Researching sensitive issues online: implications of a hybrid insider/outsider position in a retrospective ethnographic study

Paechter, Carrie

doi:10.1177/1468794112446107

Cited by 90 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 28 publications

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“…As a person who originates from that region and a graduand of that school (the participants' workplace) I had been seen as a source of knowledge, and specifically knowledge of being a better teacher which they saw as an advantage to them. The issues of the advantages and disadvantages of an insider and outsider researcher have been discussed in the literature (Greene, 2014;Herbert, 2010;Kerstetter, 2012;Merriam et al, 2001;Paechter, 2013;Taylor, 2011). My experiences suggest that the participants used my insider position to ask for more assistance and at this early stage of the study I could not resist helping them, and at other times, although I was conflicted, I attempted to minimize aid although this was their first experience as independent learners and researchers.…”

Section: Asking For Feedbackmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Complexities of Implementing Classroom-Based Action Research in a Remote School in Indonesia

Hajar¹

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Despite almost a decade since the introduction as a professional learning model for teachers in Indonesia, the growth of Classroom-Based Action Research (CBAR) is very limited. The CBAR process in Indonesia has relied heavily on one-off-top-down and non-school based professional development.This study was conducted in a small town in the Eastern Flores regency of the East Nusa Tenggara province, Indonesia. The study involved English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers at one public secondary school in a rural and disadvantaged context who worked with the researcher to attempt to implement a school based approach to CBAR. Four phases of the study were conducted: Getting started; Workshops; CBAR in action; and Post CBAR through an imagined, intended and enacted methodological structure. In this study I adopted a Foucauldian approach as a theoretical perspective, as well as applying Foucauldian theories to the data analysis.Drawing on a variety of data sources including: meetings and interviews; workshop sessions and classroom visits; and reflective journals and field notes, the study identified three major discourses circulating within the CBAR project. These three discourses are used to explore understandings of reflective practice, subject positionings, and collaboration.The Foucauldian approach to analysis focused on discourses and the idea that individuals have multiple identities as a result of multiple subject positionings, and their relationships are influenced by the discourses that operate within a specific context. These discourses create the nexus between power and knowledge and impact on how the CBAR worked in this context, how the participants positioned me and themselves, how they positioned themselves and their colleagues, and were positioned by their colleagues, in their effort to implement the CBAR project.Through the exploration of the discourses of reflective practice, it was found that being a critical practitioner was not easily translated into a remote and disadvantaged context in Indonesia.An analysis of the discourses of subject positionings indicates the participants' multiple constructions of me and my multiple constructions of them continued throughout the study due to the complexities of the situation. There were often 'pull and push' subject positionings where I attempted to get the teachers to do research but their limited abilities, autonomy, and resources as well as their practice/tradition rooted in the mandates/policy from the central government created problems. There were also tensions and struggles in their inability to complete research without my ii assistance and constant request for help, and my tensions and struggles to avoid providing and giving more assistance.Through the investigation of the discourses of collaboration, it was found that the implementation of the project as a collaborative work is a site of tension for both the participants and myself caused in part by the multiple identities that we took up. There were tensions and struggles between the partic...

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Section: Asking For Feedbackmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Complexities of Implementing Classroom-Based Action Research in a Remote School in Indonesia

Hajar¹

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“…''; moreover, researcher's familiarity with their research settings and participants are ''even more productive [than outsider researchers]'' (p. 163). In other words, CMEers not only gain easier access to the research site, but because of the readily established rapport and epistemological intimacy, it is more likely to elicit ''real'' and ''actual'' perspectives from participants (Dwyer & Buckle, 2009;Paechter, 2012;ReedDanahay, 2001;Smith, 2005). For instance, Kanuha (2000) analyzes her insider position in examining the struggles and oppressive accounts from people who identity as lesbian and people of color like herself.…”

Section: Cme's Potential For Critical Communication Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Ellis and Bochner (2000) claim that autoethnography became popular around 1995 (see also Paechter, 2012), a time frame when ethnographers started to critically accentuate self-reflexivity, self-display, and selfdisclosure (Reed-Danahay, 2001 Likewise, Ellis and Bochner (2000) emphasize that autoethnography ''vary in their emphasis on the research process (graphy), on culture (ethno), and on self (auto)'' (p. 740). Butler (2009), Ellis, Adams, and Bochner (2011), and Goodall (2000 all explicate that autoethnography is a qualitative methodology, specifically a ''method of .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Complete-member Ethnography

Chuang

2015

International Journal of Qualitative Methods

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Within the vast array of ethnographic research methodology, complete-member ethnography (CME) is one ethnographic inquiry whose methodological development is still in infantile in intercultural communication research. Specifically in this article, the author includes four major sections to understand and to advance CME. First, the author reviews the historical development of CME, and realizes epistemological intimacy as the core of CME and as how researchers' complete-memberships may be established. Second, the author explains the concept and practice of epistemological intimacy in extant literature. Third, the author advances the concept of epistemological intimacy to identify and explain five contextual factors that influence a completemember ethnographer's complete-membership to his or her research community. The five factors include historicity of identity, institutional memory, situational (inter)subjectivity, consensual membership, and symbolic codes. In order to elucidate that said factors are essentially interrelated, the author supplements the five factors with her conceptualizations of selfhood/identity. In the end, the author discusses three potential contributions of how CME can advance critical communication research, which pertain to (a) praxis and reflexivity, (b) challenging struggles and inequalities in power and privilege, and (c) promote hopeful social justice from within.

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“…I am myself a long-standing user of the site. The implications of my position as a partially insider researcher are discussed elsewhere (Paechter, 2012).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The overall intention of the research was to trace the development of an informal online community (Maloney-Krichmar & Preece, 2002;Gray, 2004;Herring, 2004;Cox, 2008;Koliba & Gajda, 2009) on the site during this period and to establish what learning took place (Paechter, 2012). Set up by one man as a social enterprise, Wikivorce initially consisted of a wiki outlining the divorce process and a series of linked asynchronous forums in which people were encouraged to post questions about the legal and financial aspects of divorce, plus a blogging space and, after a couple of months, chat rooms.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Online Learning in Divorce: How the Formation of a Community of Practice in a Divorce Support Website Enables and Inhibits Learning

Paechter

2012

E-Learning and Digital Media

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This article is about the informal learning that took place in an online divorce support and advice forum. In it, the author discusses the formation of a community of practice among the members during the first nine months of the site's operation. The author shows how the key markers of mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire developed between members, and argues that the community of practice both enhanced and inhibited learning among its members. In particular, the author suggests that members learned not only the knowledge about divorce law provided by others on the site as a form of public good, but they also learned ways of coping with divorce, with their exspouse and with the legal system generally. At the same time, however, some group practices inhibited learning, both for those participating in the community and for those excluded by members. The author concludes with suggestions for developing similar online communities of practice.

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Researching sensitive issues online: implications of a hybrid insider/outsider position in a retrospective ethnographic study

Cited by 90 publications

References 28 publications

The Complexities of Implementing Classroom-Based Action Research in a Remote School in Indonesia

The Complexities of Implementing Classroom-Based Action Research in a Remote School in Indonesia

Complete-member Ethnography

Online Learning in Divorce: How the Formation of a Community of Practice in a Divorce Support Website Enables and Inhibits Learning

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