Issues of Power and Representation in/of the Local Context: The role of self-reflexivity and positionality in design research

Abstract

This article links design research in local contexts to the methodological issues of positionality and self-reflexivity. A critical examination of design’s relationship with the local context indicates a need for self-reflexive methodologies as means of addressing power imbalances in the field, deciphering prejudices, and maintaining receptivity to diverse ways of knowing and approaches to knowledge. Drawing upon the first author’s experience of fieldwork in a Turkish village, this article delves into the fluidity of positioning in the field. It self-reflexively examines the impact of the positionality of identities claimed and assigned during the research process, the relations and interactions that occurred in the field and the construction of the research text. While promoting self-reflexivity as a tool for critically engaged research, the article also addresses how design researchers in the local context might associate these methodological insights to their own studies.

Keywords:

• Self-reflexivity
• positionality
• design research
• local knowledge
• fieldwork experience

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to the women of the village for their hospitality and patience in our involvement in their daily life. This article is derived from the PhD thesis. We thank jury members Can Altay and Hümanur Bağlı for their contribution and support. Finally, we thank Aysun Akdeniz and her family for opening their homes during field visits.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Abla has variety of uses in Turkish. It can be used addressing older women after her name as a sign of respect.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gizem Öz

Gizem Öz is a research assistant at Istanbul Bilgi University and a PhD candidate at Istanbul Technical University, Turkey. Her research interests include designer’s labour, collective production, and social participation through making. She attempts to look at the designer’s participation in production from a critical perspective. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5408-1772

Şebnem Timur

Şebnem Timur, PhD, was born in Ankara in 1974. She graduated from the Department of Industrial Design at Middle East Technical University (METU) in 1994 and received her degrees of MFA (1996) and PhD (2001) from Bilkent University, Department of Graphic Design. She has worked as a research assistant at METU in the Department of Industrial Design (1995–2002) and has conducted a post-doctoral study as an Honorary Research Fellow at University College London in the Department of Anthropology on Material Culture (2002–2003). She is currently teaching at Istanbul Technical University, Department of Industrial Design. Her research interests particularly focus on design and objects as cultural phenomena at the intersection point of semiotics, material culture and visual culture studies.