Carefully navigating the messiness of community-engaged feminist internet research
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.21504/ajhece.v2i1.2553Keywords:
Engaged research, internet research, feminist research, messy research, community-engaged feminist internet researchAbstract
Community-engaged feminist internet research is often complex, as researchers navigate the needs of communities alongside institutional expectations to produce knowledge that meaningfully serves local digital realities. Rather than viewing this complexity—or 'messiness'—as a weakness, this paper argues that it is a productive and necessary dimension of rigorous, care-centred research. Drawing on two recent studies, the Feminist Internet Research Meta-Research Project and The Left Out Project, the article illustrates how methodological uncertainty, ethical negotiation, and shifting contextual conditions shape feminist internet research in practice. Embracing and making visible this messiness enables greater reflexivity, supports more inclusive and accountable knowledge-making, and strengthens the ethical foundations of engaged research. The paper concludes with three recommendations for navigating the complexities of community-engaged feminist internet research: practising ongoing reflexivity, building communities of practice, and grounding research in an ethics of care.
References
Billo, E., and Hiemstra, N. (2012). Mediating messiness: expanding ideas of flexibility, reflexivity, and embodiment in fieldwork. Gender, Place & Culture, 20(3), 313–328. https://doi.org/10.1080/0966369X.2012.674929
Blakely, K. (2007). ‘Reflections on the Role of Emotion in Feminist Research.’ In International Journal of Qualitative Methods 6(2), 59–68. https://doi.org/10.1177/160940690700600206
Bloyce, D. (2004). ‘Research Is a Messy Process: A Case Study of a Figurational Sociology Approach to Conventional Issues in Social Science Research Methods.’ In Graduate Journal of Social Science, 1, 144–166.
Chadwick, R. (2021). ‘Reflecting on Discomfort in Research.’ In LSE Impact Blog. February 24, 2021. Accessed 30 March 2021. https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/impactofsocialsciences/2021/02/24/reflecting-on-discomfort-in-research/
Chilisa, B. (2012). Indigenous research methodologies. SAGE.
Clark, C., Brody, M., Dillon, J., Hart, P., and Heimlich, J. (2007). ‘The Messy Process of Research: Dilemmas, Process, and Critique.’ In Canadian Journal of Environmental Education 12, 110–126.
Collins, P. H. (1990). Black feminist thought: Knowledge, consciousness, and the politics of empowerment. Routledge.
Cook, T. (2009). ‘The Purpose of Mess in Action Research: Building Rigour though a Messy Turn.’ In Educational Action Research 17(2), 277–291. https://doi.org/10.1080/09650790902914241
Crenshaw, K. (1989). Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex. University of Chicago Legal Forum, 1989(1), 139–167.
Dadas, C. (2016). Messy methods: Queer methodological approaches to researching social media. Computers and Composition, 40, 60–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compcom.2016.03.007
Edwards, R. and Mauthner, M. (2012). ‘Ethics and Feminist Research: Theory and Practice.’ In T. Miller, M. Birch, M. Mauthner, and J. Jessop (Eds.) Ethics in Qualitative Research. Second edition. London: SAGE Publications. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781473913912.n1
Elden, S. (2012). ‘Inviting the Messy: Drawing Methods and “Children’s Voices”.’ In Childhood, 20(1), 66–81. https://doi.org/10.1177/0907568212447243
Graaff, K. (2021). The Implications of a Narrow Understanding of Gender-Based Violence. Feminist Encounters: A Journal of Critical Studies in Culture and Politics, 5(1). https://doi.org/10.20897/femenc/9749
Gringeri, C.E., Wahab, S., Anderson-Nathe, E. (2010). ‘What Makes it Feminist?: Mapping the Landscape of Feminist Social Work Research.’ In Affilia: Journal of Women and Social Work, 25(4), 390–405. https://doi.org/10.1177/0886109910384072
Haraway, D. (1988). Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective. Feminist Studies, 14(3), 575–599. https://doi.org/10.2307/3178066
Harding, S. (2004). The feminist standpoint theory reader: Intellectual and political controversies. Routledge.
Heney, V., and Poleykett, B. (2022). The impossibility of engaged research: Complicity and accountability between researchers, ‘publics’ and institutions. Sociology of Health & Illness, 44(S1), 179–194. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9566.13418
Hesse-Biber, N. (Ed.). (2007). Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis. Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Holliman, Richard (2017). Supporting excellence in engaged research. Journal of Science Communication, 16(5), 1–10.
