How Might the Identity of the Author Have Made a Difference to the Research?

From reading the paper, what do we know about the author? How might the identity of the author have made a difference to the research?

This research paper does not convey much information about the author rather it is focused on the ethnic minority women’s experiences of managing their work and personal lives. It mainly explores the perceptions of minority women’s reciprocal relationship of career demands and other aspects of life such as family and community expectations and responsibilities. The author and Fearfull (2006) have argued that there exists two different set of expectations at work and home for ethnic minority women. The author being a female could have expressed her views and experiences on the set of expectations from her own working place, community and family. This could have been more supportive to this research process on discussing work life balance in ethnic minority women. On reading this paper I find that this paper is not a reflexive one when compared to the paper written by Lisa Russell on accounts of ethnography. Had the study involve detailed reflexive accounts in the sense that, accounting what significance and importance the study had to her, recording her personal experiences while she conducted the study, mentioning how her personal characteristics and ethnic background influenced the participants as well as the overall study, would have given us a much clearer picture of the research process (Davies, 1999). The author has not talked anything about her influences on this research and the research subjects. I think that the reflexivity of the researcher in the research could have played an important role. Only honest disclosure of the researcher’s position will allow the readers to assess the substance of the research (Salzman, 2002).

The identity of the author would have made a difference in the research process to a larger extent. Had the author been from same ethnic minority community the respondents would have felt more comfortable and they would have been more open in the interview process. The identity of being in the same ethnic minority group would have facilitated the author in conducting qualitative interviews. Being an experienced researcher she influences the process of gaining access to the research from organizations. From the research paper I could find that the author has had an experience in working as a senior research officer in the social justice division, which questions why the author could gain access only from two organizations when she has approached twenty organizations. On the other hand we can also infer that there might have been some confidentiality issues in the organizations because of which they had denied the access when the researcher approached for the research.