Researching 'Race' and Ethnicity Methods, Knowledge and Power

with an active research agenda. There are three parts to the book, with the most persuasive being the second, which looks at the thorny questions of what the author describes as 'race of interviewer effects' in

other words does it matter what race or ethnicity the interviewer is in social research. Gunaratnam looks at this problem in terms of the social

construction of the nature of research on racialized groups in Britain. The

very fact that the race/ ethnicity of a researcher is posed as a problem for

reflection and questioning is the starting point for the author. In this way, the race/ethnicity of the researchers matters as a source of methodological concern, but there is no correct method for all contexts.

Indeed, there is a level of theoretical sophistication in the text which is

often missing from texts concerned with methods in this area. But this

does not take away from socially committed comment on the author's

fieldwork area of hospice provision. Here we find the application of some

of the methodological issues raised in the book in the author's own work.

The only criticism is the specificity of this research area for the general

ideas that are presented, a more general overview of research in the arena

(a difficult and wide ranging task) and how it may apply to the framework

presented would have been more useful. However, this is still one of the

few books, out of Britain, which takes seriously the issues of methodology and race' - Race Relations Abstacts

'This is a thought-provoking and challenging book which demonstrated the fractured and fluid nature of difference and power in the research process. Importantly it offers a guide to the ways in which research can be effectively and productively used in challenging the status quo' - Diversity in Health and Social Care