Empowering Methodologies in Organisational and Social Research

211 Pages·2021·4.572 MB·English

by  Emma Bell, Sunita Singh Sengupta

“This is a welcome and much-needed volume in Organization Studies, where the
drive towards conformity seems relentless. Three major issues stand out: the focus
on the importance of situated and plural forms of knowing in a global context;
the need for empowering research by challenging mainstream epistemological
commitments and values; and the need for researchers to recognise that we and
those we research are human, with feelings and senses.
In a beautiful range of chapters that take us out of conventional organisational
settings, the authors explore indigenous and participatory forms of knowing and
researching that foreground the lived experience of participants. The chapters
address important social problems from a range of methodological perspectives.
For example, Devi Vijay studies the experience of palliative care through Butler’s
notion of vulnerability; Premilla D’Cruz, Ernesto Noronha, Saikat Chakraborty
and Muneeb Ul Lateef Banday give voice to children employed as child labour
through visual methods; and Srinath Jagannathan and Premalatha Packirisamy use
autoethnography to refect on their experience of becoming parents while being
academics. Each chapter ofers a rich narrative that stimulates you to reconsider
conventional methodological values and practices”.
– Ann Cunlife, Fundacao Getulio Vargas-EAESP, Brazil
“From the title onwards you know that this is going to be an important read.
This is a book that not only informs the reader of the ‘how to’ aspects of research
methods but their emancipatory potential”.
– Albert J. Mills, University of Eastern Finland
“Turning current eforts to repoliticize critical management and organisation
research into an opportunity for reinvigorating the feld, this brilliantly clever
and thought-provoking volume is exactly what our community needs. Bell and
Sengupta adeptly guide the reader through a beautiful collection of chapters, which
in each their unique way speak to the kinds of researchers we want to be(come)
and who we are writing for. Through honest, refexive and responsible accounts
the volume centers voices of people who are all too often othered, oppressed or
exploited, bringing to the fore their lived concerns, fears or aspirations while also
problematising the very concepts of ‘center’ and ‘voice’, so as not to naturalise or
romanticise the speaking subject. The contributing authors not only write about
the sensory, afective, embodied practice of empowering research, it is felt through
the text. Individually, and in combination, these contributions ofer poignant
invitations to critical scholars to become more response-able, to paraphrase
Emmanuel Levinas, in seeking to diversify research practices and decolonise social
scientifc knowledge production”.
– Sarah Louise Muhr, Copenhagen Business School, Denmark

EMPOWERING METHODOLOGIES
IN ORGANISATIONAL AND
SOCIAL RESEARCH
This book explores the meaning and practice of empowering methodologies in
organisational and social research.
In a context of global academic precarity, this volume explores why empowering
research is urgently needed. It discusses the situatedness of knowing and knowledge
in the context of core-periphery relations between the global North and South.
The book considers the sensory, afective, embodied practice of empowering
research, which involves listening, seeing, moving and feeling, to facilitate a more
diverse, creative and crafty repertoire of research possibilities. The essays in this
volume examine crucial themes including:
• How to decolonise management knowledge
• Using imaginative, visual and sensory methods
• Memory and space in empowering research
• Empowerment and feminist methodologies
• The role of reflexivity in empowering research
By bringing postcolonial perspectives from India, the volume aims to revitalise
management and organisation studies for global readers. This book will be useful
for scholars and researchers of management studies, organisational behaviour,
research methodology, development studies, social sciences in general and gender
studies and sociology.
Emma Bell is Professor of Organization Studies at The Open University, UK.
Sunita Singh Sengupta is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Studies at
the University of Delhi, India.

EMPOWERING
METHODOLOGIES
IN ORGANISATIONAL
AND SOCIAL RESEARCH
Edited by Emma Bell and
Sunita Singh Sengupta
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 selection and editorial matter, Emma Bell and Sunita Singh
Sengupta; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Emma Bell and Sunita Singh Sengupta to be identifed as the
authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual
chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identifcation and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-37058-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-37059-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-0-429-35249-2 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9780429352492
Typeset in Bembo
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
CONTENTS
List of fgures ix
Notes on contributors x
1 Empowering methodologies in organisational and
social research 1
Emma Bell and Sunita Singh Sengupta
2 Decolonising management knowledge and research:
refections on knowledge, processes and actors 19
Emanuela Girei and Loice Natukunda
3 A decolonial feminist ethnography: empowerment, ethics
and epistemology 39
Jennifer Manning
4 Vulnerability as praxis in studying social sufering 55
Devi Vijay
5 Drawing one’s lifeworld: a methodological technique for
researching bullied child workers 75
Ernesto Noronha, Premilla D’Cruz, Saikat Chakraborty
and Muneeb Ul Lateef Banday
6 Creative memory: memory, methodology and the
post-colonial imagination 96
Jasmine Hornabrook, Clelia Clini and Emily Keightley
viii Contents
7 Drawing together, thinking apart: refecting on our use
of visual participatory research methods 120
Divya Patel and Lauren McCarthy
8 Autoethnography and personal experience as an epistemic
resource 142
Srinath Jagannathan and Premalatha Packirisamy
9 Afective, embodied experiences of doing feldwork in India:
a feminist’s perspective 160
Nita Mishra
10 From doing, to writing, to being, in research 179
Amanda Sinclair
Index 193
FIGURES
4.1 Student on the tree 65
4.2 Because I care installation 66
5.1 Child’s drawing of Bt cotton seed plants, red tag, a fsh and
male fowers 85
5.2 Child’s drawing of Bt cotton seed plant, red tag, a girl child
worker and a fsh 87
5.3 Child’s drawing of the employer who scared the children 90
5.4 Child’s drawing of Diwali and a tagged Bt cotton seed plant 91
6.1 Food and memory workshop, Loughborough. Egg bhuna and
hilsa fsh. December 2019 106
6.2 Food and memory workshop Tower Hamlets, London. Preparing
pomegranates. December 2019 108
6.3 Stitching Stories workshop, Loughborough. Sewing a self-portrait.
July 2019 111
6.4 Aldgate East My Neighbourhood exhibition, Idea Store
Whitechapel, London. Participants visiting the exhibition.
December 2018 114
7.1 Drawing by Shalini 125
7.2 Drawing by Kamla 128
7.3 Drawing by Shankar 129
7.4 Drawing by Hitesh 131
7.5 Drawing by Rohit 132
7.6 Drawing by Riddhima 135
7.7 Drawing by Sangeeta 136
7.8 Drawing by Rashesh 137
9.1 Laxmipriya Ojha, Anganwadi helper 167