By Rebecca Laycock Pedersen and Varvara Nikulina
2. Varvara Nikulina (biography)
How can researchers express their positionality? What does positionality mean?
In working at the interface of science and society, researchers play many different roles, even within a single project, as, for example:
- bridge builders (as described by Rod Lawrence in his blog post),
- policy advisers (as described by Karin Ingold), and
- activists (as described by Dorothy Broom).
As researchers, our role within a project is a part of our ‘positionality,’ or our social position. Positionality as defined by Agar (1996) is whether one sees oneself as an outsider, a ‘neutral’ investigator, or something else. Because of the many hats researchers often wear, scrutinising “aspects usually taken for granted and […] [being] aware of the role of a scientist as an intervener” (Fazey et al., 2018, p. 57) is vital.
But when we consider our positionality, we need not only think about roles we play, but also how we are related to the communities and organisations we are researching. Are we on the inside? The outside? Both?
Herr and Anderson’s (2014) insider-outsider continuum gives us language we can use to talk about this. They explain six different positionalities researchers can have, illustrated in the figure below.
Insider
- The researcher studies themselves or their own practice.
- Example: a sustainability educator researching their own teaching practice.
Insider in collaboration with other insiders
- The researcher studies a group (eg., an organisation or an identity group) they are a part of.
- Example: a researcher studying an environmental organisation they are a member of.
Insider(s) in collaboration with outsider(s)
- The researcher (an outsider) is approached by a group such as an organisation or community members (insiders) to collaborate.
- Example: a company invites a researcher to collaborate on a project to understand how to integrate sustainability considerations in the product design process.
Reciprocal collaboration
- The researcher (an outsider) collaborates with a group such as an organisation or community members (insiders) as an insider-outsider team or in a partnership.
- Example: Researchers and a group of traditional land stewards form a team to develop a better scientific understanding of the impacts of traditional land-use practices and to advocate for their continued use.
Outsider(s) in collaboration with insider(s)
- The researcher (an outsider) approaches a group, such as an organisation or community members (insiders), to initiate a project.
- Example: a researcher approaches a council to study the impact of their multi-stakeholder agreement for sustainable forest management.
Outsider(s) studies insider(s)
- The researcher (an outsider) studies a phenomenon without partnership with insiders
- Example: a researcher studies discourses on climate denialism through interviews and document analysis.
But why should researchers care about positionality on this insider-outsider continuum?
In short, because positionality affects the types of ethical and methodological dilemmas researchers are faced with and it is important to be able to explore positionalities in the context of these specific dilemmas.
As outsiders, researchers have the benefit of observing phenomena with fewer preconceptions, and therefore can potentially see the landscape with ‘fresh eyes.’ However, outsiders will always lack the lived experience of an insider, and therefore may not be able to emerge with the same depth of understanding or capacity to instigate change.
On the other hand, as insiders, researchers can glean valuable insights that an outsider might not obtain access to, but it also means that insider researchers must work especially hard to see the taken-for-granted aspects of the group’s practice.
There are also different dynamics depending on who initiates the research. For example, if a company invites a researcher to collaborate, they will likely have considerable investment in the outcomes of the research. However, if a researcher initiates the project, the research agenda would likely reflect the researcher’s interests more strongly than the company’s, and therefore the company may be less concerned about the outcomes.
Usually, researchers sit in multiple places on the insider-outsider continuum depending on which aspect of their identity is considered. For example, a male, vegan researcher studying men, masculinity and meat-eating would have an insider perspective as a male and an outsider perspective as a non-meat eater.
Aspects of identity researchers should consider including are:
- familiarity with the setting under study and
- which societal groups one belongs to (like class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability/disability, religion, etc).
This is because different identity groups have different histories and relations to hierarchies, power, and colonialism, and researchers’ identities shape their positionality.
Positionality can also shift during a research project. Oftentimes an outsider researcher studying a group of insiders will shift along the continuum and foster a more collaborative relationship with those they are researching.
However, positionality can also shift in the other direction. For example, one of us (Laycock Pedersen, 2019) began her doctoral research as an insider collaborating with insiders because she was a student gardener studying student-led food gardens. Over the course of the doctorate, her job role changed, and she gained new responsibilities which led to a shift in identity. She started to feel more like a researcher and project manager than a student gardener, leading her to position herself as an outsider collaborating with insiders.
Where do you sit on the insider-outsider continuum in your research, and what impacts has it had?
References:
Agar, M. (1996). The professional stranger: An informal introduction to ethnography. 2nd edition, Academic Press: San Diego, United States of America.
