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18

Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and

Feminist Research

Kim V. L. England

1994. The Professional Geographer 46 (1), 80-9. 1

Think we must. Let us think in offices; in omnibuses; while we are

standing in the crowd watching Coronations and Lord Mayor‟s Shows;

let us think as we pass the Cenotaph; and in Whitehall; in the gallery of

the House of Commons; in the Law Courts; let us think at baptisms and

marriages and funerals. Let us never cease from thinking – what is this

„civilization‟ in which we find ourselves? What are these professions

and why should we make money out of them? Where in short is it

leading us, the procession of the sons of educated men? (Woolf, 1938,

62-63)

Virginia Woolf‟s words speak to the process of making geography. She urges

us to think about and to reflect on the spatial fabric of everyday life. She asks us to

consider the structure of our social relations and how we are accountable for them and

how our actions perpetuate those relations. She wants us to consider how things could

be different.

In this paper I discuss the process of making geography at a time when social

scientists are increasingly suspicious of the possibility of “objectivity” and value-free

research, and when the acceptance of the socially constructed and situated nature of

knowledge is increasingly commonplace [among social scientists]. In particular, I

1 Reprinted with permission from Kim V. L. England . The chapter was originally published in "Getting

personal: Reflexivity, positionality, and feminist research." 1994. The Professional Geographer 46(1),

pp. 80-89, Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research

242

focus on and problematize fieldwork, a term that I use as shorthand for those research

methods where the researcher directly confronts those who are researched. 2 I approach

this task as a feminist, but recognize that many of the issues that I am struggling with

exist for researchers of other philosophical-political-methodological stripes.

Troubling Questions, Professional Armor, and the Threat of the Personal

Feminism and poststructuralism have opened up geography to voices other than

those of white, Western, middle-class, heterosexual men. This allows for a geography

which, as Lowe and Short put it, “neither dismisses nor denies structural factors, but

allows a range of voices to speak” (1990, 8). While this makes for a more complete

analysis of the complexities of the social world, it also raises new ethical issues. In our

rush to be more inclusive and conceptualize difference and diversity, might we be

guilty of appropriating the voices of “others”? How do we deal with this when

planning and conducting our research? And can we incorporate the voices of “others”

without colonizing them in a manner that reinforces patterns of domination? Can these

types of dilemmas be resolved, and if so, how? Geographers have had relatively little

to say about these troubling questions (important exceptions include Miles and Crush,

1993; Moss, et al. 1993; Pile, 1991; Sidaway, 1992; S. J. Smith, 1988). Instead,

anthropologists and, to a lesser extent, sociologists have been leading the discussion on

the ethics of fieldwork. 3

Feminism and the so-called postmodern turn in the social sciences represent a

serious challenge to the methodological hegemony of neopositivist empiricism. One of

the main attractions of “traditional” neopositivist methods is that they provide a firmly

anchored epistemological security from which to venture out and conduct research.

Neopositivist empiricism specifies a strict dichotomy between object and subject as a

prerequisite for objectivity. Such an epistemology is supported by methods that

position the researcher as an omnipotent expert in control of both passive research

subjects and the research process. Years of positivist-inspired training have taught us

that impersonal, neutral detachment is an important criterion for good research. In

these discussions of detachment, distance, and impartiality, the personal is reduced to a

mere nuisance or a possible threat to objectivity. This threat is easily dealt with. The

neopositivist‟s professional armor includes a carefully constructed public self as a

mysterious, impartial outsider, an observer freed of personality and bias.

2 This includes those methods that are variously described as feminist, qualitative, interpretive,

intensive, ethnographic, and critical. I recognize that each of these has its own unique contribution.

3 Of course, the primacy of anthropology here is partly related to classical anthropology’s

colonial heritage when anthropologists were often members of the colonial regime that dominated the

country they studied (Driver, 1992).

Kim V. L. England

243

Perhaps Stanley and Wise (1993, 66) put it best when they said the “western

industrial scientific approach values the orderly, rational, quantifiable, predictable,

abstract and theoretical: feminism spat in its eye.” The openness and culturally

constructed nature of the social world, peppered with contradictions and complexities,

needs to be embraced, not dismissed. This means that “the field” is constantly

changing and that researchers may find that they have to maneuver around unexpected

circumstances. The result is research where the only inevitability seems to be

unreliability and unpredictability. This, in turn, ignites the need for a broader, less rigid

conception of the “appropriate” method that allows the researcher the flexibility to be

more open to the challenges of fieldwork (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1988; Opie, 1992).

