Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-q6k6v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-12T13:26:31.308Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Reflections on Positionalities in Social Science Fieldwork in Northern Botswana: A Call for Decolonizing Research

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2019

Annette Alfina LaRocco ,
Jamie E. Shinn  and
Kentse Madise
Annette Alfina LaRocco
Affiliation:
Florida Atlantic University
Jamie E. Shinn
Affiliation:
West Virginia University
Kentse Madise
Affiliation:
Independent Scholar
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article, two white, Western female researchers reflect on the methodological, ethical, and practical dilemmas experienced while conducting social science fieldwork in Botswana for their doctoral degrees. In addition, their shared research assistant examines her role as a social and cultural interlocutor, which was essential to the researchers’ successful navigation in their various field sites. Drawing on distinct but common experiences conducting research in northern and western regions of rural Botswana, the authors reflexively consider a series of interwoven issues tied to their positionalities: the disparity in benefits and return on research investment between the researcher and research participants; the nature of commodified or transactional relations, especially in an impoverished region highly dependent on foreign tourists; the complex nature of researcher–research assistant relationships; and the contradictory dynamics of being female researchers in a patriarchal society while also embodying privileges of whiteness and Western nationality. Building on these reflections, the authors engage with current debates in the social sciences to argue that researcher reflexivity is not an adequate end point and should result in engagement with ethical and epistemological questions regarding the decolonization of research practices more broadly.

Keywords

Positionalitydecolonialityqualitative researchBotswanaintersectionalityrole of research assistantsfieldwork
Type
Research Article
Information
Politics & Gender , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , September 2020 , pp. 845 - 873
Copyright
Copyright © The Women and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Amit, Vered. 2004. Constructing the Field: Ethnographic Fieldwork in the Contemporary World. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Asselin, Hugo, and Basile, Suzy. 2018. “Concrete Ways to Decolonize Research.” ACME An International Journal for Critical Geographers 17 (3): 643–650.Google Scholar
Bauer, Gretchen. 2010. “‘Cows Will Lead the Herd into a Precipice’: Where are the Women MPs in Botswana?” Botswana Notes and Records 42 (2010): 56–70.Google Scholar
Bauer, Gretchen. 2011. “Update on the Women's Movement in Botswana: Have Women Stopped Talking?” African Studies Review 54:23–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Gretchen. 2016. ” ‘What Is Wrong with a Woman Being Chief?’ Women Chiefs and Symbolic and Substantive Representation in Botswana.” Journal of Asian and African Studies 51 (2): 222–237.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berg, Bruce L. 2001. Qualitative Research Methods for the Social Sciences. Boston, MA: Allyn and Bacon.Google Scholar
Branch, Adam. 2018. “Decolonizing the African Studies Centre.” Cambridge Journal of Anthropology 36 (2): 73–91.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, Leslie Allison, and Strega, Susan, eds. 2005. Research as Resistance: Critical, Indigenous and Anti-Oppressive Approaches. Toronto: Canadian Scholars’ Press.Google Scholar
Caretta, Martina. 2015. “Situated Knowledge in Cross-Cultural, Cross-Language Research: A Collaborative Reflexive Analysis of Researcher, Assistant, and Participant Subjectivities.” Qualitative Research 15 (4): 489–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Caretta, Martina A., and Jokinen, Johanna C.. 2016. “Conflating Privilege and Vulnerability: A Reflexive Analysis of Emotions and Positionality in Postgraduate Fieldwork.” Professional Geographer 69 (2): 275–283.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cassidy, Lin. 2001. Improving Women's Participation in CBNRM in Botswana. IUCN Botswana. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/252567141_Improving_Women's_Participation_in_CBNRM_in_Botswana. Accessed February 12, 2019.Google Scholar
Chacko, Elizabeth. 2004. “Positionality and Praxis: Fieldwork Experiences in Rural India” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 25 (1): 51–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chilisa, Bagele. 2012. Indigenous Research Methodologies. Los Angeles: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Chilisa, Bagele. 2017. “Decolonising Transdisciplinary Research Approaches: An African Perspective for Enhancing Knowledge Integration in Sustainability Science.” Sustainability Science for Meeting Africa's Challenges 12:813–827.Google Scholar