Fazey, I., Schäpke, N., Caniglia, G., Patterson, J., Hultman, J., Van Mierlo, B., Säwe, F., Wiek, A., Wittmayer, J., Aldunce, P., Al Waer, H., Battacharya, N., Bradbury, H., Carmen, E., Colvin, J., Cvitanovic, C., D’Souza, M., Gopel, M., Goldstein, B., Hämäläinen, T., Harper, G., Henfry, T., Hodgson, A., Howden, M. S., Kerr, A., Klaes, M., Lyona, C., Midgley, G., Moser, S., Mukherjee, N., Müller, K., O’Brien, K., O’Connell, D. A., Olsson, P., Page, G., Reed, M. S., Searle, B., Silvestri, G., Spaiser, S., Strasser, T., Tschakert, P., Uribe-Calvo, N., Waddell, S., Rao-Williams, J., Wise, R., Wolstenholme, R., Woods, M. and Wyborn, C. (2018). Ten essentials for action-oriented and second order energy transitions, transformations and climate change research. Energy Research and Social Science, 40: 54-70.
Herr, K. and Anderson, G. L. (2014). The action research dissertation: A guide for students and faculty. 2nd edition, Sage: California, United States of America.
Laycock Pedersen, R. (2019). Understanding and managing the impacts of transience in student-led university food gardens. Doctoral dissertation: Keele University, United Kingdom.
Biography: Rebecca Laycock Pedersen PhD is a transdisciplinary researcher and educator working in the field of sustainability science. Her research focuses on urban agriculture, sustainable food, sustainability education, and participatory/action-oriented methods. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Strategic Sustainable Development, Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden where she has been studying the impacts of a Malmö-based urban agriculture incubator programme.
Biography: Varvara Nikulina is a PhD Candidate at the Department of Strategic Sustainable Development, Blekinge Institute of Technology in Karlskrona, Sweden. Her research interests include but are not limited to transdisciplinary co-production of knowledge for planning towards sustainable urban mobility, participatory processes and international comparative studies.
Thank you, Rebecca and Varavara for triggering this debate, and introducing the framework from Herr and Anderson. And thank you Norma for adding another rich layer from the dynamics of identity shaping.
I think there’s another extremely interesting perspective that is afforded on considering the idea of second order science – in particular, Anthony Hodgson’s idea of strong second order observation (PhD thesis, University of Hull, 2016 – Time, pattern and perception).
This affords the possibility that one can observe a situation in its flow without necessarily being mired or anchored in any positionality. In effect, one is so able to watch the influence of one’s interaction with the system that the dynamic effect of one’s positionality on other people or elements and in turn rhe effect of their positions or actions on one’s thoughts/ actions/ positionality are being witnessed in their unfolding. Tony refers to this as, “the system observing itself knowing it is observed”. In effect, the observers perceptive and cognitive apparatus brings forth the world (similar to Maturana and Varela’s view on cogniton) – which is a two-way act or mutual dance wherein the observer is creating the system and the system is creating the observer.
This i discuss in several places in my book – Immersive Systemic Knowing – see pp 53 to 55 as well as all of Chapter 4 “An ontology for systemic knowing”.
Hi Raghav,
Thanks for sharing about this! It’s new to me.
I have to admit that I find it hard to imagine how one can transcend their identity or somehow engage in observation without having a position. For me, reflecting on positionality in research is very much about what you are describing – a dance between and ever-changing observer and an ever-changing system. But in my understanding, one always has a position within a system, even if it is in flux and in a process of mutual, as you put it, creation. Even as one is observing a system (that it is thereby ‘creating’) it is not doing so from a particular location or set of locations, even if these are shifting from moment to moment?
Hello Bekki
I am not quite sure where to begin to answer this. Perhaps the best place to begin is to draw an analogy with a certain state of mind that will be a relatively common experience… although it doesn’t completely map on to the situation under discussion.
In acts of performance – such as music, dance or sports, there is the concept of ‘flow’. As I am rendering a jazz improvisation or tackling the football, I allow my rational logical mind to recede to the background and a certain intuitive mind, even muscle memory – to guide me on the fly. There is an anticipatory stance, which is much discussed in futures study literature.
In unpacking the understanding of enactive cognition in my writing, I have also invoked the model of the mind/ consciousness from the Samkhya philosophy (which underlies yoga) to differentiate this mode of consciousness from the conventional mode which dominates modern thought: I have described these modes as the Striving mind (the modern mind) and the Abiding mind (another orientation which is always simultaneously present and can be foregrounded – very much appreciated in all non modern cultural contexts).
In the modern sensibility, we are always with a rationally defined purpose. In such a frame, exactly as you put it, there’s a stance – a positionality (even if it is dynamic) which inheres by this very definition of purposefulness. When I am watching the sunset, my striving orientation can only apprehend my experience in terms of past instances and memories which I sort rationally to compare my current experience. An artist or a crafts person is trained to keep aside these filters from the process of rationality, and look instead for the NEW in the experience – which they can render through their art/ craft skills. To learn to dance the new and the anticipatory, requires retraining the modern mind.
You might like to look at eusg.org/four-ways-of-knowing/
and, if that whets your appetite, you might read my article – Knowing Differently in Systemic Intervention” at https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2352
You might also dip into the works of David Abram and Robin Wall Kimmerer. The book that launched me into grasping the abiding mind when I was 17 is “Zen and the Art of Archery” by Eugen Herrigel, a masterpiece.
