Researching stigma as an outsider: considerations for qualitative outsider research

ABSTRACT

In this article, we discuss a number of important considerations that we have encountered in the process of researching health stigma topics as “outsiders”: researchers (personally) unfamiliar with the experience or topic under study. In particular, we discuss the importance of the following: a reflective stance, challenging negative representations, flexible and sensitive recruitment strategies, validating experiences of stigma, and participant control and power. We see these points as particularly important in the context of researching stigma as outsiders, where our privilege may contribute to unhelpful, narrow, de-politicized or overly simplistic representations of particular “groups” or experiences. We share these considerations in hope of assisting other researchers to reflect on, and articulate, how they negotiate their positionings within their research and the ways in which they shape and construct the research agenda and, by implication, the people or topics under examination.

KEYWORDS:

• insider/outsider research
• outsider status
• membership status
• stigma
• reflexivity
• ethics
• qualitative research

Notes

¹ A feminist perspective, in Wigginton’s work, refers to a woman-specific, context-sensitive and woman-positive approach to research, interventions and programs targeting women’s smoking (Greaves et al. 2003).

² Consistent with our epistemology, we use quotation marks to problematize the term “health behavior” given the overly individualist and decontextualized nature of this term and its deployment in psychology.

³ Certainly, Setchell has experienced this privilege when, in at least one instance, other academics have searched the internet for pictures of her to determine her body size. One academic disclosed this to her and explained that the reason was that if they had found she was overweight they would suspected her of having a conflict of interest and potentially biasing results to suit her own personal agenda.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Britta Wigginton

Britta Wigginton, PhD, is with the School of Psychology, The University of Queensland, St. Lucia, Australia.

Jenny Setchell

Jenny Setchell holds conjoint post-doctoral fellow positions, Schools of Physiotherapy, The Universities of Queensland and Toronto.