Clark, Imogen, and Grant, Amanda. 2015. “Sexuality and Danger in the Field: Starting an Uncomfortable Conversation.” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 7 (1): 1–14.Google Scholar
Clark, Tom. 2008. “‘We're Over-Researched Here!’ Exploring Accounts of Research Fatigue within Qualitative Research Engagements” Sociology 42 (5): 953–970.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clifford, James, and Marcus, George. 1986. Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Oakland: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Coleman, Simon, and Collins, Peter. 2006. Locating the Field: Space, Place and Context in Anthropology. Oxford: Berg.Google Scholar
Datta, Ranjan. 2018. “Decolonizing Both Researcher and Research and its Effectiveness in Indigenous Research.” Research Ethics 14 (2): 1–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Denzin, Norman K. 2009. “The Elephant in the Living Room: Or Extending the Conversation about the Politics of Evidence.” Qualitative Research 9 (2): 139–160.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
England, Kim V. L. 1994. “Getting Personal: Reflexivity, Positionality, and Feminist Research.” Professional Geographer 46 (1): 80–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haraway, Donna. 1988. “Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective.” Feminist Studies 14 (3): 575–599.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heuser, Eric A. 2012. “Befriending the Field: Culture and Friendships in Development Worlds.” Third World Quarterly 33 (8): 1423–1437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hirtenfelder, Claudia Towne. 2017. “Strength, Mobility, and Variety: Central Discourses Which Undermine Tourism's Ability to Subvert Broader Gender Orders in Botswana.” African Studies 76 (1): 64–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hovorka, Alice. 2005. “The (Re) Production of Gendered Positionality in Botswana's Commercial Urban Agriculture Sector.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 95 (2): 294–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hovorka, Alice. 2006. “The No. 1 Ladies’ Poultry Farm: A Feminist Political Ecology of Urban Agriculture in Botswana.” Gender, Place and Culture 13 (3): 207–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hovorka, Alice. 2012. “Women/Chickens vs. Men/Cattle: Insights on Gender–Species Intersectionality.” Geoforum 43 (4): 875–884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johansson, Leanne. 2015. “Dangerous Liaisons: Risk, Positionality and Power in Women's Anthropological Fieldwork.” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 7 (1): 55–63.Google Scholar
Kapiszewski, Diana, MacLean, Lauren M., and Read, Benjamin L.. 2015. Field Research in Political Science: Practices and Principles. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kloß, Sinah T. 2016. “Sexual(ized) Harassment and Ethnographic Fieldwork: A Silenced Aspects of Social Research.” Ethnography 7 (1): 1–19.Google Scholar
Kobayashi, Audrey. 1994. “Coloring the Field: Gender, ‘Race,’ and the Politics of Fieldwork.” Professional Geographer 46 (1): 73–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacDougall, Susan. 2015. “Will You Marry my Son? Ethnography, Culture, and the Performance of Gender.” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 7 (1): 25–38.Google Scholar
Mandel, Jennifer. 2003. “Negotiating Expectations in the Field: Gatekeepers, Research Fatigue and Cultural Biases” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 24 (2): 198–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mayorga-Gallo, Sarah, and Hordge-Freeman, Elizabeth. 2017. “Between Marginality and Privilege: Gaining Access and Navigating the Field in Multi-ethnic Settings.” Qualitative Research 17 (4): 377–394.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbaiwa, Joseph E. 2003. “The Socio-Economic and Environmental Impacts of Tourism Development on the Okavango Delta, North-Western Botswana.” Journal of Arid Environments 54 (2): 447–467.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbaiwa, Joseph E. 2005a. “Wildlife Resource Utilisation at Moremi Game Reserve and Khwai Community Area in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.” Journal of Environmental Management 77 (2): 144–156.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbaiwa, Joseph E. 2005b. “Enclave Tourism and Its Socio-Economic Impacts in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.” Tourism Management 26 (2): 157–172.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mbaiwa, Joseph E. 2008. “The Problems and Prospects of Sustainable Tourism Development in the Okavango Delta, Botswana.” Journal of Sustainable Tourism 13 (3): 203–227.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McDowell, Linda. 