Footprints in the Field: Researcher Identity in Social Research

Abstract

This paper encourages researchers to consider their own identity to be of particular importance within any research project. Rather than seeing our own identities as being fully formed and therefore detached from a project, this paper suggests that we invest ourselves into research and acknowledge the impact we have on research. Investing ourselves into research, also involves considering our identities to be open to adaption. Consequently, an investigation of how our own identities can be influenced by the process of carrying out research is also discussed. It is suggested that this investment may open up endless possibilities for future research and practice. Notably, the process of self-investigation can result in transparent and ethical knowledge production. I use the example of my own research to highlight the advantages of remaining open to and embracing these opportunities for growth. Drawing on a poststructural conceptual framework, I critically explore some of the possibilities that a thorough interrogation of the self can create.

Fieldnotes, Field Research, and Positionality of a “Contested-Native Researcher”

“…Jonathan Harvey (2013) defines reflexivity and positionality as "situating oneself." Hervik (1994, p. 94) suggests that being reflexive requires a researcher to " .…”

Innovating the Craft of Phenomenological Research Methods Through Mindfulness

“…Mindfulness skills and the explicit development of bracketing and reflexivity become all the more relevant given that in qualitative research in general, the researcher is the primary tool for data generation and analysis (Brown, 2010;Engelsrud, 2005;Harvey, 2013). Perhaps even more so in phenomenological research than in other methodological approaches, the success of the research rests on the researcher's ability to undergo truly bracket out themselves through the processes of epoché and then eidetic reduction.…”

“…However, in the field and when going about generating data, the actual practice of being reflexive and reflective while undertaking research becomes something far more elusive and slippery (Bloor and Wood, 2006;Hesse-Biber and Leavy, 2011). Harvey (2013), Pillow (2003) and other voices in the qualitative methodological literature have described the difficulty of practising reflexivity as a lived aspect of undertaking qualitative research; particularly, the disparity which is often encountered between knowing that and knowing how. As Berger (2015) alludes, this aspect of doing research has the quality of being 'here and there, now and then becoming… [an issue of]… now I see it, now I don 't' (pp.…”

“…Reflexivity, in the qualitative research tradition, is a practical skill and attitude by which a researcher is systematically aware of and attends to how knowledge is being constructed (Bloor and Wood, 2006). Elaborations on this basic definition have been offered by various authors and theorists within the field of qualitative methodology and methods such as consideration of what impact the researchers themselves make while researching or what Harvey (2013), Kvalsund and Hargreaves (2014) call the 'researcher footprint'. Ho (2006), O'Toole and Beckett (2010), and Denzin and Lincoln (2002) also elaborate that the practice of conducting research reflexively includes the researcher having awareness and then actively mitigating their own biases, power and positionality in relation to research participants, the data generation processes, data analysis and the synthesis of writing.…”

Metamorfoz: Akademide Üç Kere Doğmak

“…Sosyal bilimler alanındaki araştırmacılar olarak, şimdiye kadar sayısız farklı konuyu nesne ve olgu düzeyinde inceleyip, analiz ettik. Ancak, araştırmacı olarak kendi varlığımızı, akademik bilincimizi, yani "bilen ile bilinmek istenilenin aynı" olduğu "olma sürecini" nadiren bir araştırma meselesi olarak ele aldık (Harvey, 2013). Bilimsel bilginin üreticileri olan akademisyenlerin "gelişim ve olma" yolculuğu ile ilgili konular son zamanlarda az sayıda araştırmacı tarafından da olsa ayrı bir ilgi alanı olarak incelenmeye başlanmıştır (bkz.…”