discuss postcolonial feminist methodological
assumptions and to illustrate how these assumptions were
applied in a context of an unrecognized instance of White
defensiveness during my fieldwork. White defensiveness is
an ideological blindness that precludes White people from
seeing white as a color that confers racial, gendered, and
socioeconomic privileges.[49]

Application of postcolonial feminist methodological assumptions in fieldwork

The first methodological assumption involves critiquing the
practices of the dominant culture by relying on marginalized
knowledge. In articulating this assumption, the goal is to
make known the marginalized knowledge of the racialized
groups. This assumption is also derived from the concept of
cultural safety that implies a need to move beyond cultural
theories to examine the beliefs and stereotypes by which
nursing practice and research diminishes, demeans, or
disempowers the cultural identity and well-being of an
individual.[50 p453] The application of this methodological
assumption in the field requires that, as a researcher and as a
member of the dominant ethnic group, I became conscious
of my own racial, gendered, and classist biases while
acknowledging that I speak from a position of racial and
social privilege.
The second methodological assumption involves exploring
how dominant ideologies shape the delivery and accessibility
of health care services and how they have an impact on
peoples everyday lives. Smith[46] contends that dominant

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ideologies represent invisible relations of ruling enacted to

serve the interests of the elite. In my fieldwork, the application
of this methodological assumption allowed Haitian-Canadian
family caregivers to express and share their lived experiences
as caregivers and their needs for health care services. The
research process was meant to reach participants located
on the margins of knowledge production. Nevertheless,
the application of postcolonial feminist methodological
assumptions is not without its problems, especially in a
context of unrecognized White defensiveness. I now turn to
describe how introspection exposes personal inconsistencies
and tensions between my ontological and epistemological
ideals of egalitarian relationships with participants and
instances of colonialist influences. Colonialist influences
explain my uneasiness in facing evidence of personal
adherence to Eurocentric power and racial privilege despite
my desire to be an instrument of social change through the
use of postcolonial feminist approaches.

Impact of social class

I first confronted issues of social class during the participant
observations and interview sessions. I strived to apply
postcolonial feminist assumptions when becoming immersed
in the natural setting and my goal was to grasp the depth of
participants lived experiences of caring for aging relatives at
home. Reciprocity, trust, and self-disclosure are mandatory
for collecting data. Oakley emphasizes that, there is no
intimacy without reciprocity.[51 p49] Still, field relations
operate at a more complex level and researchers must
understand how social class works in the field and how it
can influence the research process.
Fifteen participant observation sessions were carried out in
Haitian-Canadian caregivers homes, with the length of each
session varying from three to six hours. Participants informed
consent was obtained prior to conducting the interviews
and before the participant observation sessions. The length
of each session was negotiated with the family caregiver,
depending on their availability. In three of the participants
homes, I took part in activities such as assisting in meal
preparation, setting up the table, serving dishes, folding
clothes or playing with the children. In many instances, I felt
like I was a member of the family and that I could share with
participants in an egalitarian way. In some of the participant
observation sessions, it was impossible to equalize power
relations. Wolf[52] suggests that feminist researchers must
be committed to establishing egalitarian relations with
participants while remaining realistic about attaining the
goal. In other words, to achieve the same level of trust and

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reciprocity that I shared with some of the participants, would