1992. “Doing Gender: Feminism, Feminists and Research Methods in Human Geography.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 17 (4): 399–416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Medie, Peace A., and Kang, Alice J.. 2018. “Power, Knowledge and the Politics of Gender in the Global South.” European Journal of Politics and Gender 1 (1–2): 37–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miller, Theresa. 2015. “‘Listen to Your Mother’ Negotiating Gender-Based Safe Spaces During Fieldwork.” Journal of the Anthropological Society of Oxford 7 (1): 80–87.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Audra. 2013. “Escaping the ‘Field Trap’: Exploitation and the Global Politics of Educational Fieldwork in ‘Conflict Zones.” Third World Quarterly 34 (7):1247–1264.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Molony, Thomas, and Hammett, Daniel. 2007. “The Friendly Financier: Talking Money with the Silenced Assistant.” Human Organization 66 (3): 292–300.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moseley, William. 2007. “Collaborating in the Field, Working for Change: Reflecting on Partnerships between Academics, Development Organizations and Rural Communities in Africa.” Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 28 (3): 334–347.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moser, Sarah. 2008. “Personality: A New Positionality?” Area 40 (1): 383–392.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mutua, Kagendo, and Swadener, Beth Blue, eds. 2004. Decolonizing Research in Cross- Cultural Contexts. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.Google Scholar
Nast, Heidi J. 1994. “Special Section: Women in the Field: Critical Feminist Methodologies and Theoretical Perspectives.” Professional Geographer 48 (1): 54–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neal, Sarah, Mohan, Giles, Cochrane, Allan, and Bennett, Katy. 2016. “You Can't Move in Hackney without Bumping into an Anthropologist’: Why Certain Places Attract Research Attention.” Qualitative Research 16 (5): 491–507.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neumann, Cecilie B., and Neumann, Iver B.. 2015. “Uses of the Self: Two Ways of Thinking about Scholarly Situatedness and Method.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 43 (3): 798–819.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Richmond, Oliver P., Kappler, Stefanie, and Björkdahl, Annika. 2015. “The ‘Field’ in the Age of Intervention: Power, Legitimacy, and Authority Versus the ‘Local.” Millennium: Journal of International Studies 44 (1): 23–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Robson, Colin. 2002. Real World Research: A Resource for Social Scientists and Practitioner-Researchers. Oxford, UK: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Rose, Gillian. 1997. “Situating Knowledges: Positionality, Reflexivities and Other Tactics.” Progress in Human Geography 21 (3): 305–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rhodes Must Fall Movement, The. 2018. Rhodes Must Fall: The Struggle to Decolonise the Racist Heart of Empire. London: Zed Books.Google Scholar
Schatz, Edward, ed. 2009. Political Ethnography: What Immersion Contributes to the Study of Power. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shinn, Jamie E. 2016. “Adaptive Environmental Governance of Changing Social-Ecological Systems: Empirical Insights from the Okavango Delta, Botswana.” Global Environmental Change 40:50–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. 1999. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. Dunedin, NZ: University of Otago Press.Google Scholar
Sukarieh, Mayssoun, and Tannock, Stuart. 2012. “On the Problem of Over-Researched Communities: The Case of the Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Lebanon” Sociology 47 (3): 494–508.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Ian. 2003. “As Good as It Gets? Botswana's ‘Democratic Development.’ ” Journal of Contemporary African Studies 21 (2): 215–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Temple, Bogusia, and Edwards, Rosalind. 2002. “Interpreters/Translators and Cross-Language Research: Reflexivity and Border Crossings.” International Journal of Qualitative Methods 1 (2): 1–22.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thapar-Björkert, Suruchi, and Henry, Marsha. 2004. “Reassessing the Research Relationship: Location, Position and Power in Fieldwork Accounts.” International Journal of Social Research Methodology 7 (5): 363–381.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Turner, Sarah. 2010. “Research Note: The Silenced Assistant: Reflections of Invisible Interpreters and Research Assistants.” Asia Pacific Viewpoint 51 (2): 206–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
World Factbook. 2017. “Central Intelligence Agency.” https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/bc.html. Accessed May 4, 2017.Google Scholar