“Trust me”: Complicating the Subjectivity Statement as a Criterion of Trustworthiness (Poster 5)

• In Event: Manufacturing Trustworthiness in Qualitative Research

Abstract

Multiple frameworks of trustworthiness associate concepts of researcher reflexivity as measures of credibility. Guba (1981) provided an early nod to this link, suggesting reflexivity is associated with confirmability. Tracy (2010) later situated the researcher's self-reflexivity, especially in the written product, as a method toward trustworthy sincerity. Richardson (2000) similarly suggested that trustworthiness is gleaned from authors' written acknowledgments of how they came to write the text, illustrating "adequate self-awareness and self-exposure for the reader to make judgments about the point of view" (Richardson, 2000, p. 254). Often, subjectivity statements in qualitative research are the dedicated spaces-in-text for researchers to make plain their reflexive thinking to suggest they are, and subsequently, their study is, trustworthy (Morrow, 2005).

In this poster, we problematize the subjectivity statement as a criteria of trustworthiness. Specifically, we focus on how such statements designate the authorial self as an expert, cutting away at the messiness of inquiry. We question if and how we might compromise the trust placed in us as researchers when we "tidy our texts, not to reveal the struggle we have in getting somewhere" (Ahmed, 2017, p. 13). Through this work, we invite a nuanced perspective of the assumptions of subjectivity statements and encourage dialogue on what trustworthiness might look like when we abandon mastery in research reporting.
Theorizing with van Wingerden's (2022) concepts of mastery and vulnerability, we pull apart and acknowledge how sensory "modes of not-quite-knowing or knowing together, which may offer more creative and more cooperative ways of grasping the world" (p. 3). This vulnerability illustrates how "the situatedness of knowledge is not a fait accompli but a fragile and dynamic outcome of conversing and struggling with the subject matter in bodily ways (van Wingerden, 2022, p. 3).

We open this poster with a literature review delineating the connection between subjectivity statements and reflexive writing to frameworks of trustworthiness. Then, integrating vignettes and samples of our previously published subjectivity statements, we provide a discursive analysis framed through van Wingerden's (2022) mastery and incorporeal vulnerability to trouble our stolid expressions of credible reflexivity.

Bringing mastery and vulnerability into dialogue with each other and our subjectivity statements, we explore three tensions faced when utilizing reflexivity to gauge trustworthiness, including writing ourselves as experts, facilely nodding to reflexivity, and refusing messiness. These tensions lead us to question how we decide to write or erase our negotiations of being while doing research, including the messy moments we might prefer to forget. As opposed to subjectivity statements that list a series of privileged identities vis-à-vis the target community, we rewrite our statements to share our vulnerable inquiry moments as a statement of trust. This trust, however, is our offering rather than demand, wherein sharing the vulnerability of our situated knowledge may invite the reader to trust us, just as we trust them with our experiences.

Authors

• Lorien S. Jordan, University of South Florida

• Jennifer R. Wolgemuth, University of South Florida