A Case for (Reflexive) Collaboration - Natasha

In The Man Who Adores the Negro: Race and American Folklore, Patrick Mullen uses several historical case studies to develop a critique of white folklorists’ research on African American folklore. He illustrates how research reflects constructs of race and identity of the historical period from which it emerges and frequently influences the nature of the research and its outcomes. Because folklore research is informed by racial and identity constructs, the outcome of this research can also inadvertently serve to perpetuate existing constructs and power structures. In other words, it helps to further normalize existing racial or colonial attitudes.

Mullen does all this reflexively so that his own work is as much a part of his critique as is the work of others. His heightened awareness of issues of race, power, and privilege at play in his own research directly impact his role as a researcher, the nature of his inquiry, and his scholarly response to his findings. It also influences his analysis of what went wrong in his attempt at collaborative research with Jesse Truvillion.

The Truvillion episode is an interesting one and Mullen gives it a central place in his book by devoting the entire conclusion to a reflexive analysis of it. As Mullen explains, he made an attempt to engage Truvillion in collaborative research but because of social and racial assumptions that influenced them both, the collaboration ended in disaster. Although I’m not sure I understand the exact details of what caused the communication breakdown (the footnote in the special journal issue he references makes it clear that some accidental contradiction occurred but I don’t understand why the episode escalated quite so much after that). Mullen’s suggested solution is that more reflexivity is needed in research but he doesn’t offer any concrete suggestions on how to practice such reflexivity. This seems a major shortcoming given that the ideals he held for collaborative research failed because he wasn’t able to fully incorporate it into the everyday moments of the research process.

Overall, I found this book to be a useful demonstration of several concepts we've discussed this semester. I wish it had done more to develop a methodological approach to conducting reflexive, collaborative research but, at the very least, it made  a strong case for why that research approach is indeed valuable.