Positioning Positionality: On the Interactional Foundation of Reflexive Sociology

• In Event: Research in Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis: Categories and Identities in Interaction II

Abstract

In the past few decades, feminist sociologists have become increasingly reflexive about how our identities and presence in the field affect the data we obtain. At the same time, advancements in qualitative research technologies, such as Zoom recordings and new software for interview transcription and analysis, have enabled more fine-grained analysis of interactions between researcher and research participants. Assisted by these new technologies, this paper draws upon insights from conversation analysis and the ethnography of speaking to examine the ongoing accomplishment of positionality in qualitative research. By analyzing Jeffersonian transcriptions of video-recorded interviews I conducted with feminist parents in the U.S., I demonstrate how my respondents and I—a scholar of color from China—were actively positioning each other during our conversation, and how we oriented each other to different aspects of our identities at different moments of our interview. As these interactional dynamics illustrate, being reflexive about researchers’ positionality requires close attention to how researchers and research participants use linguistically mediated borderwork/neutralization tactics to (re)configure their (dis)alignment on a moment-by-moment basis.

Author

• Yuchen Yang, University of Birmingham