Intersecting identities and positionality of U.S.-based transnational researchers in second language studies

ABSTRACT

Despite a growing number of Second Language (L2) researchers working in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic settings, issues related to these uniquely situated researcher identities have only scantily been addressed. In order to close this gap, we investigated three U.S.-based Korean female researchers in L2 studies. We sought to understand (1) the ways in which these researchers chose research topics, contexts, and participants; (2) how they related themselves to their research participants; and (3) to what extent and how they negotiated identities in conducting and reporting their research. With theoretical frameworks of positionality and intersectionality of researcher identities, we drew upon a few salient points from multiple data sources such as interviews, published papers, and field notes. We found not only that their research interests stemmed from their life experiences and graduate training, but accessibility, familiarity, and researcher’s self-identification also influenced their research topics, contexts, and relationships with their research participants. Furthermore, researchers’ active positioning themselves in relation to research content, contexts, and participants using their intersecting identities proved to be beneficial to their research. What our findings further suggest is that researchers embrace hybridity and multiplicity of subjectivities and identities in order to make a fair contribution to knowledge construction.

KEYWORDS:

• Researcher identity
• intersectionality
• positionality
• second language studies
• applied linguistics
• cross-cultural settings

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Seonhee Cho http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5580-0281

Youngjoo Yi http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9190-8601

Notes

1 Various terms, such as ‘multilingual,’ ‘international’ or ‘transnational’ have been used to generally refer to researchers in cross-cultural and cross-linguistic settings; however, in this paper we use the term, ‘transnational’ and identify our research participants and ourselves as ‘transnational researchers’ (not just multilingual or international researchers) given that we have had transnational and transcultural experiences, options, opportunities, and ties in life (e.g., engage in regular and sustained practices across national borders and use a ‘dual frame of references’ to explore our life experiences and outcomes within our host country) (Louie 2006, 363).