In this presentation, Dr Sara Young explores the question of researcher positionality when working with participants. The talk draws on her interdisciplinary research on identity; moving away from the insider/outsider paradigm, she draws on the theory of positioning (Davies & Harré 1990; Harré & van Langenhove 1991) to examine how her work with Polish migrant teenagers highlights the disconnect between the way the researcher positions herself and how she is positioned by participants. Arguing that this conflict informs and enhances the research, she also problematises the extent to which a researcher is ethically obligated to discuss their own positionality with participants.
Dr Sara Young is a researcher working within Applied Linguistics and Polish Migration, and teaches primarily on the MA Education and MA Applied Linguistics & TESOL. She is interested in the construction of linguistic and ethnic identity, with a particular interest in young people. Her research work often employs a narrative approach, whereby identity is constructed through story telling. She is also interested in the ethical nature of research, especially in multilingual research.
In this presentation, Dr Sara Young explores the question of researcher positionality when working with participants. The talk draws on her interdisciplinary research on identity; moving away from the insider/outsider paradigm, she draws on the theory of positioning (Davies & Harré 1990; Harré & van Langenhove 1991) to examine how her work with Polish migrant teenagers highlights the disconnect between the way the researcher positions herself and how she is positioned by participants. Arguing that this conflict informs and enhances the research, she also problematises the extent to which a researcher is ethically obligated to discuss their own positionality with participants.
Dr Sara Young is a researcher working within Applied Linguistics and Polish Migration, and teaches primarily on the MA Education and MA Applied Linguistics & TESOL. She is interested in the construction of linguistic and ethnic identity, with a particular interest in young people. Her research work often employs a narrative approach, whereby identity is constructed through story telling. She is also interested in the ethical nature of research, especially in multilingual research.
Nicole Brown: hello, and welcome everybody to this month's practice research network seminar, and seminar series. I'm really excited to have you here. It's the first in the new year, so there are many, many more sessions and already planned and booked in, but today we have with us
Nicole Brown: Dr Sara Young and Sara is going to be talking about positionality in PAR research. Sara is a researcher working within applied linguistics and Polish migration.
Nicole Brown: And she teaches primarily on the MA Education and MA applied linguistics and TESOL at the UCL Institute of Education.
Nicole Brown: And she is particularly interested in the construction of linguistic and ethnic identity with, within or amongst young people, specifically.
Nicole Brown: and her research work often employes a narrative approach whereby identity is constructed through storytelling.
Nicole Brown: And she's also interested in the ethical nature of research, especially in multilingual research. So that's a brief introduction to who Sara is and what her work is all about.
Nicole Brown: And I'm really looking forward to today's session and I know that it will be a great discussion afterwards.
Nicole Brown: about ethics and and the practicalities, so there is a lot to talk about and I know a little bit about Sara's work but I'm handing over to you now and looking forward to to hearing the the presentation.
Sara Young: Okay, thanks, very much Nicole I'm just going to start sharing my screen.
Sara Young: Can everybody now see that.
Nicole Brown: Yes, we can see that's fine.
that's great.
Sara Young: Okay.
Sara Young: All right, so.
Sara Young: What I'm going to do is I'm going to talk, or if just for about 20 Minutes that please feel free to sort of during that time to put things in the chat or or even interrupt because it's a small group we can probably do that in today's session.
Sara Young: So the first thing I'm going to do is this talks about position ality it talks about the research, I do, but there is quite a large element of ethics in there as Nicole mentioned, because that really is one of my key areas.
Sara Young: That I get good I get involved with and kind of regular basis.
Sara Young: So just even overview of what I do so, I struggled different areas I I ended up working a little bit in education, but really I'm based in identity studies and linguistics and because I look at.
Sara Young: The Polish community in particular i've also quite involved in Polish migration service, particularly the migration that happened after Poland during the European Union in.
Sara Young: Now the work that I do is sort of underpinned by my own family background of migration from Eastern Europe and i'll talk a little bit in a little bit more detail about that later on.
Sara Young: Because what I what i've always had a problem, a problem never discussion with when I look at this work is.
Sara Young: Where to position myself Now I come from a background of studying literature comparative literature and when you reflect about it, there is no by you talk about the author you're not interested in the researcher unless it's a very particular sort of research.
Sara Young: So for me it's quite it's quite a difficult shift to use the first person and then to acknowledge, where I stood in regard to it.
Sara Young: And, as I carried on my work will develop my work, I realized was we have two positions to deal with, we had where I would position myself and there were when where participants would position me.
Sara Young: And perhaps there was a conflict or at least some sort of contradictory positioning going on.
Sara Young: Now that sings how much I find position ality a little bit difficult I do feel it is very much an ethical responsibility to acknowledge your own position ality.
Sara Young: Other one is your disguising yourself and perhaps the true nature of your except from your participants.