have been unrealistic for all 16 primary caregivers and their
families.
Interviewing also represented a complex process, where I
had to develop personal communication skills, especially
when attenuating asymmetric relationships with participants,
to elicit dialogical exchanges.[53] Interestingly, Kvale and
Brinkmann[54] contend that the conversation in a research
interview is not a reciprocal communication between two
equal partners, because of the asymmetry of power. In my
case, the issue of class came into play in the interview
process and was tied to nationalism. For instance, at the
beginning of my fieldwork, I did not talk about my cultural
background or about aspects of my personal life (e.g., family,
studies, or projects) and played down the issue of Quebecs
nationalism. The issue of Quebecs independence became
a major element that I encountered during fieldwork. It
became difficult to interact with participants because of some
questions I did not want to answer, especially in regards to
my opinion about Quebecs independence or secession.
After a couple of weeks in the field, I needed to re-assess
my attitudes as a means to equalize power and enhance
trust. I invested myself in disclosing who I was, and openly
talked about my family origins, my social background,
and my commitment in caring for a close family member.
As opposed to the women caregivers, the men were more
prone to ask questions about my political allegiance. When
the participants wanted to know whether or not I was a
separatist (a term used by some participants to designate
members of the Parti Qubcois), I answered that I was
torn by my multiple identities as a member of a minority
group within a majority (as a Canadian) and as a member
of a majority group[55] (as a Quebecer). As a researcher, I
found that my political location influenced the participants
willingness to share their lived experiences. In the following
interview excerpt, Robert (a pseudonym) spoke about the
previous Quebec referendum and its impact on his relations
at work with his co-workers:
Participant: I remember the last referendum, when
the Quebecers, I mean the Parti Qubcois, lost
its referendum. I was in the locker room and some
co-workers were also there. They were throwing
injurious things at me. They said: They [HaitianCanadians] dont know how to run their country and
they come here to tell us how to run our country?
They also said: And they [Haitian-Canadians] dont
work, theyre on social welfare. I said: Its not true,
its not true. I work.
Interviewer: Yes (Listening)
Participant: Because they [Haitian-Canadians] feel

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really diminished, they feel low. People who say

these things they dont know Haitians.

born in Quebec. I was also a member of the academia which

enlarged the gap between the classes.

A woman, who immigrated to Canada 40 years ago, described

how she felt hurt by the words of a politician who attributed
the referendums defeat to money and ethnic votes. She
reported that younger Haitian-Canadians are less concerned
about the political debate since they are torn between the
Haitian identity and the Canada/Quebec identity. She said:

These field experiences demonstrated how my perceived

political affiliation, race, and class (as researcher) had an
impact on the research process. Fieldwork experiences that
occurred in a context of unrecognized White defensiveness
represent calls to reflexivity and cultural alterity. Reinharz
asserts that the self we create in the field is a product of
the norms of the social setting and the ways in which the
research subjects interact with the selves the researcher
brings to the field.[59 p3] OByrne [60] pushes the idea
further, contending that the postmodern perspective allows
the possibility for one researcher to engage simultaneously
in both ethnographic and autoethnographic methods.[60
p1388] In disclosing myself, I observed a power shift that
stimulated the active participation of participants in describing
their political subjugation. This observation tends to support
Soni-Sinhas contention that class constructs hierarchies that
reveal multiple and fluid standpoints of different actors.[12
(p515]

Its not their reality. They feel trapped between the

tree and the bark, between Haitian identity and
Quebec identity. They came to Canada to live in
peace, to enhance their living conditions, and for
their children to get a better education, and to enjoy
political freedom and safety. They are not interested.
I mean they dont feel concerned about this issue of
sovereignty. It belongs to the past and we must focus
on the future. Its your fight, not ours.
These excerpts illustrate my dilemma, as researcher, and
underline the fact that I was seen as the colonizer because of
conflicting political issues related to Quebecs place within
or outside the Canadian confederation. Nationalism can
be seen as an elitist and classist discourse linked to ethnic
ideologies. In other words, I was perceived as an educated
woman who was also a member of the Quebec nation and as
such a member of the dominant ethnic group whose markers
of identity, such as language and religion, are frequently
embedded in its official symbolism and legislation.[56
p99] Maclure[57] contends that issues of Quebecs identity
are part of the inquiry process and cannot be avoided when
doing fieldwork with non-Western populations in Quebec.
Similarly, Maclure[57] argues that issues of Canadian
nationalism cannot be avoided when working with nonWestern populations in other Canadian provinces.
In addition, the women were more interested in knowing
about my race and class locations before sharing their
experiences of caring for their aging parents. Lewis defines
location as pertaining to the historical, geographical,
cultural, psychic, and imaginative boundaries that provide
ground for political definition and self-definition.[58 p173]
In applying postcolonial feminist assumptions, I conducted
the participant observations while sharing some of the
domestic tasks with the women caregivers. As an example, I
was invited to help a woman prepare a meal. As we prepared
the food, she repeatedly said that she was not born into the
Port-au-Prince elite or the bourgeoisie. I told her that I was
also not a bourgeoise; however, her expression suggested
that she did not believe it. In her schema of representation,
I was seen as a member of the bourgeoisie, and a member
of the dominant ethnic group, a White Canadian woman

