Power and positionality: negotiating insider/outsider status within and across cultures
Abstract
Early discussions of insider/outsider status assumed that the researcher was predominately an insider or an outsider and that each status carried with it certain advantages and disadvantages. More recent discussions have unveiled the complexity inherent in either status and have acknowledged that the boundaries between the two positions are not all that clearly delineated. Four case studies - a Black woman interviewing other Black women, Asian graduate students in the US interviewing people from ‘back home’, an African professor learning from African businesswomen, and a cross-cultural team studying aging in a nonWestern culture - are used as the data base to explore the complexities of researching within and across cultures. Positionality, power, and representation proved to be useful concepts for exploring insider/outsider dynamics.
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Our identities are not fixed, but rather fluid and shifting, and therefore resist easy categorization.
“Other researchers, particularly those working within critical, feminist, and postmodernist approaches, argue that our identities are not fixed, but rather fluid and shifting, and therefore resist easy categorization (Merriam et al., 2001).”
From Adults researching with children (2023) · cites this paper as Merriam et al., 2001
Researchers are positioned on a continuum and are always, to some degree, both inside and outside.
“We are positioned on a continuum and are always, to some degree, both inside and outside (Merriam et al., 2001; Ochieng, 2010).”
From Adults researching with children (2023) · cites this paper as Merriam et al., 2001
Cites
Learning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought
Collins, P. H. (1986) · Social Problems · doi:10.2307/800672 · Cited by 3,536 · cited 1× · see citing works
“By virtue of her Western education and university affiliation, Mazanah was something of an ‘outsiderwithin’, a position Collins (1986) has identified with regard to African-American academic women who make creative use of their marginality as intellectuals to study African-American women.”
BackgroundLearning from the Outsider Within: The Sociological Significance of Black Feminist Thought
Collins, P. H. (1986) · Social Problems · doi:10.1525/sp.1986.33.6.03a00020 · Cited by 646 · see citing works
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Using Talanoa in Pacific Business Research in new Zealand: Experiences with Tongan Entrepreneurs
Prescott, S. M. (2008) · AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples · doi:10.1177/117718010800400111 · Cited by 105 · see citing works
Researcher Positionality: Ways to Include it in a Qualitative Research Design
Goundar, P. R. (2025) · International Journal of Qualitative Methods · doi:10.1177/16094069251321251 · Cited by 88 · see citing works
“In qualitative research at the Masters, Doctor of Education, Doctor of Social Work, Doctor of Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages, and Ph.D. level, it is critical to clarify the researcher ’ s position (Goundar, 2023d; Kerstetter, 2012; Merriam et al., 2001; Yip, 2024).”
Embodying Middle Class Gender Aspirations: Perspectives from China’s Privileged Young Women
Xie, K. (2021) · Gender, Sexualities and Culture in Asia · doi:10.1007/978-981-16-1139-1 · Cited by 66 · see citing works
An allied research paradigm for epidemiology research with Indigenous peoples
Jaworsky, D. (2019) · Archives of Public Health · doi:10.1186/s13690-019-0353-1 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Researcher positionality: the Liquid Inbetweener
Barnes, G.-J. (2023) · PRACTICE · doi:10.1080/25783858.2021.1968280 · Cited by 14 · see citing works
Adults researching with children
Berman, R., & MacNevin, M. (2023) · doi:10.32920/21909258
- Authors
- Merriam, S. B., Johnson-Bailey, J., Lee, M.-Y., Kee, Y., Ntseane, G., & Muhamad, M.
- Venue
- International Journal of Lifelong Education
- Publisher
- Informa UK Limited
- Published
- 2001-09
- Volume
- 20
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 405-416
- ISSN
- 0260-1370 (ISSN-L)
- 1464-519X
- OpenAlex
- W2085234352
- Cited by
- 1,134
- References
- 2
- Citations by year
- 2026: 61 · 2025: 79 · 2024: 74 · 2023: 93 · 2022: 68 · 2021: 100 · 2020: 87 · 2019: 74 · 2018: 65 · 2017: 70 · 2016: 60 · 2015: 62 · 2014: 67 · 2013: 39 · 2012: 28
- FWCI
- 8.27
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Journal of Lifelong Education (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics
- Social Sciences › Education › Qualitative research in health
- Social Sciences › Anthropology › Cross-Cultural and Social Analysis
- Keywords
- insider and outsider, researcher positionality, power in research, cross-cultural research, representation, Black women researchers
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