Module 5:
Positionality, Reflexivity, and Taking Care of Ourselves
Overview
This module is focused on positionality, reflexivity, and taking care of ourselves.
Why? Understanding how our own identities and experiences can shape our relationship with the research project is important to help prevent potential harm: to ourselves and our participants.
Learning outcomes: You will be able to discuss intersectionality and positionality. You will be able to describe vicarious trauma and self-care.
What we will do: We will read, watch videos, create a researcher identity memo and self-care plan, and share our self-care strategies on Slack!
Positionality shapes our experiences in the world.
In addition to honesty and transparency in research. We need to be aware of our own positionality as researchers, both individually and structurally. Positionality refers to the set of social positions an individual may have within social and political structures like gender, race, birthplace, experiences of discrimination and injustices, and so on. Positionality is important to consider, because our identities shape our approach to research and our approach to life. Reflexivity is the act of thinking about how our positionality (identity) might affect our approach to conducting research, the research itself, and how partners in the research/policy field will talk with us about the work. Positionality is important to constantly consider because it helps us identify biases, lack of understanding, or lack of access to research on certain topics—and is also important in order to understand how someone may or may not do harm when coming from a position of privilege.
White people need to be particularly aware of their positionality as beneficiaries of engrained white supremacist structures and should actively reflect on what conscious or subconscious perspectives they are bringing to research. In order to effectively understand the experiences of community members, researchers using CEM must actively and repeatedly check what opinions, assumptions, and biases they are bringing into the work.
Intersectionality is the complex, cumulative way in which the effects of multiple forms of discrimination (such as racism, sexism, and classism) combine, overlap, or intersect especially in the experiences of marginalized individuals or groups.
Watch the YouTube video where the creator of the concept Dr. Kimberle Crenshaw discusses intersectionality further.
Reflecting on our positionalities.
Reflexivity is the act of examining one's own assumption, belief, and judgement systems, and thinking carefully and critically about how these influence the research process. The practice of reflexivity confronts and questions who we are as researchers and how this guides our work.
Optional: Read this chapter about reflexivity in the research process.
Below is an excerpt from the chapter. In this activity, we'll create and think about our Researcher Identity Memo. There's a Google Doc later in this module for you to download, edit, and save for your own reflection.
The goal of this memo is to help you examine your goals, experiences, assumptions, feelings, and values as they relate to your research, and to discover what resources and potential concerns your identity and experience may create. What prior connections (social and intellectual) do you have to the topics, people, and settings you plan to study? How do you think and feel about these topics, people, or settings? What assumptions are you making, consciously or unconsciously, about these? What do you want to accomplish or learn by doing this study?
The purpose is not to write a general account of your goals, background, and experiences. Instead, describe specifically those experiences, and the beliefs, goals, and expectations that emerged from them, that are most directly relevant to your planned research project, and reflect on how these have informed and influenced your research. See examples 2.2, 2.3, and 2.4 for some of the things you can do with such a memo – not as models to mechanically follow, but as illustrations of the kind of thinking that this memo requires. If you are just starting your project, you can’t be as detailed or confident in your conclusions as some of these researchers were, but try to aim for this sort of exploration of how your identity and goals could affect your study.
This memo is intended to be mainly for your benefit, not for communicating to someone else; try to avoid substituting presentation for reflection and analysis. I suggest that you begin working on this memo by brainstorming whatever comes to mind when you think about your prior experiences that may relate to your site or topic, and jot these down without immediately trying to organize or analyze them. Then, try to identify the issues most likely to be important in your research, think of the implications of these, and organize your reflections.
Next are two broad sets of questions that are productive to reflect on in this memo. In your answers to these, try to be as specific as you can.
What prior experiences have you had that are relevant to your topic or setting? What beliefs and assumptions about your topic or setting have resulted from these experiences? What goals have emerged from these, or have otherwise become important for your research? How have these experiences, assumptions, and goals shaped your decision to choose this topic, and the way you are approaching this project?
What potential advantages do you think the goals, beliefs, and experiences that you described have for your study? What potential disadvantages do you think these may create for you, and how might you deal with these?
Adapted from Maxwell, J.A. 2013. Qualitative Research Design: an Interactive Approach Third Edition. Chapter 2. Goals: Why are you Doing this Study?. Pgs. 34-35. Applied Social Research Methods Series.
Pause for a moment, like you're walking in this forest and need a second to take it all in. Think of these identity questions. Let the meaning and substance of them sink in. Now, take some time to answer them for yourself and about yourself.
Don't feel like this is something you need to share. It's important to find your place within this web of who you are and why you're conducting this research, even if you're just telling yourself.
That was a lot of text, and a lot of heavy thinking. Below are some of the main questions and takeaways - take a few moments to review, reflect, and jot down some answers to them. Don't worry about sharing what you come up with - just hold onto these ideas and realizations, and keep them with you in your research.
Researcher Identity Memo
1. What prior connections do you have to the topics, people, or settings you plan to study?
2. How do you think and feel about these the topics, people, or settings?
3. What assumptions are you making, consciously or unconsciously, about them?
4. What do you want to accomplish or learn by doing this study?
5. Advantages for these goals, beliefs, and experiences?
6. Disadvantages for these goals, beliefs, and experiences?
Later on, we'll develop our Self-Care Plans. Keeping these two in tandem will help us center ourselves and our biases in the research, as well as give us tools to help ourselves when dealing with heavy topics.
The Takeaway: Our backgrounds and lived experience shape our feelings, interpretations, and relationships within the research project. Building awareness about our positionalities and engaging in reflexivity helps to identify potential issues and advantages. As many of us have lived experience related to the project (community researchers in particular), there is the potential to experience vicarious trauma. Creating a self-care plan can help use identify sources of potential distress and resources to prevent harm to ourselves or others.