Researcher Positionality and Relational Power: Playing With 'Researching Up' and 'Researching Down' in Critical Reflexivity.
Critical development scholars and feminist geographers call for reflexivity on the relationships between researchers and the subjects of their research. This includes questioning the power dynamics that shape knowledge generation, while recognising the partiality of these insights and the subjectivi...
| Publicado en: | Area (0004-0894) Vol. 58; no. 2; pp. 1 - 8 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Wiley-Blackwell
Jun2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=194916401&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 194916401 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00040894 D7Y jtl: Area (0004-0894) issn: 00040894 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Jun2026 vid: 58 iid: 2 pid: 480 pub: Wiley-Blackwell artinfo: ui: 194916401 10.1111/area.70091 ppf: 1 ppct: 7 formats: tig: atl: Researcher Positionality and Relational Power: Playing With 'Researching Up' and 'Researching Down' in Critical Reflexivity. aug: au: Langill, Jennifer C. affil: Department of International Development, King's College London, London, UK su: Thailand Power (Social sciences) Ethnology research Social stratification Researcher positionality Critical self-reflection sug: subj: Power (Social sciences) Ethnology research Social stratification Thailand Researcher positionality Critical self-reflection keyword: ethnography feminist geography feminist methodologies fieldwork encounters positionality power relations ethnography feminist geography feminist methodologies fieldwork encounters positionality power relations ab: Critical development scholars and feminist geographers call for reflexivity on the relationships between researchers and the subjects of their research. This includes questioning the power dynamics that shape knowledge generation, while recognising the partiality of these insights and the subjectivity of knowledge production. To advance these debates, I draw on the concepts of 'researching up' and 'researching down', sometimes used to distinguish between relative 'power over' and 'power under' interlocutors. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in a Hmong village in northern Thailand, I reflect on the relationality between myself and research participants, including moments of entering into more or less relational power. I suggest that by mobilising the heuristic of 'researching up' and 'researching down' as a relational analytic rather than oppositional categories, we can generate new insights into our own positionalities, and subsequently, the social difference, relationality and power dynamics within the populations we learn from. This approach helps to reject homogenising narratives of 'vulnerable subjects' to better unravel shifting power dimensions and affect within positional spaces. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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