Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83

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Women's Studies International Forum

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Situating reflexivity: Voices, positionalities and

representations in feminist ethnographic texts
Lorraine Nencel
Department of Sociology, VU University Amsterdam, 1081 De Boelelaan, 1081HV Amsterdam, The Netherlands

a r t i c l e i n f o s y n o p s i s

Available online 7 September 2013
This article traces the feminist discussion concerning the importance of reflexive analysis
and reflexive writing for feminist research. It starts by describing two feminist currents
that concern the way to be reflexive. The first, reflexivity as a corrective measure accords a
great deal of significance to self-reflexivity and consequently, the analysis of the
researcher's positionality is incorporated into the text. There are other feminist researchers
that challenge this type of reflexivity claiming that this type of reflexivity innately
reproduces the same relations they attempt to abolish. Their solution lies, among other
things, in unsettling the research subject in a postmodernist text. While both currents
consider their use of reflexivity as multi-vocal, intersubjective and post-colonial, they both
nonetheless, depart from an ontologically predefined research relationship which confines
the use of reflexivity to certain pre-defined scenarios. The article suggests the need to
conceptualize reflexivity as situated. How to be reflexive will depend on the objectives of
the research, the type of knowledge produced, the position of the research subject in the
broader society and the particularities of the research context. Representational strategies
will flow out of these decisions. This position is supported by illustrating the decision-
making processes concerning the representational strategies taken in two research
projects conducted in Lima, Peru. Because of the particularities of each context different
textual strategies were used regarding the representation of the researcher's and research
subjects' positionality in the text. It concludes with an epistemological discussion concerning
engagement and adoption of a radical politics of empathy to ensure that the conceptualization of
reflexivity as situated will not lead to a feminist research in which “anything goes”.
© 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction colleagues, is a consequence of the (feminist) critical or

For a substantial group of feminist anthropologists, being
reflexive throughout the research process and writing oneself
into the text, comes virtually as second nature. Thus, it should
come as no surprise that this special issue about embodied
engagements contains an article specifically focused on re-
flexivity. Feminist ethnographies are read by different
audiences evoking different reactions. There are those who
take an anti-reflexive stance and prefer the researcher's
presence in the text to be minimal if present at all (O'Connell
Davidson, 2003; Patai, 1994). For the anthropological audi-
ence the presence of the feminist researcher in the text is not
problematic. Her presence, like many of her anthropological
literary turn in anthropology, which refutes the idea of the
“ethnographic present” tightly woven into its colonial legacy
by experimenting with textual representation of the re-
searcher in the production of “messy texts” (Behar & Gordon,
1995; Clifford & Marcus, 1986; Marcus & Fischer, 1986).
Reflexivity comprises an essential component of this endeav-
or. Finally, feminist ethnographies speak to a broad group of
academics who practice gender studies, women studies or
feminist studies. It is amongst this group wherein there is an
on-going discussion concerning feminist epistemology, re-
flexivity and what types of text the relationship between the
two should produce. It is this discussion which I address in
this article.