For me, part of the feminist project has been to dismantle the smokescreen

surrounding the canons of neopositivist research – impartiality and objectivist

neutrality – which supposedly prevent the researcher from contaminating the data (and,

presumably, vice versa). As well as being our object of inquiry, the world is an

intersubjective creation and, as such, we cannot put our commonsense knowledge of

social structures to one side. This immediately problematizes the observational

distance of neopositivism because, as Stanley and Wise (1993, 168) tell us, “treating

people like objects – sex objects or research objects – is morally unjustifiable.” Their

point is that those who are researched should be treated like people and not as mere

mines of information to be exploited by the researcher as the neutral collector of

“facts.”

In general, relationships with the researched may be reciprocal, asymmetrical,

or potentially exploitative; and the researcher can adopt a stance of intimidation,

ingratiation, self-promotion, or supplication (S. J. Smith, 1988). Most feminists usually

favor the role of supplicant, seeking reciprocal relationships based on empathy and

mutual respect, and often sharing their knowledge with those they research.

Supplication involves exposing and exploiting weaknesses regarding dependence on

whoever is being researched for information and guidance. Thus the researcher

explicitly acknowledges her/his reliance on the research subject to provide insight into

the subtle nuances of meaning that structure and shape everyday lives. Fieldwork for

the researcher-as-supplicant is predicated upon an unequivocal acceptance that the

knowledge of the person being researched (at least regarding the particular questions

being asked) is greater than that of the researcher. Essentially, the appeal of

supplication lies in its potential for dealing with asymmetrical and potentially

exploitative power relations by shifting a lot of power over to the researched.

The intersubjective nature of social life means that the researcher and the

people being researched have shared meanings and we should seek methods that

develop this advantage. We can attempt to achieve an understanding of how social life

is constituted by engaging in real or constructed dialogues in order to understand the

people studied in their own terms (sometimes described as the insiders‟ view); hence

the recent efforts to retrieve qualitative methods from the margins of social science.

Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research

244

These methods offer the opportunity “to convey the inner life and texture of the

diverse social enclaves and personal circumstances of societies” (Jackson, 1985, 157).

In essence I am arguing for a geography in which intersubjectivity and

reflexivity play a central role. Reflexivity is often misunderstood as “a confession to

salacious indiscretions,” “mere navel gazing,” and even “narcissistic and egoistic,” the

implication being that the researcher let the veil of objectivist neutrality slip (Okely,

1992). Rather, reflexivity is self-critical sympathetic introspection and the self-

conscious analytical scrutiny of the self as researcher. Indeed reflexivity is critical to

the conduct of fieldwork; it induces self-discovery and can lead to insights and new

hypotheses about the research questions. A more reflexive and flexible approach to

fieldwork allows the researcher to be more open to any challenges to their theoretical

position that fieldwork almost inevitably raises. Certainly a more reflexive geography

must require careful consideration of the consequences of the interactions with those

being investigated. And the reflexive “I” of the researcher dismisses the observational

distance of neopositivism and subverts the idea of the observer as an impersonal

machine (Hondagneu-Sotelo, 1988; Okely, 1992; Opie, 1992).

Failed Research?

In the social sciences the lore of objectivity relies on the separation of

the intellectual project from its process of production. The false paths,

the endless labors, the turns now this way and now that, the theories

abandoned, and the data collected but never presented – all lie concealed

behind the finished product. The article, the book, the text is evaluated

on its own merits, independent of how it emerged. We are taught not to

confound the process of discovery with the process of justification

(Burawoy, 1991, 8).

A further characteristic of neopositivist empiricism, as Burawoy indicates, is to

ignore the actual making of geography. The concerns associated with doing research

are usually ignored and accounts are produced from which the personal is banished.

However, research is a process not just a product. Part of this process involves

reflecting on, and learning from past research experiences, being able to re-evaluate

our research critically, and, perhaps deciding, for various reasons, to abandon a

research project. In short, I see research as an ongoing, intersubjective (or more

broadly, a dialogic 4 ) activity, and it is in this spirit that I want to discuss my dilemmas

about “doing” a recent research project about lesbians in Toronto.

4 Dialogism is Mikhail Bakhtin’s (1986) theory about encountering “otherness” through the

potential of dialogue between people (or with oneself). It involves the continual interaction between

meanings, each of which has the potential of conditioning the others. Dialogism turns on the notion that

people’s responses are conditional and human circumstances are contingent (Folch-Serra, 1990).

