Notas From the Field: Reflexiones, Dudas, y Convivencia

• In Event: 42.083 - Roundtable Session 17
  In Roundtable Session: 42.083-5 - Reflexiones From Nepantlerx Researchers: Exposing the Tension-Rich Realities of Working With Latinx Youth

Abstract

Rather than place a discussion on positionality as a throwaway section, this paper locates it at the start – front and center. As Mendoza-Denton (2008) posits, “It is a responsibility of anthropologists to explain ourselves, who we are and where we come from […]” (p. 43). Discussing my positionality is done so as an earnest effort to begin to unpack my site, student participants as well as how I as a person-researcher made sense of my time at Shields High School (pseudonym) in suburban Chicago. This paper examines the tensions of conducting a two-year (2014-2016) critical ethnography by highlighting how I navigated my fieldsite and what I learned from 19 Latina/o youth participants who attend a high school that is predominately white and well resourced in an affluent suburb.

Latina/o scholars possess a great vantage point to understand the multi-varied lived experiences of Latina/o students because there is overlap in the negotiations, strategies, and voices to survive educational institutions (Conchas, 2016; Delgado-Bernal, 1998; Villenas & Foley, 2011). But as Patel (2016) notes, “The complications of positionality are no less simple for researchers who research home communities” (p. 44). It is crucial that scholars reflect upon their positionality in the field by questioning their privileged identities because all too often researchers despite their intentions produce work that reproduces colonized subjects (Villenas, 1996, p. 346).

It is vital that researchers engage in educational inquiry that is in humanizing in scope, scholarship that involves building relational partnerships of care and dignity with our participants (Patel, 2016; Paris, 2011; Paris & Winn, 2014). This process is not linear and it is more challenging when navigating, “multiple borders of difference” (Paris, 2011, p. 140). Because of these differences, qualitative work as Foley (2001) notes, “[…] is always a performance of sorts” (p. 221). This paper situates itself in liminal spaces or what Anzaldúa (2002) calls nepantla. In so doing, I am able to focus on how I entered Shields, how I built and maintained relationships with students, and how I exited the field.

Figueroa (2014) notes that ethnographic writing focuses on researchers personal journeys of entering their respective fieldsites, yet little attention is given to exiting the field. Figueroa (2014) asks, “Have we acknowledged and fulfilled our responsibility to the communities who have welcomed us? Have we-in both our opinion and the opinion of the participants-fulfilled the commitments we made at the beginning of our study?” (p. 129) This paper also takes on that challenge by discussing the ways in which I shared my findings and collaborated with students.

The implications of this study multiple. Suburban schools are increasingly populated with Latina/o students my work offers insights into how educators can better build lasting relationships with them. Moreover, the emphasis on conducting humanizing research allows for a continued focus on how to produce scholarship that will garner sustainable outcomes for Latina/o youth to thrive in and out of school.

Author

• Gabriel Rodriguez, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign