Researcher Positioning: Muslim “Otherness” and Beyond

Abstract

This article focuses on the complex and multilayered process of researcher positioning, specifically in relation to the politically sensitive study of marginalised and “othered” groups such as Muslims living in Denmark. We discuss the impact of different ethnic, religious, and racial backgrounds, of membership in a minoritised ¹ or majoritised group, and the influence of different theoretical and methodological outlooks on our common goal of trying to transcend existing othering and objectifying representations of Muslims in Western societies. This process sometimes entails a direct political and personal involvement by the researcher, which challenges traditional perspectives on research and researcher positioning. A key point in this regard is the importance of constant awareness of and reflection on the multiple ways in which one's positioning as a researcher influences the research process. Studying the other calls for close reflections on one's own position, theoretically, personally, and politically, taking into account one's complicity in either overcoming or reproducing processes of othering and marginalisation.

¹We use the term (ethnic) minoritised not as a distinction with numerical proportions but rather related to societal power relations (Phoenix 2001, p. 128).

Keywords:

• researcher positioning
• young Muslims
• other ethnicity
• critical psychology
• social practice theory
• social constructionism
• poststructuralism
• social work

Acknowledgements

The original idea for this paper came up after a paper presentation at the research conference: White Terror/(Post) Empire, at London School of Economics, in 2006. We thank Caroline Howarth and Derek Hook (department of Social Psychology and Sociology) for organising this conference, and Caroline for requesting us to write this article. We would also like to thank the research unit of Diversity, Gender, and Subjectivation at the Danish School of Education, Aarhus University, and the members of the research group of Gender, Body, and Everyday Life at Roskilde University, as well as Morten Nissen, Andrew Jefferson, and Johanna Motzkau for commenting on earlier versions of this paper. Also, thank you to Line's co-researchers for feedback on earlier versions of the text and to Yvonne McAneny for the English proofreading.

Notes

¹We use the term (ethnic) minoritised not as a distinction with numerical proportions but rather related to societal power relations (Phoenix 2001, p. 128).

²German-Danish critical psychology “does not view people themselves as a problem, but, on the contrary, regards the unquestioned tendency to define them as a problem to be the real problem to be analysed, in both its social and its personal presuppositions and consequences” (Osterkamp 1999, p. 467).

³The critical psychological notion of endeavouring toward common interest means trying to expand action possibilities without doing it at the expense of others. In practice this is quite difficult as it entails conflicts and contradictions (Osterkamp 1999) which the practice research may reflect and thereby learn from. In theoretical terms common interest is understood in contrast to special interest, which mainly serves the interest of one party. Holzkamp (1995) also discusses this as instrumental relations in contrast to subject-relations. Common interests are realised through the so-called subject-relations.

⁴Marvin Harris (1995, p. 424) places Scheper-Hughes within a tradition of critical anthropology.

⁵At monthly meetings during 2000–2003, Lodge members (selected researchers, social street workers, and other social work professionals) or other “experts” were invited to give presentations about their work with wild youngsters as a basis for discussions (M⊘rck 2000; M⊘rck in press).

⁶Underlining the fundamentally dialectic nature of objective conditions, their meaning and the subjective reasons for acting in specific ways. In German: Bedingungs-, Bedeutungs und Begründungsanalyse (Holzkamp, 1983A).

⁷This indicates the year of the interview.

⁸The study (M⊘rck 2006, chapter 7), which cannot be presented in its totality here, included the variations and complexity of the social street workers' subjectification and action possibilities over time. For instance, it was emphasised that the social street workers at the beginning of the meeting tried to keep a “low profile and avoid discussions” (M⊘rck 2006, p. 165). It was analysed how Danish case managers, supervisors and social street workers reacted very differently in different contexts and that some reactions resulted in limitations and the rise of troublesome dividing lines, while other actions did not produce divisions, but ensured future cooperation and diversity in communities across differences in ethnicity and religion.

⁹These have been discussed elsewhere (Khawaja 2004).

¹⁰Such as Senko and the leader of the Lodge.