Researcher Positionality

The last central precept of anti-oppressive research to be deliberated concerns the positionality of the researcher. Margaret Boushel (2000) argues that reflecting upon one’s social and cultural positioning is crucial in anti-oppressive research because we develop an experiential interdependence, or the almost unconscious perpetuation of dominant roles given us by our status within powerful groups which must be interrogated. Researcher positionality refers to both an inward process and an interactive (outward) process relying upon a social network of exchanges and connections with the community (Braidotti 2002, Fook & Gardner 2007). Interrogating positionality is essential, as it highlights researcher role rather than obscuring it and acknowledges that our interpretations are partial and situated, thereby critiquing the assumed objectivity of the investigator.

Through this deliberate effort, we “foster resistance to conformity, ethnocentric and egocentric values and class-based bias” (Mezirow 1991, p.360). In anti-oppressive research this entails a dialogical process where we, through ongoing reflection in collaboration with participants, discover our complicities and biases. Interrogating positionality goes beyond stating one’s name or place of origin but reflects a more situational and fluid disclosure that changes with life experiences and temporality. However, this must not become a central focus in the study as it will essentially understate participants voices, thus failing to contribute to political change. The question then arises, how do we include or make space for self-disclosure without being construed as overbearing or self-indulgent (Dervin & Clark 2014)?

My intention by locating myself within the context of the research is to bring ownership and responsibility to the forefront. “When researchers own who or what they represent, they also reveal what they do not represent” (Absolon & Willett 2005, p.110). I also aim to juxtapose the inward process of reflection on the multiplicities of background, identity and personal experience with its outward impact upon the individuals and communities with whom I interacted in the course of the research. Being a

white, educated male from an Anglo-Saxon Western country, I belong, by virtue of my background, to a privileged group. Yet I also spent my childhood in the totalitarian regime of the former East Germany before emigrating to Canada with my parents in 1979 and spending my formative years there. As one of only two children in my school in Löbau, Saxony, who did not belong to the communist Young Pioneers, I became critically aware at an early age what a minority position constitutes and what detriments but also benefits one could derive therefrom. As a result of the ideological differences expressed by my family and the resulting political difficulties encountered when challenging the status quo, I came to experience the responses of an autocratic state apparatus oppressive of

“difference.” This left an indelible impression upon me, as did my parents exhortations to be vigilantly critical of authorities as well as to stand up for those who could not do so for themselves. This social justice orientation coupled with structural critiques has never left me and perhaps goes some way in explaining my theoretical and methodological choices in this study.

I have also shared the migrant imaginary (Camacho 2008) during two separate occasions in my life: first as a child, crossing the Iron curtain to the West and later as an adult, moving as a foreign lecturer to Finland.

Though each of these geographical shifts were qualitatively different, they shared many commonalities. One of these involved having to confront and mitigate the effects of being a member of a social, linguistic and cultural minority within majority society. As a child growing up in a Canada which conveyed its national identity through a multicultural narrative, this liminality, safe for initial communication hurdles, did not tangibly marginalize me. Indeed, research evidence suggests that compared with nearly all Western democracies, Canadian migrants demonstrate higher levels of social, political and economic integration and that official policies of multiculturalism are instrumental to this outcome (Bloemraad 2006, Adams 2007, Kymlicka 2010). Sometimes being told you belong and that

“your culture” was already an integral part of the national culture(s) before you arrived helps immeasurably in feeling included. I also remember the fervent wish to be accepted, even if this meant temporarily “forgetting”

one’s mother tongue and choosing to converse exclusively in English even with my own parents. This wish of belonging and the hope and positivity this embodied with reference to one’s new homeland was echoed over and

over again in my interviews with students. In fact, I have seldom encountered those migrants who represent the widespread “enclave stereotype” which promulgates that migrants do not wish to integrate. The corollary of such assumptions being that migrants must be cajoled, managed and “educated” to do so.

