Identity & Reflexivity

Identity & Reflexivity

Identifying Identity

Adapted from Engaging Communities

by Suzanne Blum-Malley & Ames Hawkins

Presentation by Patrick Thornton

Realizing Reflexivity

-Reflecting on Module 3, Symbol is often directly linked to Identity (i.e. clothing, body language, verbal language)

-Consider the symbol of a tattoo and what it says about a person's identity.

-Connecting symbols to identity can often lead to stereotypes.

-Stereotyping is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. It is one of the few strategies humans have for making sense of situations where they have little information.

-However, when people stereotype, they assign value to what they see which leads to judgment.

-Reflexivity considers the larger cultural implications of meaning and interpretation.

-Self-reflexivity is an exercise in critical thinking.

-Self-reflexivity occurs when you really consider what it is you see when you look at yourself and what others might see when they look at you.

-As much as you are interpreting the actions and behaviors of others, know that your informants are also, consciously or otherwise, interpreting your appearance and actions as well

Prompts for Writing about

Identity & Reflexivity

Identifying Identity

-Begin your fieldnotes with a description of who you are. That is, who are you as the ethnographer? What do you bring to the site?

-Reflect on the thoughts and feelings you've identified in your jottings and try to explore where they came from.

-What worldview/mindset factors influence your thoughts, feelings, and responses to the site?

-Are you an insider or an outsider? Do you feel

this status changing over time?

Rhetorical Strategies

for Writing about

Identity & Reflexivity

-At your research site, you make observations, assessments, and analysis. But you can't stop there.

-You need to inquire of the actual informants what they think about their own actions, behaviors, symbols and site.

-Look for the connects and disconnects in what you see and interpret and what other participants in the community see and interpret.

-Personal meaning can be both simple and complex. Again, think about people who get tattoos. Does every tattoo have a complex meaning?

-People take up notions of identity through personal symbols, through what they know and where they have been, often reducing identity to some sort of label: male, female, parent, student, Catholic, African American, etc.

-The reading of these symbols or labels can lead to the judgment of "like me" or "not like me."

-Your goal is to try and break the cycle of symbolic interpretations and stereotyping in a way that doesn't make judgments, but as a way of exploring the complexity of human action, and the behavior you're researching.

-In order to do this, you need to engage in reflexivity.

Realizing Reflexivity

-When you are reflexive about your research, you actively think about who you are and how your mindset and worldview affect the ways in which you conduct research.

-Reflexivity helps you avoid making judgments because you're required to examine how and why you come to your decisions.

-Highlighting the complexity of human interaction through looking at yourself and the people at your site can lead you to deeper connections and meaning at your site.

-You are inviting your reader to identify with people that are different from them.

-Consider how you present yourself at your site

• How do your informants see and respond to your ideas, thoughts and beliefs as they may be presented through dress, action, or style?
• How have you constructed yourself in this research setting?
• How have others responded to you in different situations?
• How do you think this affects what it is you have and have not seen during your fieldwork?