Feminist Relational Discourse Analysis: putting the personal in the political in feminist research

ABSTRACT

Discourse analysis is a useful and flexible method for exploring power and identity. While there are many forms of discourse analysis, all agree that discourse is the central site of identity construction. However, recent feminist concerns over power, agency, and resistance have drawn attention to the absence of participants’ first-hand experiences within broad discursive accounts (Lafrance & McKenzie-Mohr 2014; Saukko 2008). For those with an interest in power relations, such as feminist researchers, this is a problematic silence which renders the personal functions of discourse invisible. In this article, we argue that the “personal” and “political” are inextricable, and we make a case for putting the “personal” into broader discursive frameworks of understanding. Further, we assert that feminist research seeking to account for identity must more explicitly aim to capture this interplay. To this end, we argue that voice is the key site of meaning where this interplay can be captured, but that no clear analytical framework currently exists for producing such an account. In response, we propose Feminist Relational Discourse Analysis (FRDA) as a voice-centered analytical approach for engaging with experience and discourse in talk. We then set out clear guidance on how to do FRDA, as applied in the context of women working in U.K. policing. Finally, we conclude that by prioritizing voice, FRDA invites new and politicized feminist readings of power, agency, and resistance, where the voices of participants remain central to the discursive accounts of researchers.

KEYWORDS:

• Agency
• discourse analysis
• feminisms
• feminist psychology
• qualitative methods
• voice

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank Professor Brendan Gough for welcoming this article, Dr. Kate Milnes for her support developing this method, and the women whose stories drove our process.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Lucy Thompson

Dr. Lucy Thompson is a feminist psychologist who works in the fields of critical, social, and organizational psychology. She obtained her PhD in Psychology at Leeds Beckett University (UK) and has published on transnational and contemporary feminisms in Feminism & Psychology and the Psychology of Women Section Review. Her main topics of interest and research include feminist perspectives on work and organizations, critical organizational psychology, identities, power, and the politics of public space. As a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, she taught critical social psychology, qualitative research methods, and organizational psychology. She has also been an active member of the British Psychological Society’s Psychology of Women Section (PoWS) committee. Lucy is now a co-director of Psygentra Consulting Inc (Vancouver, BC) and teaches Women’s Studies and Psychology of Women courses for Michigan State University (United States).

Bridgette Rickett

Dr. Bridgette Rickett is a Head of Psychology Group at Leeds Beckett University where she has worked for 16 years. She is a critical organisational psychologist and a feminist researcher. In addition, Bridgette is a founder member of ‘Feminism and Health Research Group’ at Leeds Beckett University and also leads the research programme for Centre of Applied Social Research (CeASR)—Sex, Gender, Identity & Power. Bridgette’s main research interests are; critical social psychological explanations of health; in particular, feminist perspectives on class and health, including talk around; femininity, risk, class and violence in the workplace and organizationally situated sexual harassment, harassment and bullying. Lastly, Bridgette is interested in classed understandings of equality, diversity and organisational identities and more generally debates and issues around class, gender, sexuality, identity work and space. Bridgette has published in journals such as Gender, Work and Organization, Journal of Health Psychology, and Feminism and Psychology.

Katy Day

Dr. Katy Day is a critical feminist psychologist and qualitative researcher based at Leeds Beckett University. She specializes in the use of poststructuralist forms of discourse analysis and has published work using this approach in journals such as Feminism & Psychology, Journal of Gender Studies, Feminist Media Studies, and Journal of Health Psychology. She is also on the committee for the Psychology of Women Section of the BPS and is a member of the editorial board for the journal Transform: A Journal of the Radical Left.