“Collecting Loose Change:” Conceptual Clarifications on Bias, Subjectivity, Positionality, Reflexivity, & Autoethnography in Leisure Research

Abstract

With the rise of the acceptance, normalization, and increasing sophistication of qualitative research across the social sciences, there is a proliferation of paradigmatic approaches, methodologies, data generation methods, analytical techniques, and forms of representation. As qualitative methods continue to develop, expand, and hybridize, there is a need to conceptually clarify some of the “loose change” that has come with the rise of its legitimacy. In this essay, we build upon previous work advocating for a greater need for the use and conceptual clarification of trustworthiness in qualitative research to make an additional necessary call to encourage nuance when engaging with concepts that focus on the role of the self. We try to nuance the role(s) of articulating one’s place through declarations of bias, subjectivity, and positionality and the mechanisms for managing and/or understanding one’s place in the research vis-a-vis reflexivity as a process and/or autoethnography (methodology). In doing so, we call for the appropriate deployment of these techniques to align with the paradigmatic approach used in the research endeavor.

Keywords:

• Autoethnography
• bias
• paradigm
• positionality
• reflexivity
• rigor
• subjectivity

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the first author’s peer-mentor Trena Paulus for her early insights into this manuscript and her encouragement to start thinking about digital reflexivity and workflows.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).