Sara Young: And so, when you do both participants how much do you describe to them how much do you talk about yourself the research is not about you.
Sara Young: it's about them, but if you're expecting them to share things with you, where do you stand now I'm not saying I'm going to come up with answers I'm restarting questions out there.
Sara Young: When I'm talking about this.
Sara Young: So the projects I'm going to talk about is when I conducted a few years ago, looking at identity construction amongst a lingo Polish point teenagers in the UK.
Sara Young: And I was very careful not to say Polish born I didn't want to assume that they took on a Polish identity, so they were born in Poland, they came to the UK and then we talked about.
Sara Young: The languages that they used.
Sara Young: And where they felt themselves to be positioned for his English or British or Polish, it was very interesting discussions there.
Sara Young: It was.
Sara Young: Such a small community that had come over after 2004 in southeast England, but it's just before the referendum and, interestingly enough that the.
Sara Young: referendum actually happened exactly a month after I finished fieldwork so it was there lurking in the background, but it hasn't taken over our lives in the way it has done since.
Sara Young: So, two things I was looking at one was generally how the other teenagers constructed their other identities this with ethnic, linguistic.
Sara Young: But I was also interested in how they position themselves and how they found themselves positioned in the light of contemporary anti immigration discourses in the UK.
Sara Young: My initial drive for this was I was thinking you've got all this anti immigration discourse going on you're suddenly a teenager who lands in the UK, and this is the first thing that you look at how does that make you feel and that's really what I wanted to look at.
Sara Young: So I did some narrative I did some storytelling with them, they would semi structured interviews and we touched on some of these issues.
Sara Young: Now, talking about identity and how I see it, for me, identity is something that's quite fluid it changes depending on your context, depending on who.
Sara Young: gets negotiated.
Sara Young: Through the way that is subject physicians themselves and how they position by others, and there is this conflict and negotiation that needs going on.
Sara Young: and
Sara Young: The theory behind it is also that.
Sara Young: You are positioned by others and you can't necessarily escape that positioning but they put you in, and this is something that becomes quite pertinent later on.
Sara Young: Moving to reflexivity now this sort of overlap here.
Sara Young: There is the academic expectation for reflexivity.
Sara Young: We need to transparency, to explain what we did, where we stood epistemologically but then that overlaps with your position ality and as homestead it requires that you need to acknowledge.
Sara Young: Your views your values your belief about the design the contacted outputs, but I would argue, you also then have to declare your position ality in relation to the participants now a lot of things are approached this way to inside or outside the research.
Sara Young: Community and my outside the Community, and in my case that didn't really seem to sit very easily I sort of got a foot in one foot in another definitely outside something else and that's why looked at positioning theory rather than difficult insider outsider research.
Sara Young: So if we're thinking about this.
Sara Young: Then you can argue that the seasonality references the identity of the research in relation to the study context and the participants.
Sara Young: And then again this idea of our own perception of our own identity, but how we expect others will see that.
Sara Young: And I think this is something that came into my way of thinking of how I thought they might view me.
Sara Young: And it's something that we're quite aware of a thing when you're doing call it particularly colors different service and you're going into settings, how will those people I'm talking to what will they think about me how will they position me.
Sara Young: So how transparent, you need to be is to research, it ethically obligated to care that position ality.
Sara Young: And I think if we're talking about practices research when you're expecting participant interaction and involvement and it's a key element of the research.
Sara Young: Can you really expect participants to expose their own vulnerabilities if you don't allow them a slight insight into something of your own and book, it is, I have to be forthright and communicating my position ality participants.
Sara Young: There are various aspects to this, and again I don't pretend to come up with an answer here, these are questions that are raised.
Sara Young: So just to backtrack a little unexplained something about Eastern European identities and why I say I'm Eastern European rather than aligning to a particular country.
Sara Young: Now there's a lot of work on their identities within Eastern Europe there's the old joke that goes.
Sara Young: live in the same town their whole life on the moon three countries, and this is basically what's happened in my own family history.
Sara Young: My big back and parents came from minutes which at that time was actually Russian.
Sara Young: However, originally it was pacifists you in India, then became part of the production remaining Commonwealth and now it's actually influence the languages would have been listening in your dish Polish Russian Russian as well as 101 other.
Sara Young: dialects and local languages so it's a very, very blurred area, and I would argue that even the concept of only identity is quite a fluid concept as well.
Sara Young: So when it comes to my own positioning, as I say, it's very difficult to pinpoint I, yes, I come from this point of that point, yes, every talents where my ancestors were born, rather than countries that they came from.
Sara Young: Okay, moving, aside from the sort of personal backgrounds do my research or identity, there are 45 dynamics at play and because I'm dealing with teenagers, these are quite noticeable.
Sara Young: I'm an adult university researcher, I was working them with secondary school children aged 11 to 16 and there were two settings.