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Impact of gender
Lather points out that the search for ways to operationalize
reflexivity in critical inquiry is a journey into uncharted
territory.[40 p63] For instance, I noticed my lack of
understanding about polygamy. This critical incident
heightened my awareness about the impact of gender in
the field, as women researchers can be perceived as sexual
objects. This phenomenon has also been identified in
research among Western populations.[61]
Every researcher harbours preconceived ideas and I did not
enter the field tabula rasa. My preconceived ideas on sexuality
may have influenced my interviewing skills with the HaitianCanadian men. I experienced difficulties when interviewing
men because of the issue of polygamy that I documented in
some interviews and in participant observation sessions. To
understand mens perspectives and to establish a dialogical
exchange with the men participants, I was required to move
beyond the limitations of my Western cultural framework. To
paraphrase Schutte,[41] I needed to step out of my colonial
boots and adjust my Western feminist lens to get HaitianCanadian mens perspectives on family life.
In an effort to move beyond the limitations of my colonialist
lens, I consulted the work of Laguerre[62] a HaitianAmerican ethnographer, and I asked a man participant with
whom I had developed a long-term trusting relationship,
to help me understand the issue of polygamy I observed in

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some families. On the other hand, I felt uncomfortable when

George (pseudonym) discussed the gaps between Haitian
and Canadian cultural values as they pertain to natural
gendered roles:
Participant: Ill tell you what I cant accept of
Quebecers. When the husband or the wife is sick,
well they [Quebecers] manage to kick them out of
the house! (Claps his hands)
Interviewer: They [Quebecers] put them in nursing
homes?
Participant: Yes. They place them and frankly
speaking, I dislike it.
Interviewer: Ok. It seems as if they want to get rid of
the problem. Is it what you mean?
Participant: Its not good. I dont like this. Its almost
as if the person isnt important but I think its the way
of living here.
Interviewer: Way of living?
Participant: Yes. First of all, women werent liberated
here before. In earlier times, women werent as
powerful as they are now. But when they started
claiming their rights, then everybody went their own
way. And since then, women are independent and
challenge mens authority. Theyre independent. I see
it like revenge, women look like enraged animals.
Interviewer: You mean women become like this
[enraged animal] when they claim their rights?
Participant: Yes. Exactly.
In adjusting my cultural lens, I realized that marital and family
dynamics took different meanings for Haitian-Canadians. My
aim was to understand these issues without being judgmental,
and to do so, I had to drop the Western veil through which
I was looking at the Haitian-Canadian men. Frank cogently
points out that researcher and participant came together in
some shared time and space and had diverse effects on each
other.[6 p968] Like Manderson, Bennett, and AndajaniSutjahjo,[11] I felt that the setting (interviews were conducted
in the caregivers homes) had an impact on the dynamics
and content of the interviews. Participants were able to voice
their concerns actively, but more disturbing was the fact that
I observed my uneasiness in interviewing women dressed
in traditional African clothes. In fact, I was Othering these
women by referring to my Western normative values. During
a participant observation session, one woman reported
being proud of her African ancestry, which brought me to
reflect on the concept of negritude. I read some works of
Aim Csaire, a poet born in the Caribbean, who first coined
the word negritude, and consulted works of Senghor, who
conceptualized the concept of negritude as a means of selfaffirmation for Africans. Senghor writes: Who would deny
that Africans, too, have a certain way of conceiving life and

