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Multilingual research practices in community research: The case of migrant/refugee women in N orth E ast E ngland
Author(s) -
Ganassin Sara,
Holmes Prue
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
international journal of applied linguistics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.712
H-Index - 39
eISSN - 1473-4192
pISSN - 0802-6106
DOI - 10.1111/ijal.12043
Subject(s) - refugee , disadvantaged , multilingualism , trustworthiness , ethnic group , multilingual education , research design , sociology , psychology , political science , pedagogy , social psychology , social science , anthropology , law
Researching in communities where the research participants are multilingual raises questions about research design and practice. This paper illustrates post‐research reflections of a study of multilingual women from ethnic minority migrant/refugee/asylum‐seeking backgrounds living in the N orth‐ E ast of E ngland. The study involved 68 women speaking more than 25 languages, and 17 researchers, including volunteers, most of whom were multilingual. The analysis revealed the importance of flexible multilingualism in the project design – from inception, to choice of research instruments, data generation processes, analysis and write‐up – to accommodate participants' (and researchers') asymmetric multilingual practices. These multilingual research practices, often under‐discussed in research methodology, have implications for the authenticity and trustworthiness of the research outcomes, especially among marginalized, vulnerable, and disadvantaged groups.