Sara Young: One was an extra curricular college class in a mainstream school So this was an established setup we had established roles, I came in and I was called miss and I dressed in a certain way, but it's considered appropriate.
Sara Young: On the other hand, it was an out of school Polish only past so it's a slightly more relaxed atmosphere with a teacher and it wasn't quite like a lesson, but at the same time there was still a dynamic and pay.
Sara Young: The second setting was a Polish Saturday school and it was a livable little bit more chill it was Saturday morning ruling dean's it was all first name terms, so again my dishes and reset from the two settings with slightly different.
Sara Young: Now as i've sort of explained, because I don't come from what I would call a typical college background, and certainly not the background the students came from I didn't go into positioning myself as a Polish research.
Sara Young: I i've got some heritage, I wasn't born there i've got very limited language proficiency it's a very sketchy family history.
Sara Young: Also I'm not a recent migrant I'm second generation I'm not a teenager in referendum Britain, so I didn't feel the ethic yeah I could play him some identity as a Polish migrants talking to other Polish migrants about their experiences.
Sara Young: At the same time, what I did share with them was an experience of migrant history.
Sara Young: related elements such as hostility being told to go back home those sorts of comments, and also that mixing or difference between a home identity and a school identity.
Sara Young: Although I didn't sort of broadcast this it gradually came out through the research instantly the participants were all human your Polish.
Sara Young: And this made certain assumptions, which I probably wasn't ready for it made linguistic assumptions it made assumptions about cultural practices, including religion and other aspects that I think feel relevant.
Sara Young: Now, it was a little bit of a shock and I wasn't quite sure whether to back away from it, whether to embrace this I felt about myself.
Sara Young: But because I do identity, research, it became very interesting, firstly, how was I constructing Polish identity, and how does that differ from how my participants were using it, and my own position ality how Polish did I feel it.
Sara Young: So I would argue that the participants understanding of Polish identity, so this way to conceptualization where identity is considered a compact with one's ancestors they've been neither my heritage i've been main part of my identity, and these are questions that came up.
Sara Young: So if we link this back to ethics, which is more ethical, is it the initial stance of being non Polish to resist being positioned as poetry as a migrant.
Sara Young: On the other hand, once it became known that I was Polish the participants so much freer and what they said, and they talked about origin on this and you know this distance I will yes actually I do.
Sara Young: But I was too aware of it, then becoming about me and not best stories, which I said we're grounded in a very particular context that wasn't my contacts and then that raises other ethical questions.
Sara Young: So I think when we come to it it's not just a question of academic transparency and of investigating these concepts that link with identity, research, which raises those very questions at the heart of the research.
Sara Young: Ultimately, all of this, which i've condensed but took a long time to work through this all benefited the research benefited my understanding of identity.
Sara Young: How I was constructing identity of how my participants were of what we meant by Polish identity, but the ethical questions remained.
Sara Young: What are the ethical questions about research position ality and to do research to be obliged to declaring suppose I haven't felt comfortable talking about it, where would that have put me in terms of what I expected my participants.
Sara Young: Also, if we argue that position ality and identity is subjective and shifting How far is it possible they're positioning me one way someone else might have argued something else I mix with other Polish people they don't see me as Polish because I have very limited language skills.
Sara Young: So there's a lot going on there.
Sara Young: So does it remain an ethical obligation to acknowledge the position ality Eastern of search obliged to reveal it, and why should they and that's really just a question I'm going to end with and I welcome comments and questions Leading on from this.
Sara Young: And just for anyone who's interested there's a list of references i've gone on and working some of this through.
Sara Young: Okay I'm going to stop sharing out.
Nicole Brown: Thank you very much, Sarah this has been really, really interesting and, obviously, the first question that I'm going to ask before anyone else can jump in.
Nicole Brown: Is what, what is your ultimate answer to that final question for yourself and what what's the kind of conclusion that you have come to.
Nicole Brown: After having kind of gone through and work through the process and also having been able to reflect on it and how do you feel now do you feel that there is an obligation and and or is there not.
Sara Young: I think there is some.
Sara Young: I think if you don't declare.
Sara Young: pool, and there is an element of deception involved and that was something I felt going into it, it was if I don't talk about anything to do with me, he says that underlying deception.
Sara Young: So I think you don't necessarily go in, or open space and going hey this is me now talk to me, but I think, as you develop that relationship with the participants and perhaps it's something that starts to emerge.
Sara Young: So I think.
Sara Young: I think there is I'm going to put my foot down and say there is an ethical obligation to.
Sara Young: to reveal some of it, but again it's going to be very personally depends exactly what's being.
Sara Young: what's being revealed I think that's that's the question.
Nicole Brown: Thank you very much, I mean one of the things that I always say about sharing is there is the sharing and sharing.
Nicole Brown: I mean if you if you disclose it to the participants directly it's different from writing it up in in an academic paper.
