Research integrity and ethics

Positionality and reflexivity:

Tools to harness the value of subjectivity in
global qualitative health research

Dr Joni Lariat
We acknowledge the tradition of custodianship and law of the
Country on which the University of Sydney campuses stand.
We pay our respects to those who have cared and continue to
care for Country.
Slide provided by Julie Mooney-Somers
 “We as researchers bring our own histories, values, assumptions,
perspectives, politics and mannerisms into the research – we
cannot leave them at the door. The topics we find interesting to the
research, and ways we ask questions about them, the aspects of
our data that excite us – these (and many other factors) reflect who
we are; our subjectivity. Therefore, any knowledge produced is
going to reflect that, even if only in some minor way.”

- Braun and Clarke, 2013

Slide provided by Julie Mooney-Somers

 Positionality
• Positionality refers to your standpoint or location
and includes the values, and beliefs that influence
your worldview, what you say, and what you do.
• This is determined, in large part, by the
experiences you have as a result of your social
identities (within the political and social contexts
that give those identities meaning, i.e., privilege or
subordination).
• Positionality is not static – it responds to context
and relationships
• Positionality enables as well as limits our view
 Whiteness

“Whiteness can be understood as the result of social and cultural processes, rooted
in a global history of European colonialism, imperialism, and transatlantic slavery,
and maintained today through various institutions, ideologies, and everyday social
practices. Whiteness embodies both a material reality—connected to the
disproportionate economic and political power wielded by those racialized as
white, as well as a symbolic reality—shaped by the cultural meanings attached to
whiteness as a form of inflated value, morality, aesthetics, and civilization.”

- Cancelmo and Mueller, 2019

 Whiteness is “a dominant cultural space with enormous
political significance, with the purpose to keep others on the
margin. ... White people are not required to explain to others
how ‘white’ culture works, because ‘white’ culture is the
dominant culture that sets the norms. Everybody else is then
compared to that norm. ...” - Frankenburg, 1993

“Whiteness establishes the limits of what can be known about

the other through itself, disappearing beyond or behind the
limits of this knowledge it creates in the other’s name.”
- Moreton-Robinson, 2015
Positionality and insider / outsider?

• Power – distance
• Insider – in all the ways? And as defined by who?
• Intersectionality gives us a framework to think about this with more
complexity.
Slide provided by Julie Mooney-Somers
Reflexivity ≠ Reflectivity

“Reflexivity … is not the same as

reflection, where one ‘thinks about
something’ in a distanced process;
reflexivity is an immediate
and continuing process of conscious
self-awareness.”

- Liwanag and Rhule, 2021

Slide provided by Julie Mooney-Somers
Slide provided by Julie Mooney-Somers
Slide provided by Julie Mooney-Somers
Reflexivity / positionality statements

- Hamby et al. 2018

Dialogical Reflexivity & Collective Action

“Reflexivity is incomplete with only

self-understanding. Dialogues and
• Self-awareness
action are equally important
• Dialogue elements of practice. Rather than a
sporadic exercise, reflexivity must be
• Collective action
a learnt habit with peers that
develops into a culture of reflexivity
in any global health organization.”
- Liwanag & Rhule 2021
 References

• Braun, V. and Clarke. 2013. Successful Qualitative Research: A Practical Guide for Beginners. SAGE
Publishing: London
• Crenshaw K. 1989. Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: A Black feminist critique of
antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory, and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal
Forum. pp: 139–167.
• Frankenburg, R. 1993. White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness, University
of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis
• Liwanag HJ, Rhule E. 2021. Dialogical reflexivity towards collective action to transform global health.
BMJ Global Health;6:e006825. doi:10.1136/bmjgh-2021-006825
• Moreton-Robinson, A. 2015. The White Possessive: Property, Power, and Indigenous Sovereignty.
University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis
• Patricia Hill Collins. 1990. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of
Empowerment. Unwin Hyman: Boston
• Willig, C. 2001. Introducing Qualitative research in Psychology: adventures in theory and method. 1st
edition. Open University Press: Buckingham