Being the intrusive ‘double outsider’ inside Welsh family homes: Insights from researcher positionality

Folkes, Louise ORCID: 0000-0002-7857-6953 (2018) Being the intrusive ‘double outsider’ inside Welsh family homes: Insights from researcher positionality. In: How Do We Belong? Researcher Positionality Within Qualitative Inquiry: Proceedings of 4th Annual Qualitative Research Symposium. University of Bath, Bath, pp. 49-59. ISBN 0861971973

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Abstract

Building on the theme of the University of Bath’s 2018 Qualitative Research Symposium, ‘How do we belong?’, this paper explores what can be learned by considering researcher positionality. I highlight how my positionality has influenced my research area, before discussing the methodological approach taken in my doctoral research. As an English researcher working within a Welsh suburb, where I do not reside, I argue that I am positioned as a ‘double outsider’, and that this influences participants’ responses to me, and the ways in which they construct insider/outsider boundaries. This paper contends that insights from fieldnotes about being positioned as the ‘intrusive researcher’ can provide valuable and additional reflections on participants’ gendered domestic lives that may not have been raised in interviews. Finally, the paper concludes with some points on the usefulness of the insider/outsider dichotomy, suggesting that sometimes the boundaries between the two are blurred and we can come to occupy a ‘third space’ when dealing with the difficulties and potentialities of ‘outsider’ research.

Item Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	Full text is available from the URL provided.
Related URLs:	Repository
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HM Sociology
Divisions:	Schools and Research Institutes > School of Business, Computing and Social Sciences
Research Priority Areas:	Place, Environment and Community
Depositing User:	Louise Folkes
Date Deposited:	15 Jan 2021 14:14
Last Modified:	31 Aug 2023 08:24
URI:	https://eprints.glos.ac.uk/id/eprint/9157

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