‘The Merged Researcher’ and ‘Emergent Subjectivity’: Complicating Reflexivity in Migration Research

Abstract

Qualitative migration researchers argue that reflexivity is an essential and integral component of qualitative studies involving particularly co-national/co-ethnic researchers conducting research on their co-national¹/co-ethnic research informants in order to promote rigor and transparency. The primary objective of reflexivity in qualitative research is to ‘minimize personal bias’. Such a supposition, however, implicitly harbors assumptions of positivist epistemological objectivity that conceptualizes the qualitative researcher as detached from data and research informants. Drawing on secondary literature and my field research experiences, I argue that in qualitative migration research where the researcher shares social identities and experiences with research informants, the practice of reflexivity becomes antithesis to the practical realities of a co-constructed, value-laden and subjectivity-tainted research process. I coin the terms the merged researcher² and emergent subjectivity³ to capture the inextricability of the researcher from the whole research process and the unfolding and becoming subjectivity of the researcher. These analytical concepts challenge conceptualizations of qualitative researchers’ subjectivities as problematic or bias prone. I argue that qualitative researchers’ decisions, assumptions, beliefs and experiences inseparably percolate into the research process and their social identities and subjectivities do not exist as pre-defined and stable formations but manifest and emerge during the research process.

Keywords:

• Reflexivity
• emergent researcher subjectivity
• qualitative study

Conflict of interest statement

The author declares no potential conflict of interest.

Notes

1 The term ‘co-national’ refers to researchers and research informants sharing a common nationality while the term co-ethnic refers to researchers and research informants sharing a common ethnic identity.

2 The concept ‘the merged researcher’ is understood as a qualitative researcher whose world views, perceptions, assumptions and lived experiences form an inextricable part of the research process

3 The term ‘emergent subjectivity’ is understood as a qualitative researcher’s perceived identity, beliefs and their assumptions that emerge and unfold within the context of actual research encounters or interactions with research informants.

4 My aim in this paper is not to downplay the standard practice of reflexivity or its proponents, but to propose an alternative conceptualization of subjectivity in qualitative research process that sees qualitative researchers and their subjectivities as inseparably integral parts of qualitative research.

5 I have used the term ‘research informants’ throughout this paper to emphasize the ways in which interviewees in research are considered as empowered experts and as active participants who inform rather than as passive objects of data collection. I reject using terms such as ‘my research subjects’ or ‘my participants’ or related designations which language serves to reinscribe or reinforce the unequal power dynamic between researcher and participants.

6 The term ‘migrant’ is here understood as a broader, overarching term encompassing different categories such as temporary asylum seekers, recognized refugees, economic migrants and permanently settled immigrant communities.

7 The concept ‘merged’ is here defined as the indistinguishability of the co-ethnic/co-national migrant researcher’s subjectivity from the research process and the concept challenges assumptions of ‘bias’ implicit in qualitative studies.

8 Subjectivity’ in this sense encompasses not only my world views, perceptions, past experiences, philosophical/theoretical assumptions but it also includes my perceived social identity.