8.1 Speaking Back to Your Sources

Research and Source Biases

The Othering & Belonging Institute at UC Berkeley, a think tank focused on developing and supporting research practices to create structural equity, recommends considering research and research practices through the lens of the four Rs [PDF], represented in the following infographic:

Figure 8.1. The 4Rs of Research Practices. (4Rs_Infographic_Accessible_Word_Version)

• Rigor: Thorough and Accurate

Cultural strategy in transformative research prompts us to examine how various worldviews (or epistemologies) influence our research, uncovering biases and value systems that can exclude or add valuable information, and distort or strengthen conclusions. Integrating arts and culture methods (such as dance, somatics, poetry, or photography) allows access to an expanded range of data, information, and processes for drawing conclusions, which creates a more thorough and ultimately accurate process.

• Resonance: Deep Alignment between the Research Process and People’s Inner Experiences

We are moved by narratives, by our hearts, spirit, emotion, and feelings—not through facts alone. We are also moved when things reflect and honor our individual and cultural experiences. Arts and cultural practices create greater accessibility and more engaging experiences by honoring and embracing the full range of human experiences at each stage of the process.

• Reach: Expanding Who Is Engaged and Activated

If a picture is worth a thousand words, is a dance on a bus that draws attention to transit justice worth a thousand? Arts and cultural practices are flexible and inventive in how they reach audiences, respondents, and participants, as well as in sharing their findings. This can expand reach, but it can also support more intentional reach to communities or individuals often excluded from a process.

• Regeneration: Seeking to Heal, Energize, and Re/Connect

A cultural activity within participatory action research leads with, honors, and takes seriously practices, ways of being, and knowing that have long supported communities in the face of systemic oppression. The research process should (re)connect people to ancestral, under-attack, or even contemporary practices deemed “outside” of a research process to create regenerative power for participants throughout.

Algorithmic Biases

Gaps in research sometimes stem from the content of the research or the approach taken by the researchers. Gaps in research can also stem from biases in search engines. As you think through the current status of your research, consider how algorithmic bias [Website] may have affected your results.

Consider Together: Algorithmic Biases

The following videos describe how algorithms work:

Guiding Questions

Search engines, databases, and research platforms you use may prioritize sources that represent more privileged viewpoints, thereby stifling underrepresented voices in the field. To counter these biases, be aware of how the algorithms used in your search platforms view your topic:

• What elements of the information in these videos are you already familiar with?
• What information from these videos is surprising?
• How might the information in these videos shape your understanding of the sources that you found?
• When you do a simple search of your topic, what common themes are you seeing in the search returns?
• What types of search results are prioritized?
• Do those common themes or prioritized search returns reflect preconceived notions, myths, or biases about your topic?
• How do search results compare across different search engines, databases, and research platforms?

Gaps in Your Sources

Once you’ve collected your sources, you will want to assess what you’ve collected to determine what areas of your project still need further research support. In other words, what’s missing from your sources?

As you look over your sources, there are some initial questions you can ask to determine if you need additional sources for your research project:

• Do I have sources to cover all the topics I plan to cover?
• Do I have sources to help me explain the background and context of my topic?
• Do I have recent sources that demonstrate my awareness of how the topic is currently being discussed?
• Do my sources include the most frequently cited or well-known sources in the field to show that I am aware of the prevailing discussions about my topic, even if I don’t agree with their conclusions?

Apply It: Source Gaps

Use the table below to surface some of the gaps in the research you’ve done and reflect on how those gaps relate to your eventual research article.