Iranti. (2019). Data Collection and Reporting on Violence Perpetrated Against LGBTQI Persons in Botswana, Kenya, Malawi, South Africa and Uganda: A report prepared for the Arcus Foundation. https://www.arcusfoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Iranti-Violence-Against-LGBTQI-Persons-in-Botswana-Kenya-Malawi-South-Africa-Uganda.pdf
Key, K. D., Furr-Holden, D., Yvonne Lewis, E., Cunningham, R., Zimmerman, M. A., Johnson-Lawrence, V., and Selig, S. (2019). The continuum of community engagement in research: A roadmap for understanding and assessing progress. Progress in Community Health Partnerships: Research, Education, and Action, 13(4). https://doi.org/10.1353/cpr.2019.0064
Law, J. (2004). After Method: Messiness in Social Science Research. New York, NY: Routledge.
Letseka, M. (2012). In defence of Ubuntu. Studies in Philosophy and Education, 31(1), 47–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-011-9267-2
McLean, N. (2022). Feminist Internet Research Network: Meta-Research Project Report. Association for Progressive Communication. https://www.apc.org/sites/default/files/firn-meta.pdf
McLean, N. (2020). Creating safe spaces: Digital as an enabling environment for TNB people. In S.K. Kattari, M.K. Kinney, L. Kattari, and N.E. Walls (Eds). Social Work and Health Care Practice with Transgender and Nonbinary Individuals and Communities (pp. 331-342). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429443176
McLean, N. (2018). Rethinking publics and participation in a digital era: A case study of HOLAA! and African queer women’s digital interactions. Agenda, 32(2), 70-75. https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2018.1445345
McLean, N. and Cicero, T. (2023). The Left Out Project. Feminist Internet Research Network, Association for Progressive Communication. https://firn.genderit.org/research/left-out-project-report-case-online-gender-based-violence-framework-inclusive-transgender
Metz, T. (2014). Ubuntu as a moral theory and human rights in South Africa. African Human Rights Law Journal, 11(2), 532–559.
Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Feminism without borders: Decolonizing theory, practicing solidarity. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.1515/9780822384649
Mosavel, M., Simon, C., van Stade, D., Buchbinder, M. (2005). Community-based participatory research (CBPR) in South Africa: Engaging multiple constituents to shape the research question. Soc Sci Med, 61(12), 2577–2587. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2005.04.041
Müller, A., Daskilewicz, K., Kabwe, M. L., Mmolai-Chalmers, A., Morroni, C., Muparamoto, N., Muula, A. S., Odira, V., Zimba, M., and Southern and Eastern African Research Collective for Health (SEARCH). (2021). Experience of and factors associated with violence against sexual and gender minorities in nine African countries: a cross-sectional study. BMC Public Health, 21, 357. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-021-10314-w
Ndlovu-Gatsheni, S. J. (2018). Epistemic freedom In Africa: Deprovincialization and decolonization. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492204
Nyamnjoh, F. B. (2019). Decolonising the university in Africa. The Johannesburg Salon, 9, 47–58.
Preissle, J., Feminist Research Ethics. (2007). In S. N. Hesse-Biber (Ed.), The Handbook of Feminist Research: Theory and Praxis. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE, pp. 515-32. https://doi.org/10.4135/9781483384740.n28
Rich, A. (1986). Blood, bread, and poetry: selected prose, 1979 – 1985. Norton, New York.
Rose, D., and Kalathil, J. (2019). Power, privilege and knowledge: The untenable promise of co-production in mental “health”. Frontiers in Sociology, 4(57). https://doi.org/10.3389/fsoc.2019.00057
Tandon et al. (2016). Chapter 2: Theoretical Pedagogical Framework for Community Based Research. In Tandon et al (eds.) Knowledge and Engagement: Building Capacity for the Next Generation of Community Based Researchers, pp 7-39. UNESCO Chair CBR-SR and PRIA.
Wylie, A. (2003). Why standpoint matters. In E. Anderson (Ed.), Feminist Epistemology & Philosophy of Science. Routledge, pp. 26–48.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Nyx McLean
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
