Friday, March 14, 2014
Chairman's (Omni Shoreham)
Theoretical and empirical observations from earlier research on the link between national ideologies of integration, public policy practice, heightened ethnic group consciousness and political mobilization in Nigeria, showed how group categories produced and used by the state can be in turn be appropriated, reshaped and mobilized for political claims making (Nwajiaku, 2005). Drawing on situated life histories from interviews with individuals (18-35 year old) of Senegalese origin citizens or citizenship eligible individuals in France and Nigerian origin citizens in the UK, this paper discusses how and why researching questions of race and identity is by its very nature anything but objective. Paying attention to the interactions between researcher and research subject, we explore factors such as: the racial identity (ascribed or assumed) of the lead researcher (a British citizen, born in Scotland to Nigerian parents, having lived for four years in Senegal); the choice of research assistants of Senegalese, Ghanaian and Nigerian origin, with French, American and British citizenship and the perceived identity and therefore perceived lack of ‘impartiality’ in the context of face to face interviews. Whilst some scholars of race and ethnicity have suggested subjectivities around race create background noise which interferes with research objectivity (Bleich, 2003), ‘bias’, perceived or otherwise of researchers who share (or indeed may not share) the racial dilemmas of their research subjects, can actually generate unique interactions between research subjects and researcher. Through the adoption of a reflexive approach, these interactions can themselves generate valuable material for research analysis in their own right.
