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Engaging in 'reflexive practice' throughout the research process (Benson and O'Reilly, 2022) and a 'reflexivity of discomfort' (Hamdan, 2009) through an intersectional lens, this article presents a reflective account of accessing and conducting observations and interviews at a South Asian women's organisation, in North England, to explore Pakistani and Bangladeshi Muslim (PBM) lone motherhood. It critically explores how researchers' own subjectivities and intersecting identities – in this case, my intersecting identities and positionalities as a young British Pakistani Muslim women, researcher and volunteer – impact interactions in different circumstances with different groups of participants and the importance of having continuous critical self-awareness. Moving beyond simplistic insider–outsider debates, the paper contributes towards further developing reflexivity debates taking an 'intersectional reflexivity' approach. It argues for thinking about the research process and engagements in the field as socially constructed, changing, adapting and negotiated overtime and to utilise intersectionality to unpick broader categories. Finally, it encourages researchers to adopt reflexivity in their research practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fieldwork encounters are not only contingent to biographical subjectivities, but are mediated by a confluence of identity, place and embodiment. This paper offers reflexive accounts of researchers with various socio-cultural and disciplinary backgrounds, who collaborated as a team to examine the varied funerary experiences and needs of established minorities and recent migrants in England and Wales. Focusing on the researchers' varied personal experiences with death and bereavement and on their performances of minority and majority ethnic and migrant identities, the paper highlights the mediated and embodied nature of fieldwork. It argues that reflection on the various aspects of intersectional researcher identity is necessary for a rigorous fieldwork practice that takes transparency and politics into account. This facilitates a deeper understanding of the positionality of both researchers and interlocutors, and the situated co-production of knowledge. In doing so, the paper illustrates that conducting research with a diverse team of researchers contributes to better understanding the complexity and multifacetedness of social phenomena. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper evaluates the use of self-curated photo elicitation as a new method for exploring self-identity by reflecting on its design and use in a study of Scottish identity. The approach builds on the work of others in the fields of visual analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). Participants were style influencers who were asked to select and discuss a sample of their own Instagram posts that they felt represented their Scottish identity. The approach enabled deep and meaningful engagement with research participants and encouraged further revelations through asking them to reflect on how they went about choosing their posts. Participants spoke passionately and at length about the story behind these and began to understand more about themselves in doing so. Recommendations are made as to how self-curated photo elicitation could be used in future. It is proposed that this method is particularly adaptable to IPA research and studies of self-identity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Critical discussions on the focus group method have highlighted the importance of considering the forms of interaction generated in groups. In this empirical paper we argue that these forms of interaction are intimately linked to the ways participants interpret the study setting, and these interpretations are likely to differ significantly depending on participants' social backgrounds. In the light of our data consisting of 18 focus groups with 15-year-old school pupils from both affluent and deprived neighbourhoods of Helsinki discussing film clips about young people drinking alcohol, we ask what kinds of modes of participation are mobilised in focus group discussions in order to mark the social position of participants. We further analyse these modes in relation to situated identity performances, arguing that contextual factors of the study setting become especially important to consider when researching vulnerable groups and heterogeneous populations. The analysis yields three modes of participation: these are active/engaged, resistant/passive and dominant/transformative. We argue that these modes can be viewed as actively taken positions that reveal what kinds of identities and competences participants are able and willing to mobilise in the study setting, and that recognising these modes is important in all interview settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the qualitative interview as a site for meetings between interviewers and interviewees from groups that are in conflict. It shows how interviewees who initially resisted participation and voiced what one called the ‘official story’ of her group moved beyond this position enabling the encounter to become a meaningful experience for both parties. This critical case analysis is based on three interviews from three different studies and follow-up interviews with interviewers and interviewees. The paper describes six phases of the encounters found in all the interviews (on guard, the ‘official story’, expert position, confrontation, looking for common grounds, and beyond the ‘official story’) and explores the conditions that brought about bidirectional communication and intimacy. The findings are discussed in light of current debates around reflexivity, positionality, and power relations in qualitative interviewing. The article highlights the importance of the historical and political contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article focuses on various ethnographic procedures and findings in ethnomethodology (EM) and conversation analysis (CA), addressing the question of how EM and CA relate to ethnography. Given the obvious answer that EM includes ethnography, we also argue that CA does as well, though just how EM and CA do so needs to be qualified and specified. Ethnographic procedures have been used in EM for decades, although often in non-standard ways, and currently with some ambivalence. In CA, it is more common to disavow ethnography in favor of recorded and transcribed interactional exchanges. However, we argue that CA often makes use of ethnographic insights drawn from extended study of recordings, while also identifying "ethnographic" inquiries of a sort that take place within the organizational settings studied. Our aim is to identify the place of ethnography within EMCA by taking an inventory of ways "ethnography" has been used, invoked, produced, and/or disavowed in particular studies and to highlight what is distinctive about those various EMCA uses of ethnography in contrast with more conventional ethnography. