Positionality and researcher reflexivity – how to account for one’s subject position – remain as challenges for new researchers. But they also remain as challenges for experienced researchers, who are often involved in multiple research projects simultaneously. Where Am I in the Picture? sheds light on the idea of researcher positionality through visual methodologies, particularly in the context of studying rurality in Canada, Sweden, and South Africa.
The book is intended for new and experienced researchers seeking to decolonize their own perspectives in research in the social sciences and humanities. It incorporates photographs, drawings, and memory work to highlight the social constructedness of what counts as rural. Drawing together compelling narratives from researchers about their positionality in studying rurality, the book highlights a need for greater attention to “where we are in the picture” more broadly. It suggests that when it comes to the rural, researchers need to rethink the interplay of dominant images, insider and outsider perspectives, and what this interplay means in relation to interpretation. Where Am I in the Picture? presents a new vision of how to take into consideration positionality in research.
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
1. Where Am I in the Picture? An Introduction
Claudia Mitchell, Relebohile Moletsane, and Katarina Giritli Nygren
Section One: Rural Travelscapes
2. Travelling in Circles along Roads Less Travelled in Awe of Open Spaces
Lisa Starr and Claudia Mitchell
3. Saskatchewan Song Cycle: Trans Readings of a Land Survey in the Canadian West
Lou Sheppard
4. Taking to the Woods: Towards Decentralized Research in Protest Movements
Angelika Sjöstedt
5. Picturing Transrurality: Connecting Rural People and Places across Borders
April Mandrona
Section Two: Girlhoods and Rurality as Context
6. Picturing Rurality: Towards a Shared Understanding of What It Means to Study Rurality in Two Country Contexts
Katja Gillander Gådin and Naydene de Lange
7. Drawing Myself into the Picture: What Does It Mean to Be a Rural-Origin Student in an Urban University?
Samukelisiwe Khumalo
8. “Beyond Getting Something”: Reflections on Researching the Closure of a Rural Municipality’s Maternity Ward
Emelie Larsson
9. A Button Thief or a Researcher? Entangled Selves, Positionality, and Knowledge Production
Sara Nyhlén
Section Three: Positionality and the Rural
10. “Hey, Mlungu!”: Positionality in Participatory Visual Research in Post-apartheid South Africa
Lisa Wiebesiek and Astrid Treffry-Goatley
11. Acting like a Skank: Reflections on a Researcher’s Involvement in the Production of Participatory Visual Research Texts in a Rural Area
Katie MacEntee
12. Positioning Girls in Rural Contexts: Then and Now
Ntomboxolo Yamile
13. Positionality at the Centre: Constructing an Epistemological and Methodological Approach for a Western Feminist Doctoral Candidate Conducting Research in the Postcolonial
Catherine Vanner
14. Going the Distance: Theorizing Forward in the Time of a “Rural Turn”
Claudia Mitchell, Katarina Giritli Nygren, and Relebohile Moletsane
Contributors
Index
Height:235
Width:159
Spine:29
Weight:540.00