Researching Violence, Democracy and the Rights of People

Violence, democracy and rights are issues that are not fully addressed in research methodology literatures, yet violence is of vital interest in substantive and theoretical debates across the social sciences, education, philosophy, politics and cultural studies. Methodology needs to be informed by, and be relevant to, the debates and practices within and across these perspectives on the worlds of everyday life.
Research is fundamentally entwined with the political, the ethical and the legal. When it presumes the neutrality of method and ignores its radical roots of inquiry, it is in danger of being politically co-opted and ethically naïve. Research that reveals what is at stake politically, ethically and legally is typically open to accusations of being partisan and therefore political. It cannot avoid being political in the broadest sense of the word, and consequently the researcher cannot escape – through some mystical notion of being ‘objective’ – the political, ethical and legal consequences of undertaking research.
Research is vital to the construction of public spaces for debate, decision making and action. Hence, there is a close relationship between methodological practices, research design and the conditions under which violence, democracy and rights can be addressed.
Researching Violence, Democracy and the Rights of People explores what is at stake methodologically (both theoretically and practically) for researchers seeking to expand opportunities for people to become visible upon the public stages of debate, decision making and action, and thus make audible their experiences of wrongs and injustices, express their rights, and engage democratically in processes of change.
Drawing on international contributions and contexts, this book introduces readers to the complex realities of real research and the substantive issues that their methodological approaches strive to deal with. It will benefit undergraduate and postgraduate students as well as post-doctoral and experienced researchers across a range of cultural and social science disciplines, as well as educational and sociological researchers. Its aim is to explore and contribute to the development of innovatory approaches to engaging in research that make a difference in the lives of people.

John F. Schostak is Research Professor of Education at the Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Jill Schostak is Visiting Fellow at the School of Education and Lifelong Learning, University of East Anglia, and most recently has undertaken contract research with the College of Emergency Medicine.

Introduction - John and Jill Schostak

Part A – Design, Values, Violence and Rights
Ch 1 Values, Violence, Rights - Jill and John Schostak

Part B Research Accounts
Introduction to Part B - John and Jill Schostak
Ch 2 Rethinking justice in education and training Jean-Louis Derouet, INRP
Ch 3. Between justice and pathologisation: juxtapositions of epistemic and material violence in transnational research around migration and domestic violence. Erica Burman, MMU
Ch 4 The scarf unveiled: proximity to the test of law in a French school
Ch 5 Social Research and ‘Race’: Developing a critical paradigm, Gurnam Singh
Ch 6 Violence, Social Exclusion and Construction of Identities in Early Childhood Education. Concepción Sánchez Blanco, University of A Coruña, Spain
METHODOLOGICAL DISCUSSION SECTION ii - resisting identities and boundaries
Ch 7 The construction of Violence/non-violence by schools and the media, João Menelau Paraskeva, Universidade do Minho
Ch 8 Charlie Why Ya Hideing: The Role of Myth and Emotions in the Lives of Young People Living in a High Crime Area Kaye Haw, University of Nottingham
Ch 9 Passionate Places and Fragmented Spaces Cathie Pearce, MMU
Ch 10 The Return of the Repressed, Loic Wacquant

METHODOLOGICAL DISCUSSION SECTION iii places: visible, invisible and their ‘dis/contents’.
Ch 11 Discursive and Material forms of Violence in the US in a post 9/11 Era,
Ch 12 . Militarizing Higher Education: Resisting the Pedagogy of Violence, Henry Giroux
METHODOLOGICAL DISCUSSION SECTION iv – The language of critical resistance, emancipatory practices and the construction of the conditions for action and the containment of change.

Part C Framing the Design and Writing Up
Ch 14 Writing for Emancipatory Research - Jill and John Schostak

Conclusion
The key themes of the book will be drawn together.