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living it? A certain way of speaking, singing, and dancing; of

painting and sculpturing, and even laughing and crying?.[63
p27-8] My uneasiness about interviewing women who were
wearing traditional dresses showed how I was locked up in
Western cultural values and White defensiveness because
I was more comfortable interviewing acculturated women.
In doing so, I was unwittingly refuting cultural differences
and violating the postcolonial feminist assumptions through
which I wanted to explore and understand Haitian-Canadian
caregivers experiences.
Bhabha pointed out that the acknowledgement of cultural
diversity does not imply the recognition of cultural
differences:
Although there is always an entertainment and
encouragement of cultural diversity, there is always
also a corresponding containment of it. A transparent
norm is constituted, a norm given by the host society
or dominant culture, which says these other cultures
are fine, but we must be able to locate them within
our own grid. This is what I mean by a creation
of cultural diversity and a containment of cultural
difference.[64 p208]
Acker, Barry and Esselveld[65] and Wolff[52] mention that
gender essentialism is a difficult issue to manage in feminist
research. I would add that essentialism is a greater pitfall
when doing research with non-Western men and women
because of the complex interplay between race, gender, and
social class. Nevertheless, fieldwork experiences contributed
to heighten my awareness that sharing participants gender
did not facilitate my access to women. In that sense, I
concur with Edwards[9] who documented her experiences
in interviewing Black mothers returning to school in the UK.
She mentioned:
The concept of race is formulated in the context
of particular economic, social, and political
circumstances. Racial differences enter into the
consciousness of individuals and groups, and
determine conceptions of themselves and others as
well as their status in the community.[9 p481-2]
Therefore, the pitfall of essentialism is difficult to escape in
feminist research, even with the best intentions. Researchers
must be aware of the impact that their gender may have on
participants. A researchers race, gender, and class must be
critically assessed to understand the possible impact on
the participants engagement in the inquiry. I now turn to
examine the impact of race on the research process.

Impact of race
During fieldwork, I observed that the process of racialization,
or racial Othering, seemed to occur at a very young age

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among Haitian-Canadians. I collected the following

fieldnotes during a participant observation session conducted
at a caregivers home:
I went downstairs and we both entered her mothers
apartment. During my first visit, the room had been
quite dark but now it was daytime and I could see a
picture of the grandmother when she was a young
woman. I felt a presence next to me and I looked
down and saw the toddler who was standing besides
me. Suddenly, he threw his arms around my hips and
hugged me. He wanted me to take him in my arms. I
took him in my arms and the young boy put his head
on my shoulder. He was holding me tight; his arms
around my neck. I caressed his hair and stroked his
back while holding him. Then, I whispered to his ear:
Id like to have a boy like you. He replied: Yes but
I cant change my color.
I was puzzled that a child could speak about racialization as a
biological construct at so young an age. Many questions came
to mind: Who can teach a five-year-old that his skin colour
is not the right one? Had he learned this at kindergarten?
Did he hear that when playing outside with the neighbor
kids? Was he listening to his parents conversations? Were
his older siblings informing him about it? The formulation of
these questions deserves a careful examination. For instance,
what did I mean by the words it, this and that? What
was I trying to silence and for what reasons? This participant
observation excerpt illustrates what Roman[49] refers to as
an instance of White defensiveness, where I saw myself as
being colourness. The upshot of White defensiveness is to
obfuscate and erase issues of racial privilege and unequal
power relationships, which are associated with privileged
locations.
Roman argues that White defensiveness contributes to white
misrecognition of the effects of our own racially privileged
locations, that is, the ways in which institutionalized
whiteness confers upon whites (both individually and
collectively) cultural, political, and economic power.[49
p72] I was negating, as Roman puts it, that White is a colour,
while trying to erase the impact of the ideology of Whiteness
in inducing, among Haitian-Canadians, a consciousness of
racial differences pertaining to Blackness. Fanon explains:
As a schoolboy, I had many occasions to spend whole
hours talking about the supposed customs of the
savage Senegalese. In what was said, there was a lack
of awareness that was at the very least paradoxical.
Because the Antillean does not think of himself as a
black man; he thinks of himself as an Antillean. The
Negro lives in Africa. Subjectively, intellectually, the
Antillean conducts himself like a white man. But he
is a Negro. That he will learn once he goes to Europe;
and when he hears Negroes mentioned he will
recognize that the word includes himself as well as