Nicole Brown: and sharing it in a conference or in a talk like this and that's kind of you know, a different kind of sharing because that this public sharing is the kind of sharing that stays with you in a in a way, and and actually am Sarah della montand and who is an anthropologist and ethnography.
Nicole Brown: has written and talked about, not to over share to kind of make sure that you know it's almost like teaching a teenager to use social media.
Nicole Brown: Where you know it could come back to bite you so this you know the sharing part in a conference or in a paper should not be an over sharing it should be within the confines of.
Nicole Brown: Where you feel comfortable, but obviously you can go out of that boundary a little bit when it's in that one to one situation with your participants.
Nicole Brown: And I totally agree with you it's a quite a difficult and sort of area to navigate isn't it krista there aren't really any rules or guidelines around that.
Sara Young: they're on the tool I'm trying to soak in the chat, but we have to read the paper afterwards there's actually a paper and writing that's based on this presentation so once that comes hopefully once that comes out, and I can probably release it truly cold or something like that.
Nicole Brown: That would be great yes absolutely and also everybody who's joined on this call now, and I should add that as Sarah actually has.
Nicole Brown: had a conversation with me which we recorded before before the Christmas break and that's going to come out next week as well.
Nicole Brown: where she talks a little bit in in conversation with me about her conceptualization of practice us research.
Nicole Brown: which she didn't go into today, but if you have any questions around that do ask her as well, but there will be the video coming out on that next week as well and other any other questions from other people at this stage.
Nicole Brown: I have got two hands two hands up one virtual and one real and one question in the chat box so let's start with the virtual hand.
Marjorie Johnson: Ah yes hi Sarah Thank you so much for your presentation I'm I'm just I'm would like to know a little bit more about positioning theory.
Marjorie Johnson: As i've begun my own research i've spent some time reading about position ality and a lot of the inside or outside of that that dualistic like that dualistic idea and.
Marjorie Johnson: it's i've always struggled with that, because in my own research it doesn't fit me so if you could just just give a little bit about explaining a little bit more about the difference between the two ideas and then just point me in the direction of a good.
Marjorie Johnson: academic or to look up or to read up that would help me and understanding positioning theory.
Sara Young: Okay, thanks for that um there are other than that, I mean I do find myself falling occasionally.
Sara Young: into insider outsider and then.
Sara Young: moving back into positioning, so I think that's, the first thing be clarified.
Sara Young: I think it does work better, though this the insider outsider, as I see the similar public you've got to stand here or down there.
Sara Young: What positioning theory does, for me, is it, it helps understand how functionality depends on your context and and how other people are seeing you.
Sara Young: And how that can change over time, as I say, when I go into when I went into the research, it probably just looked at me look at my name.
Sara Young: heard the way I speak and positioned me one way once I started talking about experiences suddenly that position ality start shifting, so I think I like the fluidity of it.
Sara Young: And the way that you negotiate that and by opening up that little bit more again I'm negotiating that identity or my position with them and saying actually I'm I'm similar I'm not saying I am you that there was a greatest similarities and pot sweetener initially discussed.
Sara Young: As for.
Sara Young: advising literature, can we released the slides after this Nicola and send them around, because that would be up on the.
Sara Young: Final reference list okay.
Nicole Brown: Absolutely, if you share them with me, then I can just.
Nicole Brown: Put the link up with the details, yes, absolutely.
Sara Young: And i'll do that.
Nicole Brown: Okay, thank you, so there was one question in the chat box and then i'll come to Rachel to the real hand, and the question in the chat box was I wonder.
Nicole Brown: Whether one's identity as an artist or creative plays a role in the research, I found that research participants expect me to be an artist and to show them how.
Nicole Brown: If I encourage them to be more creative in the data generation process, I think this is a really interesting question.
Nicole Brown: especially given the conversation that the two of us had Sarah before Christmas, where we were talking about the creative data generation process So what do you say to that.
Sara Young: um I think some it's a stream from because I don't consider myself as an artist or creative in that sense that something have it into narrower away, and I think.
Sara Young: The best way I can relate it to the research, I do is perhaps storytelling and so, if I wanted them to tell me a story or talk about their experiences.
Sara Young: Then by me doing that a little bit or prompting them to the way I was asking things.
Sara Young: Then I think that's really what opened up the conversation so and I suppose you could argue, I was sort of showing them how by.
Sara Young: By releasing a little bit of what happened to me or my family and then they could.
Sara Young: This is the fear, but they'll an ECHO it and tell me what I want to hear rather than how they experienced it, but I think it's quite a fine line between.
Sara Young: Encouraging that and taking on that role of a position ality and then being concerned that participants, particularly if you're dealing with teenagers particular school setting where they might want to get it right.
Sara Young: it's a fine line to tread.