Thank you 🙏
Thanks for this further explanation and these suggestions 🙂 I actually have the 4 ways of knowing in my PhD thesis and I’ve read Braiding Sweetgrass (and just got Gathering Moss for my birthday! :)). And the Spell of the Sensuous has been sitting on my bookshelf for ages waiting to be read. Maybe this is my sign to open it up!
So I do have some understanding of what you are referring to, although I’m still curious about your perspective on reflecting on positionality overall. Like, are you suggesting it isn’t a helpful exercise in general? If we talk about the four ways of knowing (because that’s a language I feel pretty comfortable with), the point is to draw on all kinds of knowing because it is through this that we are able to ground our understandings in life and bring our experiences into our ways of knowing. And for me, it sounds like you are talking mostly about presentational knowing, while Varvara and I have written about a propositional form of knowing. So, for me, I feel that engaging in reflection about positionality is not really an alternative to other forms of knowing (such as knowing that one experiences in a flow state), but rather a compliment to them. Although, of course, abstract and intellectual forms of knowing are already privileged in most settings (especially the academy) today, so there certainly needs to be more emphasis on other ways of knowing. I guess as I’m writing this I’m getting more curious about the articles you’ve written, actually. I’ve got some more reading to do!
Thank you for these insightful categorisations and examples of different stances that might be adopted along the continuum. I am wondering if besides what you call “the societal groups one belongs to (like class, race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, age, ability/disability, religion”, etc as you name them) we should include ones commitments in being involved with participants – for example, although one may (in terms of social constructions) be male, one may identify with feminist struggles. So being seen as a man and therefore as an outsider in relation to (socially constructed) women, may not express ones positionality as one sees it and as the participants with whom one is involved sees one. The research participants (as co-researchers) may appreciate ones commitments to the feminist project and see one as an insider. And this may affect how one sees oneself apart from the socially constructed terminology. Likewise we must remember that “race” is a social construction and does not refer to a biological or cultural entity as such – it was invented to distinguish “white” people (regarded as superior on a social hierarchy) from people of colour – thus creating social formations built on racialised relationships. Again, while we may in terms of some social construction be regarded as White (and of course this does come with enormous privileges that need to be recognised ) we may identify with the struggles of those who became marginalised due to the pervasiveness of the “race” concept (leading to racially organised social relations and social formations, or what can be called race(d) relations. If one does not wish that one’s Whiteness or Blackness is the group to which one “belongs”, but sees ones belonging to a human community and if others sense that this is how one is interacting to subvert racialised boundaries, then one does not “belong” to a societal group defined in terms of given social constructions. I am wary of the idea that one belongs to a group independently of how social relations (and research relationships) are built up.
I like very much your point that positionality (as one sees oneself and as others experience one) can change in the course of the research. But I think it is not a matter of just the (professional) researcher shifting their ideas about where they sit on the outsider/insider continuum . When you say that “Oftentimes an outsider researcher studying a group of insiders will shift along the continuum and foster a more collaborative relationship with those they are researching”, this could also be because “those whom they are researching” (or rather the joint research endeavor as co-researchers) has become more collaborative, not only because the professional researcher shifted position but because of the way the relationship is developing.
The other example, you gave of Laycock Pedersen beginning “her doctoral research as an insider collaborating with insiders because she was a student gardener studying student-led food gardens” and then, as she gained new responsibilities her sense of identity changed so that she “started to feel more like a researcher and project manager than a student gardener” again could be interpreted differently as that she was not an outsider collaborating with insiders, but that she and the people doing most of the gardening were contributing to a joint project, in which she may have had new roles, but this did not make her an outsider. It would be good to hear also how the students doing the food gardens interpreted her – maybe they saw her as still an insider offering services but in a different way to the project and still committed to the project and in this sense an insider. So dialogue could be initiated around her “positionality” in relation to the joint project.
I am thinking that one’s sense of identity is a function not only of how professional researchers define their “positionality” but of how they develop relations with others such that they can be regarded as “insiders” on the basis of their commitments and not of their social roles.
In short as I see it ones positionality is also a function of how others experience one (and one can and should seek feedback on this) so that it is not just a self-reflection on how one defines ones position.
As you say it is important to consider issues connected with “positionality” (in dialogue with others) as these are connected with ethical issues that cannot be ignored. As you mention, the idea of a continuum encourages us (together with others) “”to think about how we are related to the communities and organisations we are researching [with participants as potential co-researchers] . And it encourages us “‘to think [together with others] about whether “we on the inside? The outside? Or Both?”
Thanks again for highlighting these questions.
Hi Norma,
Thanks so much for this comment. It’s given me a lot to think about. I agree with what you are saying, and I think it’s really just some clumsiness with words that makes it sound like I perhaps am a bit static in how I understand one’s relation to social groups and grouping. But I’m going to come back to this comment the next time I am writing about something like this to think through how I can communicate what I mean in a more dynamic, relational way.
I’m going to carry this sentence with me: “I see it ones positionality is also a function of how others experience one (and one can and should seek feedback on this) so that it is not just a self-reflection on how one defines ones position.”
Hi Bekki. This sounds very good the way you are expressing this!