Immigrating a second time in being recruited as a lecturer and later program coordinator for an International Degree Program in Social Services in Finland, I re-visited a discernibly divergent minority position.

Integrating in the country’s other official language, Swedish, positioned me as a “minority within a minority.” Being welcomed into the circumscribed yet comparatively tolerant circles of Swedish-speaking Finland and finding support and a sort of Heimat within its institutions also meant that I was constantly forced to re-position oneself to the majority. Given Finland’s cultural diversity which rests on the historical contributions of traditional and “new” minority groups as well as on a statutory bilingualism, it is surprising that this “difference” is often not invoked in discourses on national identity. On the contrary, “difference” is often posited as problematic in these discussions, which follow a monocultural, nationalist, essentialist script. In my Finnish workplace, where despite affirmations of internationalism, an assimilative institutional monoculture dominated, policies which marginalized and racialized international students and staff were routinely adopted. It was here that I was reminded of the power of structural discrimination and racism, and its incremental, debilitating effects upon those who deviate from the norm. However, it was also here that the need for solidarity among those on the margins fostering acts of resistance became a guiding principle for my work. Discovering anti-oppressive practice theories which espoused normative critiques founded upon social analyses of “difference” underpinned the building of supportive networks of resistance. The idea that if “difference” would represent the starting point for discussions on values and behavior, it could constitute a site for social transformation and inclusion instead of exclusion, permeates much of my thesis (Moosa-Mitha 2005).

Having since moved to the research collective CEREN (Centre for Research on Ethnic Relations and Nationalism) within the Swedish School of Social Sciences, I have been reaffirmed both in my theoretical

foundation on critical social inclusion and the belief in the symbiotic and synergetic potential of multicultural working teams. Looking self-reflexively at locating myself within a minority context, I would describe my identities as diasporic or hybrid or better yet, “bordered.” Queer theorist, Gloria Anzaldúa (1998, p.712) defined bordered identity as “each world within its own peculiar and distinct inhabitants, not comfortable in anyone of them, none of them ‘home’, yet none of them ‘not home.’” I would nuance this by adding “fluctuatingly comfortable in many.”

In juxtaposing the inward reflections with their outward impact upon the research participants, I must preface that discussion by distinguishing my migrant experiences, despite similarities, from that of many of the students and some of the teachers, I encountered. By virtue of my positionality, my experiences differ markedly from those of visible and gendered minorities. My skin color gives me access to an exclusive club where I do not stick out and could hide if I chose not to confront the privilege invested me by my appearance. I am not forced to “live” my difference daily in the gaze of the majority. I am also conscious that my status as a male academic facilitated my being taken seriously and garnering respect, something which became obvious in some interviews with students. Having said this, my migrant background and the fact that I had seemingly overcome linguistic and social obstacles in integrating created an image of me in the eyes of many students of someone “who had made it.”

This and the fact that I had resided for longer periods in both Edmonton and Helsingfors engendered feelings of positive regard which facilitated my interaction with them. It also placed me in the position of a cultural translator or cultural bridge. As a researcher, I inhabited a borderland with the ability to intersect different worlds and identities to create something new (herising 2005). The fact that I too participated in an integration education program for a brief period upon arrival in Canada and worked for many years with international students who were struggling to locate themselves in foreign environments gave me an appreciation of their oft precarious life situations. In short, I was accepted as a semi-insider, non-allied with the institutional administrations, something which may have aided more critical voices to come to the fore.

