The Politics of “Being and Becoming” a Researcher: Identity, Power, and Negotiating the Field

Abstract

This article explores the methodological turning points in conducting a critical ethnography on the discursive practices of Italian Canadian youth identities across their multiple worlds in Toronto (cf. Giampapa, 2004a). Specifically, I aim to problematize the construction of the “researcher,” researcher identities, and the conceptualization of “insider/outsider” in relation to “being in the field.” I hope to move beyond a prescriptive view of the researcher in the field and to critically reveal the ways in which researcher identities are constructed through the social practices and discourses in which we are embedded as we conduct critical ethnographic research. In my research I became implicated in the debates and social constructions of being and becoming Italian Canadian in Toronto. My shifting identities and positionalities became part of a delicate dance across the research sites where participants exercised their power in ways that would open or close doors in the field.

Keywords:

• researcher identities
• critical ethnography
• reflexivity
• Italian Canadian youth

Notes

¹I have expanded on the Italian Canadian centre based on what Grimard (2000, p. 6) describes as the criteria for defining the Canadian centre: “White middle class–upper class, healthy, masculine, heterosexual, married with children, between the ages of 30–65, Canadian born, Anglophone, living in an urban milieu, producer of knowledge/power, possessing neo-liberal values and Christian.”

²My fieldwork did extend beyond the core 18-month period as I worked with community groups and organizations.

³Through the shadowing process, I had participants wear a microphone to document their interactions across the various field sites. There were also situations when I wasn't present (e.g., social settings) as it became clear to me that I would impact on the types of intimate discussions that would possibly take place particularly in friendship settings.

⁴An anglicized form of Italian used in Canada.