Working among and with Somali refugees to carry out this research project has been no simple feat. Several implications for research are evident based on my experiences. Refugees are considered a ‘vulnerable’ population, and while we mustn’t categorize them as vulnerable in every situation (Horst, 2006), we should acknowledge that research must be attuned to and sensitive to refugee contexts. To begin, the concept of ‘research’ was not understood by all of my participants. Explaining research becomes a task in doing research in the community. Given that the field of applied linguistics often works towards understanding ways to enhance pedagogy, I would often
explain to the research participants that I was doing a school project to try to enhance educational programming.
In addition to understanding that the concept of research is privileged, researchers doing work with refugees must also be flexible and open to the structure of research interviews. Many of the participants in the study wanted to share their knowledge, but to some, the idea of being
recorded was not ideal. For example, Mama Rita was a very open and engaged participant
throughout the course of my dissertation project. During our interviews, she would often ask me to stop recording, not because she didn’t want to share the knowledge, but because she didn’t want to be recorded. On another occasion she wanted to discuss something going on in the CoP, and she asked me to turn off the recorder, which I did. She shared with me that simply, she did not want to be recorded, and preferred to just talk to me. We negotiated what I needed and what she was comfortable with, and in this way we were both comfortable and content with the research process.
I chose to use Participant Action Research to approach this research project. While the PAR orientation was sufficient and useful, I think that as a refugee advocate I must consider alternative possibilities for framing the research. Kemmis and Wilkinson (1998) describe participatory action research as “focused on helping individuals free themselves from constraints found in the media, in language, in work procedures, and in the relationships of power in educational settings” (p.26). Such studies are prefaced with a stance or important issues about societal problems that aim to investigate domination, oppression, and/or equity. While this orientation to the research served me sufficiently, I think future research on refugee populations, especially when carried out by an active member in the refugee serving community, should also consider using a Research as Practice (RAP) (Lather, 1986) approach because it emphasizes negotiation, reciprocity, empowerment throughout the research process. RAP is “a philosophy of life and work, as well as a methodology”
(Torres & Reyes, 2011, p.53), and in this sense it goes beyond PAR. I plan framing my research as RAP during future development and publication endeavors.
There are several defining characteristics of RAP which go hand in hand with doing research with marginalized populations, thus it has the ability to inform research concerning refugees. First of all, RAP acknowledges the shift in having a subject-subject (our research) dynamic between researcher and participant instead of a subject-object (my research) dynamic (Torres & Reyes 2011). Participants have active participation in entire research process. Three major principles that shape the basis of RAP work. They include the idea of radical participatory democracy, the notion of collective action for transformation toward a better world, and a
commitment to work towards social justice alongside of marginalized communities. In addition, “RAP work embraces and promotes the convergence between academic knowledge and popular underprivileged knowledge, thereby producing knowledge and theories as interplay between academic science and popular science.” (p.75). One of the most valuable aspects of RAP, especially when doing research with refugees, is the idea that results from research should be presented in a manner and language that is accessible to all that were involved in the research process. I believe that this presents a worthy challenge for my own research project. RAP is a vehicle for creating ethically and socially responsive work. I find RAP valuable as a framework because many times throughout the research process, I was unsure about exactly when I was collecting data and when I was not. In other words, my research is directly discussing my lived experience, and a great part of my daily activity and agendas for refugee advocacy. I never stopped collecting data, because my research became about what I was doing daily. My research was my work and my social life. Members of the CoP became like members of my family, and Mama Rita became my adopted mother. In addition, I am still considering how to communicate my findings to the CoP.
I must revisit the incident that occurred after my interview with Mama Mouna. To this day, Mama Mouna and I have a good rapport. I often see her at the Center and I cannot help but reflect on what happened during our interview. Fortunately, Mama Mouna’s participation in the research project had no long-lasting repercussions that I know of but I often think of the potentially harmful affect her participation in my research could have had on her wellbeing. Worse-case scenario, she would have been stripped of her rent, and perhaps, other services. Considering the potential, and the role her gender played, I would entertain feminist research approaches that are hyper aware of the role gender may play on research participants’ and that may offer strategies that can help safeguard participants in a study, and strategies that can proactively deal with coercive forces.
Further implications for research on refugees has to do with interpretation. Hannah was my interpreter during the interviews with Mama Mouna and Caaliyah, and I believe that her rapport with the participants, combined with my rapport with the participants, helped the research context. In other words, I am not sure if I would have had the same participation if she had not been the interpreter in the study. I assert that there are benefits to having someone familiar with the
participant (more disclosure and comfort) but also perhaps changes dynamics, and while it worked it my case, it could also negatively affect the dynamics because of Hannah’s role of caseworker in the participants’ lives.