When it came to my research with teaching staff, administrators and support personnel, my position as a fellow teacher and academic engaged in multicultural/intercultural education paralleled theirs and facilitated mutual regard. The fact that I had studied education at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and social work at universities in Gothenburg and Helsingfors also provided me with links to the staff at NorQuest and Arbis many of whom had comparable educational backgrounds. In addition, the groundwork laid by gatekeepers within these institutions who had been previous friends, acquaintances or family members facilitated introductions immeasurably. I was therefore not a blank page to many staff members when I arrived. The fact that I, like the majority of teaching and administrative staff, was white also allowed a more “seamless fit” because my ethnic and racial origin did not Other me within the teaching body. A circumstance which coincided with my fieldwork periods was that in all three partner institutions sweeping curricular and structural changes were taking place. This effectively left many teachers feeling marginalized, stressed and not listened to. Therefore, my discussions with them both in formal interview situations and informal chats during participant observations provided almost cathartic outlets for them to ruminate on the mission of the programs and formulate alternatives. Topics on student-centeredness, cultural negotiation, social partnerships and social change which were central in the interviews complemented thought processes that had already been initiated as a result of the institutional changes. It was serendipitous that I happened to be in the right place at the right time.

Lastly, in reflecting upon my complex interplay with people involved in the research, it is crucial to examine the role played by language(s) in shaping communication, involvement and participation. Prue Holmes (2017) argues that researchers must interrogate their language practices to ensure that study participants can speak for themselves in processes that involve flexible multilingualisms. In the spirit of inclusion, researchers are encouraged to emphasize the co-production of knowledge through multivocality allowing participants to ask questions in multiple languages and addressing them in vernaculars they understand. In this process, the researcher acts as a multilingual power broker in recognizing that by invoking certain languages others are (un)intentionally denied and seeking to expand language choice and forms of expression (Christians 2011). In

this regard, my fluency in both Swedish and English, the primary languages of the research contexts, as well as an acquaintance with several other languages, allowed me to draw on these personal flexible language skills to open up wider spaces for constructing meaning. Questions which I considered prior to engaging in case study inquiries were: What knowledge of the languages of the group(s) of people being investigated is required?

and, How can I draw on my linguistic resources and intercultural experiences and knowledge to build trust with the researched and the researched communities? (Holmes, Fay, Andrews & Attia, 2013).

In answering these questions, I was also aware that my linguistic toolbox was woefully insufficient in engaging with the language polyglot of my migrant learners. Thus, I worked within these limitations and simply used those language resources available to me in ways which maximized multivocality and inclusiveness to expose the diverse linguistic and cultural realities of all those involved in the study. This was expressed, for example, in selecting group interviewing in order to allow students to support each other’s language expression. In some interview groups, students who represented similar linguistic backgrounds translated questions or difficult terms for each other. They also engaged in small clarifying discussions in their own languages within the interview context to enhance collective understanding. As multilinguality, expressed in speaking several different languages interchangeably, has been my lived experience, the “Babylonian chaos” created in this vernacular jumble seemed quite normal and rather reassuring. Perhaps this is also a reason why I did not reflect so much on my personal language strategies while carrying out the field work, because embodied language multiplicity has been an integral part of my identity. A more conscious foregrounding of language plurality (Cannella & Lincoln 2011) is then continued in the lingually intermixed and intermeshed style of the monograph. This was particularly important in order to accurately represent the colloquial forms of expression of migrant participants.

I now revisit the two questions designed to interrogate the extent to which my research integrated anti-oppressive precepts – namely, can participants see themselves in the study and does the analysis ring true to them? Concerted efforts were made in choosing collaborative research methods to maximize participation and accountability as well as reducing

power differences. In addition, my personal location as a researcher within an anti-oppressive, resistance-oriented research framework accentuated social change objectives in choosing and implementing the research design.

However, a focus on shared ownership and collective responsibility did not suffuse all research phases, such as during data analysis and dissemination where a greater collaborative focus could have benefitted the study.

Therefore, the questions posed by bell hooks (1994) regarding whose knowledge is constructed through our research projects, and if it serves as a means of oppression or resistance are as topical as ever. If researchers are truly to become “poetic activists” who aim towards generative theories, then a reflexivity constructed in dialogue with study environments and participants is essential if they strive to change aspects of the world (Gergen 2001b).