Sara Young: I think it's an interesting thing to consider and again something up something to be transparent about and say this is, it is a process I fallen, and this is what came out of it.
Sara Young: And perhaps also.
Nicole Brown: In certain contexts.
Sara Young: Are not that.
Sara Young: Difficult or that the challenges in positioning yourself and how far you feel you influenced what was was sort of fed back to you.
Nicole Brown: Thank you very much and I'm handing over to Rachel now.
Rachel Helme: I hi there Salah Thank you so much it's really interesting actually to listen to your talk and I think we are of a very similar mindset.
Rachel Helme: Although I work with low attainment students in mathematics.
Rachel Helme: I'm also quite concerned with position ality and identity work has been quite fluid I'm not sure if this is a question or comment actually I was thinking about your two questions about acknowledging position ality and and been obliged to declare functionality.
Rachel Helme: Now, when I did my work, I was very focused on acknowledging for myself declaring to myself my position ality.
Rachel Helme: There I hadn't even thought about my participants, so that I found quite interesting and.
Rachel Helme: But yeah so I just wondered about what you thought about this, I do actually declaring it to yourself being genuine and understanding yourself before you go or doing the research even.
Sara Young: Thanks, so I think that's really interesting and I think and partly that's really the experience that I had through because I was so funny well no I'm not Okay, I have a great grandmother who be used to describe a proper.
Sara Young: Political she spoke, the language.
Sara Young: And she came from everybody else just came round from the area, so as far as I was concerned I'm probably more.
Sara Young: Russian in a very general sense than I am anything else, so I didn't want to declare myself as a state as Polish it was only when my participants continent mumble according to us.
Sara Young: Because you know minsky's to be part of this your any Lithuanian privilege Commonwealth Fo you are Polish because you come from there, so.
Sara Young: That was quite an interesting discussion to have with myself rather than perhaps to the participants, so I think you can go in with functionality.
Sara Young: But then come out and have to reconsider it perhaps I'm not sure I feel anymore college coming out of the research and I did going into it.
Sara Young: But it made me think about what am I medicating it on is it this language, because they were quite happy because she didn't speak the language we don't really either so we're all learning it's therefore that wasn't an element.
Sara Young: There are other elements that come into it, so I think again, going back to what I was saying about additionality that joy, the series it, it allows for those changes and moves negotiation as you work through a project.
Rachel Helme: yeah absolutely it's interesting I feel like i've come out more different than I expected I expected to be the same person coming out and I'm definitely not and I found that really interesting Thank you Thank you so.
King.
Nicole Brown: Thank you so m mastery before I jump in and I'm handing over to mastery again.
Marjorie Johnson: Yes, sorry Thank you i'll ask another question um so in this whole idea of.
Marjorie Johnson: them acknowledging you as Polish are saying that you're Polish So my question is, how do you know how they position you and the.
Marjorie Johnson: The idea well, you said, Polish, but what does that mean so like my context is South Asia and I'm working among people who I have known for some time.
Marjorie Johnson: And so, this whole concept of of how they view me when you say position I'm thinking well what is in their head as they're interacting with me and so.
Marjorie Johnson: Sometimes these labels it's like well, what does that mean, I mean, how do you investigate that or How important is it to investigate that and and explore that.
Marjorie Johnson: um you know, in the context of the research so because they call it, they said you were Polish it was like well, what did that mean, did you understand what in their head that meant to them.
Marjorie Johnson: You know you mentioned language and different things so anyway I'm just I'm just curious about that.
Sara Young: Okay thing to answer it very bluntly, to start with a basic he said it, it just went oh your Polish I mean literally just just that with it once I said once they were you know my family came from that was it.
Sara Young: So they will I mean you could argue that they were basing it on the idea of your ancestry meaning will that's what you are.
Sara Young: The other thing to point out is that it gave me permission to say this, one of my participants has the same first name it's me.
Sara Young: And we both bonded over the fact that no one ever pronounce people very rarely pronounce it properly, and so, she was saying, like okay that's it.
Sara Young: Not we are the same, but we have this commonality, and so I think knowing where your.
Sara Young: It is difficult to know, and I wouldn't like to presume how my participants position to me, although you could argue that when I went into it my presumption was over, they wouldn't see me as Polish I didn't want to even consider that the fact that they jumped in on it neatly.
Sara Young: Really caught me by surprise, I wasn't expecting that is the same there was very open about it, they were very upfront about it.
Sara Young: What they base it on any sort of part of the research, what are the based national identity or ethnic identity linguistic identity and that's something that I brought with on a daily basis, because it's really the foundation of my research.
Sara Young: And there are there are certain markers you could argue, but they are more or less relevant for individual people and in different contexts, I think that's just an ongoing.
Sara Young: process of negotiation.
Marjorie Johnson: So just just I'm in a in a in a situation where it wouldn't be as obvious or they or as clean see the the concept of you know.
