Negotiating Positionality as a Student and Researcher in Africa: Understanding How Seniority and Race Mediate Elite Interviews in African Social Contexts
Affiliation:
1. The Social Science Research Council (SSRC) , USA
Abstract
AbstractThis article takes a reflexive look at the dilemmas and challenges of accessing a predominantly male circle of political and nongovernmental elites in the Central African Republic from the perspective of a young Black African male student researcher. It focuses on questions of positionality, arguing that certain African social norms regarding seniority and hierarchy can affect data generation, specifically access and interactions within interviews. The article argues that the author's identities as a student and researcher complicated access to male and senior elite interviewees during field research, thus illustrating anew how diasporic Africans might experience the field research exercise differently even if accessing elites is generally a difficult exercise. This article contributes to understanding power differentials among interviewers, including differences among students and researchers, and the influence of race during fieldwork by African scholars. This is within an emerging literature on fieldwork that focuses on graduate students in International Relations and Comparative Politics.
Funder
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Economic and Social Research Council
Publisher
Oxford University Press (OUP)
Subject
Political Science and International Relations,Geography, Planning and Development
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