Abstract
AbstractMuch qualitative research on international migration has interrogated the influence of a migratory background on the access to the field, the quality and type of data being collected and their analytical interpretation. What happens, instead, if a researcher ispartof the research field? What are the ethical, moral and relational constraints and opportunities that this position entails in data access and interpretation? This chapter is based on a study of home and homemaking in domestic spaces connected by international migration between Indian Punjab and Italy. I critically discuss the implications of my double positioning as someone who entered the homes of her in-laws as a female white European researcher, and as the wife of a relative. This has enabled me to live up close and as a family guest the daily life and domesticity in the “distant homes” of my relatives, and has certainly influenced the type of information collected. Drawing on some specific examples, I revisit the most frequent misunderstandings but also the contingent measures adopted to negotiate our respective expectations and roles. Moreover, the chapter analyzes the constraints and opportunities that this positioning has brought to my study, eventually showing what we can understand better and otherwise about migration and homemaking by doing research in the domestic space of our research participants.
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
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