Marjorie Johnson: identity as Polish or like I'm an American so people you know that's in a sense, there's that's a very distinct you know and it's label, but how do you draw out some of the more nuanced ideas that are not so clear cut as a as an ethnic identity.
Sara Young: it's a difficult one to do because.
Sara Young: As I say, there are certain I suppose there are the obvious markers.
Sara Young: And there are those little things little things, there are those elements such as phone practices such as cultural practices.
Sara Young: Also, as how you're regarded by other people now, if you take that example of hostility.
Sara Young: I I was born in the country, my parents born in the country, why should I be being told to go home how those people positioning me.
Sara Young: So there are those sorts of elements that perhaps don't get discussed as to how other people positioning you then make to reconsider your own identity position and I think that's something else that adds to that sort of multiple.
Sara Young: Creation of identity.
Sara Young: But I don't think there's there's necessarily one thing or another, despite what the research shows.
Sara Young: In the way that the teenagers vinegar cheers.
Nicole Brown: Thank you very much, so and there's a comment in the chat box, whether it's a link to an interesting article with a device to explicitly explore position ality.
Nicole Brown: and its social identity map a reflexivity tool for practicing explicit position ality and that's available in the critical quality of research and i'll try and make that link available as well, and now I have got to.
Nicole Brown: i've got two questions really rather than following on from your conversation with Marjorie and one following on.
Nicole Brown: From your conversation with Rachel really haven't so I'm going to use marjorie's first.
Nicole Brown: And one of the things that you were saying is that the teenagers were jumping at the idea that you are Polish and.
Nicole Brown: Is that, because you suddenly became some kind of role model, who, here is another migrant or somebody with an immigrant background.
Nicole Brown: and actually she is quite successful because she's now a researcher, this is something that you know is kind of offering up an opportunity, because often.
Nicole Brown: If we're honest about it and that experience of hostility that you were talking about is also about.
Nicole Brown: You know, like putting people down and typically in the UK and the Polish community would be associated with with cleaning jobs and not necessarily with with research jobs in that respect, can.
Nicole Brown: You see, where I'm coming from and is that perhaps why they were quite keen to in a way label you in that way.
Sara Young: um I hadn't thought of it in that way, to be perfectly honest of it could have been it could have been I wouldn't I wouldn't want to put that in their mouths, as it were.
Sara Young: I think one thing he did do that was because there was such a small community and because there was quite a lot of hostility in the area, as well as a way to discourse.
Sara Young: The fact that some was coming in, apparently from outside actually not as much of an outsider a few like.
Sara Young: That was like Oh, we can talk to you more freely, you are actually part of us rather than someone to consider coming to stare us it like we're in a petri dish which is sometimes with it and feel.
Sara Young: I feel that as a researcher, am I actually just standing there going on, rather than going lucky let's let's open this up, so I think.
Sara Young: that's what it did perhaps more than anything, because the conversations, as I see it become a little bit more relaxed in that okay you're coming to you really are interested in what you want to see, rather than just staring at us all or against us, I suppose.
Sara Young: So I think that's where it helped again ethic, I just want to in this in because ethically I'm not sure how comfortable, I felt with that because.
Sara Young: Because I don't position myself as Polish particularly I felt as though I was then having to adopt an identity that made them feel better, which is not a bad thing, but how true that was to my own identity is difficult and the other thing to bring in here.
Sara Young: Is that the problem, one of the challenges of dealing with Eastern European identity is is that most of the countries are.
Sara Young: Often antagonistic towards each other, so it would have been very unhelpful if i'd gone in with a Russian identity, for example, and drawn on that aspect of my heritage.
Sara Young: So, again it's it's quite a dramatic process that you have to undertake and how far you feel comfortable with that and how far you're going to discomfort your participants is something else that then comes into the me.
Nicole Brown: Yes, I totally understand what do you mean and where you come from and in a way, actually this tastes quite nicely with the question that I had the other question I had.
Nicole Brown: Which taps into what Rachel was talking to you about and also what was said in the chat box earlier about the identity of an artist and the expectations that are kind of attached to it.
Nicole Brown: Does that mean that when we're doing this kind of research we actually automatically whether we want to or not.
Nicole Brown: are engaging in otter ethnography is it that we almost it's no longer just position ality it's actually more than that, is there an element of alter ethnography happening.
Nicole Brown: And we just label it position ality because because that's what what we're trained to do in a way.
Nicole Brown: But actually as a matter of fact, we are assuming this do or even perhaps triple and identity of a practitioner a researcher and whoever is in that room doing whatever we are doing in the tape data generation process so so.
Nicole Brown: what's the relationship in that respect between alter ethnography position ality and that kind of work in practice as research.
Sara Young: I think that's really interesting and there are certainly.
Sara Young: overlaps between them again it's something I do shy away from again coming from that background of known as the text and you step aside.
