Transnational dynamics in researching migrants: self-reflexivity and boundary-drawing in fieldwork

Abstract

This article links migrant transnationalism with methodological debates, in particular the researcher's positionalities and self-reflexivity, which have so far barely been addressed in transnational studies in any systematic manner. Drawing upon my fieldwork experience in a German city, ‘Schönberg’, it examines the process of boundary-drawing and re-drawing between the research participants and the researcher. While there is undeniably a clear power hierarchy between the two parties that originates in national belonging, other positionalities such as gender, ethnicity, class and stage in the life cycle may, at their intersection, work to reverse such an asymmetrical relationship. Boundaries between ‘us’ and ‘them’ are not static and are, rather, created in a situational manner. Thus, attending to multiple positionalities in their intersection in research processes may help the researcher to re-evaluate the naturalized primacy given to national belonging.

Keywords:

• Transnationalism
• boundary-drawing
• self-reflexivity
• positionality
• methodological nationalism
• intersectionality

Acknowledgements

I thank Anna Amelina, Thomas Faist, Helma Lutz, the two anonymous reviewers and the participants in a research colloquium at the Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University, for their comments on earlier versions of this article.

Notes

1. Pseudonyms have been used for the research participants in order to protect their privacy.

2. For a fuller explanation of the three modes of methodological nationalism suggested by Wimmer and Glick Schiller (2002), see the introduction to this issue.

3. I carried out fieldwork between 2001 and 2003, using an array of methods including participant observation, biographical interviews with Philippine domestic workers, semi-structured interviews with employers and expert interviews with community leaders and local administration as well as a non-random survey. The fieldwork was financed by the German Academic Exchange Service.

4. This type of research requires constant and simultaneous communications among the researchers in order to trace and verify the practices of the migrants and their non-migrant families, friends and other related actors.

5. Already in the 1970s race–class relations were being examined to explain historical white domination in the US labour market (Blauner 1972; Barrera 1979). However, focusing solely on paid ‘productive’ labour, they neglected unpaid domestic labour shouldered by women (Glenn 1992).

6. There was no obvious public meeting spot, unlike what has been documented in other studies (Constable 1997; Parreñas 2001). This is presumably due to their irregular migration status and strict police control in public spaces.

7. In Germany migrant carers for the elderly have become coterminous with Polish women (Lutz 2007b).

8. The going rates for Philippine domestic workers were €7.50 and above per hour.

9. Similarly, Filipino soldiers are assigned to feminized tasks in the lower echelons of the US navy (Espiritu 2003).

10. However, it must be noted that non-biological, social parenting was prevalent in terms of financially supporting nieces’ and nephews’ education.