Kim V. L. England

245

Questions relating to sexualities have been placed firmly on the research

agenda of cultural and feminist studies (Crimp, 1992; de Lauretis, 1991; D‟Emilio,

1992; Douglas, 1990; Gamson, 1991; Grosz, 1989; Ross, 1990) and geography (Bell,

1991; Geltmaker, 1992; Jackson, 1989, 1991; Knopp, 1987, 1990, 1992; Valentine,

1993a, 1993b). In the last few years I have read this work with great interest, but have

been disappointed that geographers have paid very little attention to lesbians (but see,

Adler and Brenner, 1992; Peake, 1993; Valentine, 1993a, 1993b; and Winchester and

White, 1988). Living in a city with a large, gay male and lesbian population, I began to

consider developing a research project about the extensive lesbian communities of

Toronto.

Most previous geographical work on sexual identities has focused on the

residential geography of gay men, especially their role in inner city revival. Inspired by

Adler and Brenner‟s (1992) work on locating and characterizing the lesbian

neighborhoods of a United States city, I used publicly available information (for

example, “The Pink Pages: Toronto‟s Gay and Lesbian Directory”) to compile and

map the postal codes of lesbian-positive and lesbian-owned services and amenities in

Toronto. However, I wanted to move beyond merely uncovering spatial patterns to

explore the [social and spatial] implications and political consequences of this

particular form of urban restructuring. Moreover, given that the most recent work in

geography has advanced the notion that sexualities and space are mutually constructed

(Geltmaker, 1992; Knopp, 1992; Valentine, 1993b), I felt it was important to explore

how lesbian identities are constructed in and through [spatial relations].

Recently there has been a surge of interest in urban-based marginalized groups

(see, for example, Laws, 1993; Rowe and Wolch, 1990; Ruddick, 1994; N. Smith,

1993). This interest broadens the horizons of geography, promises new research

directions, and asks new questions. Generally, marginalized groups seem better able to

exist autonomously, or even anonymously, in central cities than elsewhere. Certainly

lesbian (and gay) territories and spaces are relatively insulated “safe places” away

from heterosexism and homophobi[a]. 5 They help provide a collective affirmation of

identity, and allow for self-definition and self-exploration. However, the territorial

claims of marginalized people are almost always contested more vigorously than those

of more privileged groups. Despite gains made regarding prejudice and discrimination

against numerous social groups, North America is still very heterosexist and

homophobic. A chilling example of this was the extensive support of Amendment 9 in

Oregon and Initiative 2 in Colorado (measures to overturn existing municipal laws

protecting lesbians and gay men from discrimination in housing and employment)

during the 1992 United States elections. So, for the minority of gay men and lesbians

who live in self-identified neighborhoods, such self-[exposure] is not without its

5 Homophobia is the irrational fear and hatred of lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals.

Heterosexism refers to the privileging of heterosexuality over other sexual identities, and the assumption

that heterosexuality describes the world [or that it is the normal state of being].

Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research

246

dangers. The more lesbian and gay communities imprint and reinvent their identities in

space, the more vulnerable they become to surveillance and containment. The most

obvious and pernicious outcome of this is lesbian/gay baiting, bashing, and […]

murder. 6

Sexual identities are negotiated, contested, and, quite literally, defended in and

through space. Toronto‟s gay men and lesbians have been actively struggling against

heterosexism and homophobia, and space has been a crucial component of this

struggle. This is particularly apparent in lesbian and gay protests in “public” spaces:

“homo kiss-ins” in shopping centers and straight bars; the annual lesbian and gay Pride

Week Parade 7 ; the frequent demonstrations around efforts to increase federal and

provincial funding for AIDS prevention and research; and the recent, very loud

demonstrations about the Canada Customs seizure of lesbian-explicit erotica. The

cheers of “We‟re queer, we‟re here, get used to it” and “We‟re fags and dykes and

we‟re here to stay” are noisy expressions of anger and affirmations of identity.

Derogatory, “deviant” labels are turned on their head. T-shirts printed with “DYKE” or

“I‟m so queer I can‟t even think straight” reclaim meanings, disrupting and challenging

the very process of categorizing and labelling. I read these events as lesbians (and gay

men) occupying spaces that have been coded heterosexual. Spaces that are,

supposedly, public are actually “heterosexed” spaces that are not intended to be spaces

for lesbians or gay men. In short, these protests and resistances of heterosexism and

homophobia are inherently territorial and capture the link between identity, resistance,

and space.

