Reflexivity in Fieldwork: Toward a Ferninist Epistemology

This discussion draws upon research conducted with women with diabetes. Issues pertaining to responding to the requests of informants for information about illness and balancing “taking action” with the researcher role are addressed. It is argued that while intervention by the researcher/clinician may be seen as a dilemma in fieldwork and as a threat to obtaining valid and reliable data, we need to take another tack—a feminist perspective—in examining this aspect of the fieldwork encounter. The dialogue between researcher and informant should be recognized as a resource available to informants and as one means of empowering the disadvantaged and oppressed.