My Positionality
My Personal Background as it Relates to my Research
From the “Methods” draft of The Human Relational Basis of Democracy on ResearchGate.
The worldview that enables my general positionality as a researcher is constantly constituted and reconstituted within a plurality of social [37] stances: my values and beliefs, which are informed by my education, gender, sex, race, ethnicity, class, (dis)abilities, professional status, sexual orientation, family culture background, political viewpoints, geography, etc. [38]
Put simply, my choice of subject matter, how I conduct the research, how I collect and analyze data, how I frame findings, and what recommendations are ultimately offered all grow from my positionality, as they do in any research project, quantitative or qualitative. Describing the constitution of my positionality as a qualitative researcher not only develops methodological credibility [39], but it also creates transparency for readers so that the relationship to my knowledge production is accessible. [40]
I describe below aspects of my positionality not to shock, process, or navel-gaze. Rather, because I have already processed relevant experiences from my family culture background — during a 2-year sabbatical in solitude and as it was…