Sara Young: I don't want to be the sort of research us going well, this is a participant So what does that say about me and then it's become so focused, you know if it's designed as an author ethnography i'd have fallen, you know interviewed members of my family.
Sara Young: So it's very much not about me that said there is that obligation as I keep saying to to declare where you're standing at the beginning of what viewpoint, you have on this, or what could cloud or.
Sara Young: sort of bias your viewpoints, you know the biases, we will have, so I think it's it's a then becoming common on the research to see this this and also ethnography or.
Sara Young: Am I just saying this is where I stand, but really i'd like you to look at the participants I'm not really the key focus in this if I'm going to be the focus i'd have done a different piece of it.
Sara Young: But there are definitely there are the lines between them become increasingly blurred yes.
Nicole Brown: Thank you, I mean, I find that in a lot of the conversations i've been having with people is that it is really difficult to kind of delineate where the researcher stops and the practitioner starts or the other way around.
Nicole Brown: It becomes a muddled place and in many ways that's the nice thing about practice as research that you can be this modern place.
Nicole Brown: But obviously in conventional terms, this is really difficult for journals, for example, to navigate and to accept, and so there is obviously this external pressure that we are, we are kind of you know, like borrowing to, and that we have to to navigate as well.
Nicole Brown: Rachel do you want to come in at this stage.
Rachel Helme: Yes, I just as I find all of this, so interesting and the position i've sort of got myself in is that.
Rachel Helme: I'm not sure I can ever take myself out of this research.
Rachel Helme: So, not that I shouldn't try to but maybe I should acknowledge myself in the research, because if I wasn't in the fishbowl with the fish something else would be happening and.
Rachel Helme: And I know I agree with you, Nicole it's so complicated and it's messy but I like that I like the fact that it's complicated and messy I know that's just me and that's just my opinion.
Rachel Helme: But I think in the complication in the mess, you find something you wouldn't if you try to keep it tidy I don't know what others think.
Sara Young: I mean, I think you're right that you can't take me outside of it so that's something I sort of learned every time we do a piece of research but same time I think what I'm.
Sara Young: What I'm trying to put across is that I didn't want it could have so easily have turned into a project about weapons student who I am and the rest of it.
Sara Young: And that wasn't the point, the point is you've got this Griffith teenagers who've come in a very different context context that either, then what are they saying about what's happening to them so really putting me aside, yes, this is me I did the interviews I got involved.
Sara Young: What are they saying about their experiences and I don't want to impinge on that.
Sara Young: or invalidated or or claim it as my own, or do any of that sort of seen as I say, it's very different being.
Sara Young: A researcher who's been brought up in education in the country with a 13 year old Polish kid who's been here for five years, you know it's a very, very different position.
Sara Young: And so I didn't want his or her story, as they seem to be over influenced by what I would necessarily feeling or or being positioned dance in final research went in and sort of a paragraph, excuse me and that's it.
Sara Young: And that's why I'm doing it and that's it and then it moved on.
Sara Young: yeah.
Rachel Helme: No absolutely and I think, as you say, putting the voice of the other person that you want to prioritize is really important isn't it.
Rachel Helme: it's like it's like this fine balance, there is this little bit of view that you know, is there, but you want like you say the whole picture to be about the other person and no lovely Thank you.
Nicole Brown: Thank you very much I'm heading back to Marjorie.
Marjorie Johnson: Yes, sorry hit that are just make another question kind of comment, so how.
Marjorie Johnson: In doing research, especially where you're trying to get your participants to open up a little bit tell some stories with maybe some details that they wouldn't just tell a stranger.
Marjorie Johnson: How they position you affects what they said so understood, so I, so I, my understanding is I really have to have a really good grasp on how they how they view me.
Marjorie Johnson: Because like like like Rachel said it's like if I was in there and they were talking to somebody else would they be telling a different story or different details in the story or whatever So for me that this idea of doing.
Marjorie Johnson: Not so much that the paper my research is about myself auto ethnography, but I have to have that has to be an aspect of my research, because of the nature of the research, this does that does that make sense.
Sara Young: It does make sense, and I certainly see me I think if I use this thing kit I'm too concerned about what my participants might be thinking of me opposite or how they might positioning me and that spontaneity is sort of lost.
Sara Young: They may have a certain image that changes over time, the same way that you do with any other person that you meet in whatever circumstances so in some ways it's nicer to go in as.
Sara Young: As anonymous as possible, beyond the basics that they know about me in that I'm doing that research and where I'm doing it.
Sara Young: But beyond that it then becomes it, I suppose it not as strong as a mutual opening up, but just a little bit of ice breaking I suppose.
Sara Young: And how much comes out on either side will depend on you know 100 different variables.
Sara Young: But I don't like to go in there thinking, are they will see me in this way, and they should see me in this way, because you can't really control how other people see, to a large extent you can't control how the to you.
Sara Young: I mean, as I said at the beginning, the only thing I wanted to do, and as I didn't want to go charging in there saying hey I'm just like you, because i've got a migrant background and because i've got it to Polish in there.
Sara Young: Before you can talk to me to me that felt extremely heavy handed and inappropriate and also assuming that I would know a feeling I have.
Sara Young: A feeling, as they say they're very, very differently, for me, how can I go in with such assumption, but I knew there were certain elements of best stories that I would recognize and looked started emerging.
Sara Young: Then we could maybe discuss common ground.
Sara Young: and talk about identity, but again it's very different if i've been doing that in an adult setting as if I was doing it for 13 year olds.
Sara Young: So it's like all research at is that process of negotiation of treading carefully and and just finding out when to use it and where your participants it as well.
Sara Young: yeah.
Nicole Brown: I would like to play devil's advocate here and isn't that the case you know, in terms of how we impact, you know as in where you how your participants see you.
Nicole Brown: How that changes and effects the stories they tell isn't that element that that process true of any kind of research, even in an interview that is fully structured.
Nicole Brown: And there is a difference if somebody asks me at eight o'clock in the morning or 12 o'clock at lunchtime or a to you when I'm incredibly hungry and haven't had lunch.
Nicole Brown: And you know the responses, I will give will be totally different because of just the movement of the day, not you know, irrespective of who asked me the question.
Nicole Brown: And where I'm sitting is literally just a time of day that actually means quite frankly at five o'clock I'm too tired to think straight and.
Nicole Brown: think hard about an answer i'd probably be more likely to to just give yes and no one says and short, you know snappy responses, whereas at.
Nicole Brown: 10 o'clock in the morning i'll probably be expanding on my answers a little bit more so.
Nicole Brown: I think that's not necessarily something that we should worry about in that respect, because actually that's something that happens in all research is just the fact that other people gloss that over.
Nicole Brown: And that's not talked about, whereas we here in this context and we kind of you know, drawing attention to it, I think that's The only difference is that.
Nicole Brown: We draw attention to it, we are becoming more consciously aware of it, and therefore we have to deal with that difference, whereas other people gloss the thing over and ignore it actually.
Sara Young: I think it's true but, again, that comes on the what I would turn to the transparency about the research first interview I did with.
Sara Young: This group of children was on.
Sara Young: One of those really cold wet rainy January afternoons four o'clock in the afternoon, it was the first week of term you know they wanted to be anywhere but there.
Sara Young: But that went down as the first interview probably didn't go very well, because this is the setting of the time we got to me through a bit more chilled on all sorts of levels.
Sara Young: And and that's something that that I think, as I see got included in the you know sections, with the methodology just saying you know, obviously things opened up a little bit.
Sara Young: But I think acknowledging that is important, and again I would argue ethically it's important.
Nicole Brown: Yes, thank you so there's one comment in the chat box as well, saying there is a philosophical issue here.
Nicole Brown: If this is about our being in the world, we have to acknowledge our own existential position, as well as those of the participants.
Nicole Brown: So it's a case of trying to be authentic you have to kind of acknowledge.
Nicole Brown: or in that moment and off that moment, which goes back to that kind of thing that you know you're saying that actually.
Nicole Brown: The time of day, the season, you know all of those things that are impacting us because it is about being in that moment in the world, and so it's actually philosophical as much as it is ethical and position ality related.
Nicole Brown: Right, I think em I don't think there are any more questions, and if there are I apologize, and may have over overlooked somebody but I don't think there are.
Nicole Brown: So i'd like to say first of all, thank you very, very much Sarah for your presentation, it was great to have you here.
Nicole Brown: And it was really, really interesting to hear you talk about the different kinds of identities that are at play when when we enter the room.
Nicole Brown: and, obviously, your particular background is making this 10 times more difficult, so I totally understand that and it's really interesting to hear you talk about how you navigate that space.
Nicole Brown: And I would also just very quickly like to kind of draw attention to our next session, which is going to be on the second of February.
Nicole Brown: And it's called two packs of cigarettes and the working paper, and this is about Gian bloomers powerful voice and that will be led by Dr Jenny from the art and she is going to be.
Nicole Brown: Presenting a short 30 minute monologue where she's exploring the intricacies of mentor and mentee relationships in academia and also one last thing and, as always, here are the links to the YouTube clip to the.
Nicole Brown: The practice us research best brand, which is the audio version of this recording.
Nicole Brown: And the practices research network and web page do have a look, there is a lot of information on there and additional materials that are not covered.
Nicole Brown: In the seminar series so again, thank you very much, everybody for being here it's great to have this community and it's great to see so many people from so many parts of the world and turning up to these things now and unreasonable hours at their time so I do apologize for that.
Nicole Brown: But again, thank you very much, Sarah and I look forward to seeing everybody again in a month's time.