Vol.3, Numro 1 / Vol.3, Issue 1

the Senegalese.[66 p148]

Fanon demonstrates that the encounter with Whiteness
triggered the consciousness of Blackness among young
Antilleans of his generation. Therefore, not surprisingly, the
young boy told me about his skin colour since he had met
with Whites and knew the binaries of Blackness/Whiteness.
For others, encounters with the ideology of Whiteness take
place in the health care system where the structural effects
of Whiteness are expressed differently, but still exclusionary.
In the following interview excerpt, I illustrate how contextual
factors relate to a racialized health care system to construct
Haitian-Canadian caregivers experience of caring and
influence their use of health care services:
Participant: Anyway, nursing homes arent prepared.
Ive visited some nursing homes and I found that
ethnic groups have no place there. I dont see them in
these places. Perhaps, Ive visited the wrong ones but
the quality is not the same [as in the home setting].
As well, there are ways of doing things; its just not
the same. I find that if a person is unconscious its
fine since we have no choice. But where people are
conscious and they have to go there In these places,
you have to be Sometimes, even if the person
speaks French but those who dont speak French,
they are completely powerless. Those who speak
Creole, theyre powerless. They cant be understood.
In another interview excerpt, John (pseudonym) reported
hardships at his workplace in the health care system where
he interacted with some racist co-workers and clients:
Participant: Even at my workplace, Ive to endure
racial slurs and discrimination. Im humiliated. At
work, some older residents shout at me you damned
Negro! dirty dog, and they say that just because Im
a Black man.
Interviewer: They tell you injurious words
Participant: Oh yes often, often. It is indeed very
often, very often. Many times It makes me sick.
Interviewer: It must be difficult to work in such a
place, with such tensions
Participant: Yes it is. What do you want? They told me
such things like: you dirty nigger, dirty dog, tonton
macoute. Some people tell me to go back to my
country. They say: Hey tonton macoute, go back to
your country! So do you understand why I keep my
older parents at home? I dont want to place them in a
nursing home and see them treated like this.
The main idea emerging from these excerpts is that Whiteness
is a means of social stratification and racialization in the
health care system. Although not new, this result is congruent
with issues of institutional racism in the Canadian health care
system reported in previous studies in British Columbia and
Ontario.[67-70] Whiteness is clearly linked to colonialism

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since it is intrinsically linked to unfolding relations of

domination.[71 p6] Whiteness represents an instrument of
social stratification, officially enacted through the politics
of multiculturalism, where non-European-Canadians are
labeled as visible minorities in distinguishing them from
Euro-Canadians. Multiculturalism presents race and ethnic
differences within a double discourse of inferiority. As
such, Whiteness represents a means of colonization, a form
of epistemic violence used to promote the interests of the
dominant groups while silencing the interests of culturally
different Others.
As seen in previous participant observations and interview
excerpts, I documented the encounters that HaitianCanadian caregivers had with racism and how these
influenced their decisions to keep their aging parents at
home, as opposed to using respite services or placing them in
nursing homes.[21] The common thread of racial Othering
arises from its colonialist ideology that creates individual,
social, and institutional racism. In addition, the extent to
which mainstream nurses and other health care practitioners
are part of the oppressive system, as exercised in workplaces
where institutionalized racism is a relation of ruling, must be
accounted for in health care research. Holmes and Gastaldo
argue that nursing is a means of governmentality because
nursing practice reflects the states modus operandi.[72
p557] These authors claimed that nurses, far from being
powerless, represent a powerful group within the health care
system, though they fail to make their own oppression visible
because of loyalty to employers, hierarchical relations, and
the need to keep the health care system afloat.