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this reflexive essay, I raise issues about power dynamics between interviewers and interviewees based on my experiences conducting research interviews in South Korea. I focus on the sociocultural contexts that drive social agents' behaviors in the interview process, which in Korean Confucian contexts include respect for adults and educational fervor. A particular configuration of authority relationships was evident in each scenario, showing how sociocultural contexts underlie the complicated power dynamics of interview situations, which can be further complicated by topics that require participants to share their intellectual notions. Based on my interview experiences, I argue that acknowledging these social contexts and their impacts on power relations will serve to strengthen the depth of engagement in interviews and therefore the quality and potential impact of qualitative interview research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Central to any anti-oppressive research endeavour is the importance of reflexivity and the genuine attempt from researchers to turn the research tools on themselves (Hermans, 2019). Beyond research, the social work profession has much to learn from the reflexive accounts of researchers. Issues of identity, language and culture are widely recognised as important when working with service users and carers in social work; however, this is much less the case when considering identities of social work practitioners. Starting with personal and professional positions of Black female and Deaf female social workers, this article reveals the reflexive journey of the Black female hearing researcher undertaking the research. The article takes an original approach to theory construction by introducing ' Africanist Sista-hood in Britain' and marrying this with Deaf cultural discourse in the form of Deafhood, Deaf ethnicity and Deaf Gain, all of which make valuable contribution to existing debates in identity politics and the importance of self-naming and self-actualisation. Within the article the author discusses epistemological challenges in theory construction, data collection, language, transcription and dissemination, as they linked to power, privilege and the different forms this took within the research. The article makes a number of significant contributions. It introduces Africanist Sista-hood in Britain as a useful theoretical framework in research and at the same time encourages theoretical alliances across other marginalised groups. In discussing issues of knowledge production beyond existing hegemonic frames, it offers a broadening of the lens beyond the ways in which identity, culture and ethnicity are currently understood in the mainstream. In discussing Deaf cultural discourse and its influence on methodological choices it invites researchers to better engage with these issues from perspectives articulated by Deaf people. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sound portraiture blends audio-documentary techniques and qualitative arts-based and narrative methods, privileging participants' voices and conveying the complexity of their stories through the layering of sound. We created sound portraits that negotiated the multiple and often conflicting voices, histories and subject positions for South African migrants who psychologically straddle home and host lands. Sound portraits speak to the history of colonialism, Apartheid, displacement, and the continuities of power and privilege in people's lives. We argue for the use of sound portraits as an aesthetic representation of lived experience and as a medium through which research knowledge becomes democratised. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the role of reflexivity, emotion work and insider/outsider researcher status in one queer researcher's experiences of conducting fieldwork. Through exploring field diaries and interview extracts, this article highlights the impact of being/researching LGBT+ identities as a queer researcher. Five experiences are discussed: (i) the euphoria of connection, (ii) relationships with participants, (iii) retraumatisation through listening, (iv) finding oneself on the outside and (v) the researcher's shifting identity. The article concludes with suggestions on the impact studying one's own identity can have on the researcher, and suggestions for engaging in similar research practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Identity and decision-making are interrelated concepts, but the relationship between them is complex particularly when an unwell person's ability to make decisions is compromised. In this article we discuss how moral self-definition (Nelson, 2001;Walker, 1987) can be used within a Listening Guide (LG) analysis to extend analysis of the temporal relationship between identity and decisions. In this project, the LG was used to analyze interviews exploring older people's understanding of medical decision-making when the unwell person's capacity is diminished. The second step of the LG drew attention to the participants' expression of decision-making voices and health-related identities, but the iterative and temporal relationship between identity and decisions was less well illuminated. Therefore, we applied the theoretical framework of moral self-definition within the third listening. The focus of this article is on how moral self-definition can be integrated as a theoretical framework within the contrapuntal listening to extend the LG analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Qualitative researchers are often advised to use their emotional responses to data, and participants' experiences are understood through those of researchers', how this process unfolds is less clear. This article is about the role of feelings for the