Researching across differences : Unsettling methodological discussions from a minority’s perspectives

• Just as we inhabit multiple positions and identities in our everyday life, when conducting fieldwork and analysis, we also both consciously and unconsciously draw on different positions as researchers. Simultaneously, through field interactions, we, too, are positioned by research participants. Some of these positions and identities can be flexible and fluid while other positions such as ‘race’ or gender can be imposed and rigid. There are ample methodological discussions interrogating the question of insider-outsider positions. One of the conclusions in this body of literature highlights the importance of reflexivity and awareness of positionality. This line of literature, moreover, focuses on the fluidity of social positions by emphasising the transgressing of hierarchies between the interviewees and the interviewed. However still, methodological discussions tend either reinforce the insider-outsider binary thinking, and not to further than reflexivity. Our key claim is that it is precisely because reflections written from the perspective of researchers belonging to a minority group of different kinds are still scarce to date. Thus, there is an urgent need to critically engage with a ‘traditional’ gaze as a researcher. In this article, we take a step to unsettle the taken-for-granted mode of knowledge production by reflecting both upon our own experiences of conducting research across various social differences in Austria, Germany, Japan, and Sweden.

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