Discussion
In applying a postcolonial feminist theoretical perspective
in my fieldwork, my goal was to decenter the production
of knowledge. The data collection was directed towards
accessing the silenced knowledge erased by the history of
colonial and neocolonial domination. In my fieldwork,
two major methodological dilemmas were found. The first
dilemma consisted of attenuating the power imbalance
between the researcher and the participants, while avoiding
theoretical and cultural impositions. The second dilemma
was to understand the impact of race, gender, and social
class on the research process. Understanding the impact of
gender, race, and social class is a pre-requisite for avoiding
(re)inscribing hegemonic relations in different ways.[40] By
using reflexivity, I was able to articulate fieldwork dilemmas
from a perspective of cultural alterity[42] while struggling
with issues of personal adherence to Eurocentric power

Vol.3, Numro 1 / Vol.3, Issue 1

and racial privilege. Schutte contends that cultural alterity

demands that the other be heard in her difference and that
the self give itself the time, the space, and the opportunity to
appreciate the stranger without and within.[42 p55] Minhha[73] also addresses the notion of cultural alterity in her
discussion on identity and difference. She referred to the
blurring of the insider/outsider identity that occurs in the
field. I strived to develop what Minh-ha calls a hybrid identity
in the sense that I was not quite an outsider and not quite an
insider. Minh-ha explained that she who knows she cannot
speak of them without speaking of herself, of history without
involving her story, also knows that she cannot make a gesture
without activating the to and fro movement of life.[73 p375]
How does cultural alterity relate to the adoption of a hybrid
identity where cultural differences are decreased to stimulate
a better understanding of the Other? Cultural alterity means
that the researcher goes through unsettling experiences in
the field. These unsettling experiences open up new ways of
seeing participants lived experiences and to reconceptualise
Otherness from a decentred position. Schutte explains:
The other is that person or experience which makes
it possible for the self to recognize its own limited
horizons in the light of asymmetrically given relations
marked by sexual, social, cultural, and other
differences. The other, the foreigner, the stranger, is
that person occupying the space of the subaltern in
the culturally asymmetrical power relation, but also
those elements or dimensions of the self that unsettle
or decenter the egos dominant, self-enclosed,
territorialized identity.[42 p48]
When examining this retrospective critique of my fieldwork,
cultural alterity and reflexivity did not appear to fully guide
the data collection. Cultural alterity and reflexivity are
heuristic means that researchers must use to deconstruct
the crystallized Cartesian insider/outsider identity and the
researcher/participant dualisms that are experienced in the
field. The deconstruction of socially constructed boundaries
allows researchers to experience Otherness and the fluidity
of identities.
Some fieldwork experiences are useful for describing this
notion of cultural alterity, which I refer to as a pre-requisite
for understanding Otherness and for establishing dialogical
relations with participants. My defining moment happened
during my volunteer work at a Haitian food bank. While
helping out at the food bank, I became uncomfortable being
the only White woman in the place. Some people spoke
with me while others ignored me. Although the food bank
manager introduced me to newcomers and to new volunteers,
typically, I was perceived as an outsider, especially when
those around me chose to speak in Creole and I could not