qualitative researcher at different stages of the process and offers strategies for working through, 'using' and 'feeling together with' participants' reflections on lived experiences. I interviewed nine African and Caribbean heritage British women about their experiences of violence and abuse where one described feeling 'like a minority... a pathology'. This article describes my responses to experiences of racialised and gendered intrusion in interviews, later reflection and analytic work. The article brings recognition to a stigmatised and hidden process within qualitative interviews and data interpretation. This serves to amplify the impact of injustice and adverse experiences for participants, and researchers, and to a wider audience, and to validate its existence and emotional burden as a legitimate and crucial stage of qualitative data analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Visual methods are a popular way of engaging children and young people in research. Their growth comes out of a desire to make research practice more appropriate and meaningful to them. The auteur approach emphasises the need to explore with young participants why they produce the images they do, so that adult researchers do not impose their own readings. This article, while recognising the value of such visual techniques, argues that their benefit is not that they are more age appropriate, or that they are more authentic. Instead it lies in their capacity to display the social influences on how participants, of any age, represent themselves. The article does so through discussion of an Economic and Social Research Council research project, which made use of visual and other creative methods, undertaken in the UK with disabled young people. The research involved narrative and photo elicitation interviews, the production of photo journals, and creative practice workshops aimed at making representational artefacts. Through analysing the photography, the journals and interviews the article examines what it was research participants sought to capture and also what influenced the types of photographs they gathered and the type of person they wanted to represent. We argue that they aimed to counter negative representations of disability by presenting themselves as happy, active and independent, in doing so they drew from broader visual iconography that values certain kinds of disabled subject, while disvaluing others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The influence of intersectional identities on social experiences is most often explored within research on minority populations (e.g. LGBT, African American women, etc.). However few, if any, studies have extended the subject of intersectionality to address the intersectional identities of researchers or their influence on the conduct of qualitative research in international settings. Through reflexive memoirs offered from student researchers that engaged in an international collaborative research project, this article highlights the challenges intersectional identities posed while conducting community-engaged qualitative research in Durban, South Africa. Within each memoir, particular attention is paid to (a) how the intersection of the student researchers’ perceived and actual racial, gendered, class, and national identities determined or obfuscated their statuses as ‘outsiders’ or ‘insiders’, (b) the influential nature of these mutually constitutive identities on the interview process, and (c) how the student researchers successfully or unsuccessfully negotiated the collective impact of their intersecting positions and identities in the field. By critically examining the complex and interdependent influence of race, ethnicity, gender, nationality, and class on researchers’ collection and interpretation of qualitative data, this article extends the application and relevance of the intersectionality framework to an international context and to the experiences of the interviewer/researcher. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A paradigm shift in disaster mental health research has renewed the emphasis on the survivors’ experiences of suffering and healing. This article highlights the importance of utilizing documentary analysis as one of the important qualitative methodologies to explore post-disaster distress of the survivors. Following Figueroa’s (2008) approach to the analysis of audio-visual texts, the methodological steps, outcomes and their salience have been illustrated through an analysis of a documentary produced by Rakesh Sharma titled Final Solution, based on post-Godhra riots in 2002 in India. The two-phased analysis involved constructionist grounded theory procedures with an initial focus on the documentary as a ‘whole’. The methodological steps, rigour and the resulting categories of survivors’ suffering (‘overwhelmed by losses’, ‘relational disruption’, ‘living a forced identity’ and ‘denial of justice and equity’) are discussed in the light of the damage a disaster causes to survivors’ experiences of self and social worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Insider researchers are often construed as having an easy time in the field, with their stay in fieldwork sites less demanding than their outsider counterparts. In some ways, this is true, with less efforts to know the place, its people and history, and master the idioms of everyday life. But being an insider researcher could prove challenging in a place that ascribes a particular salience to a specific identity like ‘balikbayan’, a Filipino word for a native who has either lived or worked abroad for a number of years and returns home for a visit. Based on an empirical ethnographic study of a fishing community in the Philippines, I argue that insider researchers in developing economies like the Philippines are faced with more challenges pertaining to their newly acquired status identity as returning natives in the context of their ability to be mobile and jump scales – from local to national and global – and the economic and symbolic appurtenances, among many, attached to it. Thus, in the context of their status identity, insider researchers’ social reproduction in the field must be attended to in order to further understand the ways in which informants make sense of their place in the world and agency over the conduct of and their involvement in research of homecoming native researchers. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]