Whether you are revisiting a report or conducting an assessment, you will bring your own understanding, values, assumptions and limitations to the process (this is true for everyone!).
Practicing self-reflection (or reflexivity) throughout the process and working with others in multi-disciplinary teams can help when it comes to identifying and addressing these unconscious biases and limitations.
Key questions and considerations:
- What is your personal position with regard to the heritage and communities? Are you affiliated to or do you consider yourself part of any of the communities? What are your assumptions?
- How will you check for unconscious bias or gaps in awareness in your analysis and interpretation?
- How might your association with institutional or official bodies and community organisations (personally or professionally) impact on the process?
- How might your personal profile impact on the assessment? Consider aspects such as gender, age, ethnicity, class, languages, skills, background.
What does reflexivity looks like in practice?
Based on Elizabeth Robson’s reflections from implementing the case studies.
- The research and my presence were clearly factors in the evolving context. Simply being at the site impacted on behaviours and the act of paying attention to a familiar, ‘everyday’ sites was itself a valorising act.
- Before commencing the studies, I considered my own positionality as a postgraduate researcher and my personal commitment to issues of social justice and citizen participation.
- Some of the sites were owned, managed or maintained by Historic Environment Scotland, who are also collaboratively funding my research. I was not a staff member, but I was at times implicated in those relationships of power. This was particularly apparent when engaging directly around a ‘live’ issue.
- I did not have any prior connection to any of the communities or the case study sites, but I needed to reflect before and during each case on my personal connections and fieldwork relationships.
- My personal profile, as a middle-class English-speaking white female conducting fieldwork on my own, impacted on the places and communities to which I had access. For example, I was unable to engage with participants in Arabic (in the Cables Wynd House study) or Gaelic (in the Lewis studies), as I do not speak either of these languages, and I had to consider the risks of spending time at the sites alone after hours.
- It was often in the processes of reflection and interpretation that unconscious biases or gaps became apparent. For example, the implicit bias or connotations in my choice of terminology. Such cases served as reminders that, although the reports were based on community knowledge and included community voices, the process of analysis, interpretation and writing risked privileging my own voice and values. It was therefore critical to work with others to identify and address these issues wherever possible.
Working in multi-disciplinary teams/with others
Working in a multi-disciplinary team with colleagues or partners who have complementary skills and expertise can help in addressing skills gaps and unconscious biases. This is especially important in rapid assessments, of the sort envisaged in this Toolkit. Approaching an assessment context or the resulting materials from different perspectives can raise questions and identify issues that any one individual might miss, helping to counter the risk of a superficial analysis.
When seeking to collaborate in teams that cross disciplines or cross areas of expertise (within heritage organisations or with communities), our assumptions, training and approaches to can cause misunderstandings and confusion or conflict. Skills such as situational awareness and communication are particularly important, not only for sharing your own expertise but in collaborating effectively with others who may not share it or who may hold contradictory opinions and values.