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understand the conversations. In any case, one wonders why

the volunteers and clients would change their customs simply
because one person was unable to speak Creole. Many of the
older women who helped out at the food bank spoke Creole
exclusively. Before admitting that I was being excluded,
I considered the events that were prompting the others to
speak Creole. For instance, being addressed in Creole would
imply that racial and ethnic differences were less likely to
be interfering in my relationship with the participants. At
the hairstylist, a participant with whom I had developed a
trusting relationship asked me a question in Creole and could
not understand why I was taking so long to answer. When
she realized that she had spoken to me in Creole, she said,
I forgot you did not speak Creole. I took you for a Haitian.
These fieldwork experiences at the food bank and the
hairstylist reveal the development of this hybrid identity These
experiences illustrate instances of cultural alterity where I
was no longer perceived as an outsider but as an insider. As
Schutte[41] points out, cultural alterity cannot be achieved
unless the researcher goes through unsettling experiences
where the researcher becomes the culturally different Other.
As the fieldwork unfolded, I noticed that being Haitian
was only allowed in restricted areas. In their homes, the
participants freely affirmed their Haitian identities, as they
would have done if they were living in Haiti. When leaving
their homes to go to work or to school, they shifted to the
Canadian identity, though the colour of their skin remained
an issue that impinged on their cultural and social integration
into the mainstream society. Issues of race, gender, and class
not only influenced the data collection but remained as
contextual factors that likely influenced the access and use
of health care services by racialized groups. Furthermore,
this retrospective critique of my fieldwork demonstrates that
reflexivity and cultural alterity are important skills to develop
to apply postcolonial feminist approaches in fieldwork.
Working from a postcolonial feminist approach, health care
and nursing researchers must be aware that the doing of
the reflexive gaze and listening with the reflexive ear, must
change the thinking that is being thought[74 p386] In
fact, developing attitudes of cultural alterity can help the
researcher acknowledge the shifting and the multiplicities of
identities and allow for the emergence of what Bhabha[32]
describes as the third space. Bhabhas third space represents
a hybrid site or a site of cultural negotiation where cultural
differences are not only accepted but understood. Although
cultural alterity does not erase the influence of race, gender,
and social class in shaping racialized populations health,
it nevertheless constitutes an ethical and methodological

Vol.3, Numro 1 / Vol.3, Issue 1

principle to apply in postcolonial feminist research. Cultural

alterity represents a means to avoid representing research
participants into new colonialist identities. Used from a
postcolonial feminist perspective, cultural alterity enables
the researcher to experience Otherness through unsettling
experiences that displace dominant cultural, gendered,
social, and political identities.

Conclusion
Applying postcolonial feminist epistemological and
methodological assumptions in the field does not translate
into a linear process, but exemplifies the tensions of fieldwork.
Implementing postcolonial feminist assumptions requires
researchers to develop self-reflexivity and to experience
cultural alterity for decolonizing the research process. In this
retrospective critique of a past fieldwork experience, I suggest
that cultural alterity represents a means for addressing issues
of race, gender, and class that have influenced qualitative
health care inquiries. Denzin and Lincoln contend that
the field is inherently political and shaped by multiple
ethical and political positions.[1 p9] Fieldwork is not a
value-free individualistic experience, since it represents
an array of political, public, and personal experiences that
are dialogically and dialectically co-constructed by the
researcher and the participants. In applying postcolonial
feminist assumptions in fieldwork, Western health care
researchers must constantly assess and reflect on the impact
of their racial, gendered, and socioeconomic positions of
privilege on the participants and the inquiry.

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Acknowledgement
I acknowledge the financial support of the Canadian NHRDP and
other funding received from the Canadian Nurses Foundation and
the University of British Columbia Faculty of Graduate Studies. I
am grateful to the Haitian communities of Montreal and Laval for
their support, and to the caregivers who welcomed my prescence
in their homes. Without your support, this study would not have
been possible.
Contact Information for Author:
Louise Racine, RN, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
University of Saskatchewan
College of Nursing
107 Wiggins Road (St. Andrews Office 411)
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, S7N 5E5
Canada
Email: louise.racine@usask.ca

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