Ethnographic encounters. Positionings within and outside the insider frame*

From theMarginalImmigrant to theMobileCitizen: Reconstruction of Identity of Romanian Migrants in Spain

“…Nonetheless, as Yuval‐Davis () argues, subjective identities appear in relation to others creating the ‘otherness’, a subjective face of migrants' identity. Moreover, Halstead (:307–308) points out that the notion of otherness and the idea of being an outsider as status enhancing were linked to the ability to access a better lifestyle.…”

“…As Taussig (:246) noted metaphorically, migrants enter into the ‘second contact’ era of the borderland where ‘us’ and ‘them’ lose their polarity and swim in and out of focus. Thus, as Healstad (:311) stated, the boundaries of insider–outsider had stretched to accommodate their expectations and contradictory cultural performances, facilitating a multiplicity of identity movements. As a result of these processes, new meanings that articulated the framework of a potential cosmopolitan identity were created.…”

The Politics of Visibility: When Intel hired Levi‐Strauss, Or So They Thought

“…In order to understand the processes of differentiation between researcher and researched, Empinotti discussed positionality in three circumstances: how she, as a researcher, became part of the social structures of power present in the sites where she conducted her fieldwork; how the interviewees' expectations toward the impact of her work in their lives influenced their answers; and how the recognition of commonalities between herself (as a Brazilian woman) and the researched influenced their answers. In a somewhat similar fashion, Halstead (2001) describes the fluidity of her positionality (and her 'self') in the field as dynamically and contingently constructed and negotiated by those researched according to their own interests. Both studies significantly demonstrated how being an ethnographic subject (i.e., the focus of outside interests -"why would someone care about us?")…”

Social identities in the field: how fluctuating fieldworker identities shape our research

“…Merton, 1972), and within various ethnographic research fields it has long been demonstrated how social markers such as age, race, nationality and gender influence the position and access of the fieldworkereven when she is "at home" (See e.g. Bell, 1999;Bolak, 1996;Cui, 2015;Ergun and Erdemir, 2010;Gurney, 1985;Halstead, 2007).…”