Reflexivity, Positionality and Participatory Ethics: Negotiating Fieldwork Dilemmas in International Research
Reflexivity, Positionality and Participatory Ethics: Negotiating Fieldwork Dilemmas in International Research
Farhana Sultana1
Department of Geography, King’s College London, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS U.K. +44 (0) 207 987 6667 Email: farhana.sultana@kcl.ac.uk
Abstract There are critical disjunctures between aspects of everyday behaviour in the field and the University’s institutional frameworks that aim to guide/enforce good ethical practice, as the conduct of fieldwork is always contextual, relational, embodied, and politicized. This paper argues that it is important to pay greater attention to issues of reflexivity, positionality and power relations in the field in order to undertake ethical and participatory research. Drawing from international fieldwork experience, the paper posits that such concerns are even more important in the context of multiple axes of difference, inequalities, and geopolitics, where the ethics and politics involved in research across boundaries and scales need to be heeded and negotiated in order to achieve more ethical research practices. Introduction The challenges of implementing institutional ethics formalities in the settings of the Global South are often very different from research contexts in the Global North, where issues such as literacy, access, and a sense of equality usually
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© Farhana Sultana, 2007; journal compilation © ACME Editorial Collective, 2007
ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 6 (3), 374-385
375
present fewer barriers, even if they may still be problematic. Even if the researcher is from the Global South, in which case some of the access and relational aspects may be addressed, class and educational differences (i.e. material, social, political power differences) remain trenchant markers of difference, and often precondition exploitation in the research process. Conducting international fieldwork involves being attentive to histories of colonialism, development,
Farhana Sultana1
Department of Geography, King’s College London, The Strand, London WC2R 2LS U.K. +44 (0) 207 987 6667 Email: farhana.sultana@kcl.ac.uk
Abstract There are critical disjunctures between aspects of everyday behaviour in the field and the University’s institutional frameworks that aim to guide/enforce good ethical practice, as the conduct of fieldwork is always contextual, relational, embodied, and politicized. This paper argues that it is important to pay greater attention to issues of reflexivity, positionality and power relations in the field in order to undertake ethical and participatory research. Drawing from international fieldwork experience, the paper posits that such concerns are even more important in the context of multiple axes of difference, inequalities, and geopolitics, where the ethics and politics involved in research across boundaries and scales need to be heeded and negotiated in order to achieve more ethical research practices. Introduction The challenges of implementing institutional ethics formalities in the settings of the Global South are often very different from research contexts in the Global North, where issues such as literacy, access, and a sense of equality usually
1
© Farhana Sultana, 2007; journal compilation © ACME Editorial Collective, 2007
ACME: An International E-Journal for Critical Geographies, 6 (3), 374-385
375
present fewer barriers, even if they may still be problematic. Even if the researcher is from the Global South, in which case some of the access and relational aspects may be addressed, class and educational differences (i.e. material, social, political power differences) remain trenchant markers of difference, and often precondition exploitation in the research process. Conducting international fieldwork involves being attentive to histories of colonialism, development,
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