Clearly, I think that the intersection of gender, sexual identities, and space is a

very fruitful area for geographic research, but I have not really progressed much

beyond merely thinking about doing this research. Initially I had three major concerns.

First, is it ethical to identify the place of the study? Other research did not reveal the

location of the community studied (Adler and Brenner, 1992; Lockard, 1985;

6 Bashing appears to be on the increase in Toronto‟s most visible lesbian/gay neighborhood.

Although bashing occurs throughout the year, it increases during the summer months when the main

perpetrators – male youth – are out of school and come to this part of the city specifically to beat up gay

men and lesbians. In 1990 the neighborhood community center established a “bashing hotline” so that

victims can call for support, but also to log the details of the attack. This information has been used to

prompt better police response and sensitivity. In the summer of 1993 the Toronto Metropolitan Police

(in cooperation with the City of Toronto‟s committee on lesbian and gay issues) began a campaign

against bashing. This campaign includes public service announcements and bus shelter advertising that

announce that “Lesbian and gay bashing is a hate-motivated crime” and “Being lesbian or gay is not a

crime. Bashing is.”

7 Pride Week is in June and marks the anniversary of the 1969 Stonewall riots in Greenwich

Village. These riots, a reaction to continued police raids on gay bars, are generally considered to have

been the beginning of the lesbian and gay rights movement in the United States. It is celebrated in a

number of cities around the world. The parade has a 13-year history in Toronto, but it was not until 1993

that the police designated it a community event, exempting it from policing costs.

Kim V. L. England

247

Valentine, 1993a, 1993b). The reason was that some lesbians and gay men might not

have wanted their communities “outed,” and there was the real fear of reprisals,

including physical attack. Second, I had concerns regarding my research assistant. I

had employed her mainly because of her intellectual abilities, but also because she is a

lesbian and, as such, provided me with another means by which I could gain entry into

the lesbian world. The complicated layering and interweaving of power relations

between myself, my research assistant, and the project became too much for me. I

began to engage in what I can only describe as the mental hand-wringing of a straight,

white (my research assistant is an Afro-Carribbean Canadian), feminist academic.

Finally, I made a few preliminary phone calls to, for example, the organizing

committee of the Pride Week Parade. My calls were not returned. It is probable that

my timing was not very good; I made my calls a few weeks before the parade took

place. Then, I began to think about Gerda Wekerle choosing to exclude a nonprofit

housing project for native women from her study of Canadian women‟s housing

cooperatives because the women “felt that they had already been over-studied” (1988,

103). I began to wonder whether, in an era of postmodernity marked by the celebration

of “otherness” in which, as Suzanne Westenhoefer (a lesbian stand-up comic) wryly

put it, “everyone wants to know a lesbian or to be with a lesbian or just to dress like

one” (quoted in Salholz et al., 1993), we are engaged in the process of fetishizing “the

other” (Probyn, 1993). Some of my discomfort about these three problems is captured

by Liz Bondi:

the post-modern venture is a “new kind of gender tourism, whereby male

theorists are able to take package trips into the world of femininity,” in

which they „get a bit of the other‟ in the knowledge that they have return

tickets to the safe, familiar and, above all, empowering terrain of

masculinity (Bondi, 1990, 163).

I had to ask myself if I am guilty of something similar? Could I be accused of

academic voyeurism? Am I trying to get on some cheap package tour of lesbianism in

the hopes of gaining some fleeting understanding of, perhaps, the ultimate “other,”

given that lesbians are not male, heterosexual, not always middleclass, and often not

white? In the midst of academic discourse on the problems of appropriating the voices

of marginalized people and the perils of postcolonialism, I worried that I might be,

albeit unintentionally, colonizing lesbians in some kind of academic neoimperialism.

Appropriating the Voices of “Others”; Or When Reflexivity Is Not Enough

The questions prompted by my “failed research” raise two sets of problems.

The first revolves around the role of the researcher in the research encounter, the

second around the nature of power relations in research about marginalized groups. I

see fieldwork as a dialogical process in which the research situation is structured by

both the researcher and the person being researched. Two issues flow from this point.

The first is that the dialogical nature of research increases the probability that the

Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research

248

research may be transformed by the input of the researched. The second is that

dialogism means that the researcher is a visible and integral part of the research setting.