Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Confronting Shifting Identities: Reflections On Subjectivity In Transnational Research, Jiyoung Kang

The Qualitative Report

As researchers’ identities impact the research process, researchers need to take a reflexive stance toward their positionality in the research. The issue of positionality is especially important for research focusing on multicultural issues, which necessarily involves dynamic power relations among different racial/ethnic groups. Drawing from reflections on my research focusing on South Korean adolescents’ understandings of migrants, this paper illustrates when and how I confronted my positionality. My positionality as a racial/ethnic minority in the United States affected the process of selecting the research topic and the theoretical framework as well as analyzing interview data while my positionality as an …