0277-5395/$ – see front matter © 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2013.07.018
76 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
Reflexivity is both epistemological — how we should learn
about knowledge, as well as methodological — how we should
do research to obtain this knowledge. Reflexive analysis and
practices are intimately related to the researcher's epistemolog-
ical standpoint. Reflexivity creates possibilities to analyze “the
complexity of the data, avoiding the suggestion that there is a
simple fit between the social world under scrutiny and the
ethnographic representation of it…” (Brewer, 2000, 132–133).
Feminist researchers write reflexive texts in many different
ways. The most common form is a self-reflexive exercise which
deconstructs the researcher's positionality. A rich amount of
articles have been written from this perspective (e.g. Banister,
1999; Henry, 2003; Narayan, 1993; Sherif, 2001; Thapar-
Bjorkert, 1999). In this context, the researchers' positionality
can be defined as an analysis of how “Ethnographers need to
reflect upon and write about how their situatednessi or their
terministic screens-to evoke Burke's phrase-influence an under-
standing of their data” (Chiseri-Strater, 1996, 117). This exercise
is done in retrospect and more often than not focuses on
fieldwork. Hence, the analysis of positionality leads to making
choices concerning the researchers' presence in the text or as
Chiseri-Strater (1996) calls this the “measure of disclosure”
revealing her assumptions, histories and identity and how they
influenced the construction of intersubjective research relations
and the research process. Self-reflexivity is an essential
component for unsettling hierarchies in the feminist research
project. The text becomes a co-constructed space that reveals
the interaction between the researcher's assumptions and
positionality and the voices, stories and experiences of the
research subjects. Consequently, the ethnographic text whether
it is a full ethnography, an article or any other publication — is
the outcome of the embodied, lived experience of fieldwork.
The particularities of the text are directly linked to the material
conditions and circumstances of fieldwork. In feminist anthro-
pology, the text cannot exist independently of the subjective
conditions through which it is constructed.ii
However, there are other feminist scholars who also
consider reflexivity an essential component of good research
practice but take a different position towards it. In fact, they
criticize the above way of doing and writing reflexively and
claim that it constructs the research participant as a
modernist subject and innately reproduces colonial relation-
ships (Lather, 2001; Nagar, 2003; Pillow, 2003). In their
critique they argue, among other things, that it is still the
researcher who “gives voice” to the research subject in the
text. These authors experiment with other textual strategies
in an attempt to represent their research relationships as
postmodern and postcolonial.
While I recognize that equating reflexivity to an analysis
of the researcher's positionality can be problematic, I
nonetheless, do not consider the counter-proposals of
scholars such as Pillow (2003) and Lather (2001) as the
only alternative (these will be discussed below). Both
positions are guilty of the same error: they conceptualize
the research relationship as “ontologically pre-defined”
(Nagar & Geiger, 2007).iii Sticking to its methodological use,
ontology signifies here how one defines reality. Thus, what
constitutes the contours of a feminist research relationship –
the power relationship between the researcher and research
subjects – is assumed beforehand; whether these are defined
as non-hierarchical, collaborative or postmodern, researchers
who ontologically predefine this relationship limit the possible
experiences and the subsequent ways they are represented
in the text.iv In this paper, I argue that as engaged feminist
researchers, reflexivity as well as intersubjectivity are experi-
enced and performed situatedly, depending on the research
contextuality. Consequently, the textual representation of both
actors as well as their relationship flow out of the particularities
of the research context/process.
Two underlying thoughts inspire this argument. In the first
place, since the 1980's the universality of categories such as
“woman” has been fervently criticizedv and has been replaced
with concepts that recognize fragmentation, partialness, differ-
ence and situatedness. In other words, theoretically and
empirically diversity in all its forms is recognized. In fact it
would be unheard of for a researcher to attempt to reduce
women's and men's experiences to a singular reality. The
question arises, if this is unacceptable for feminist theory,
why is it commonly expected that feminist epistemology,
reflexivity and writing are done from one particular
perspective?
The second point stems from the contemporary climate in
which feminist scholarship is practiced. It has become nearly
a platitude to describe feminist studies as embedded in a
globalized world, nonetheless, its contemporary significance
cannot be denied. As academics we connect with new
audiences, our expertise is being sought out by different
social actors, and through social media the public has
increased exponentially. This implies that a high degree of
flexibility is needed regarding the texts we produce as
academics. The need to use different representational textual
strategies has grown, and brings into question whether it is
wise to cling to a particular set of epistemological principles
which dictate the parameters of acceptable reflexive writing
or is it better to envision feminist epistemology as a
constellation of different alternatives used situatedly. From
this standpoint, the two different epistemological positions
discussed above become two possible reflexive alternatives.
In the following pages, I would like to contribute to
conceptualizing reflexivity and writing about it as a situated
act. This will be accomplished by tracing the textual decisions
I made concerning the “measure of disclosure” and its con-
sequences for the representation of the research subjects in
two different projects.vi The first project concerns a study I
conducted on prostitution in Lima, Peru (Nencel, 2000,
2001). This ethnographic study demanded a critical reflexive
stance throughout all its phases. I was intentionally present
throughout the text. The second project concerned public
sector secretaries working at two Peruvian ministries
(Nencel, 2005b, 2010), like the former project, the study
was in part conducted to question existing power relations
and invoke ideational change. However, in this project the
reflexive analysis as well as my own presence were less
visible in the texts. A more traditional form of representation
was required. The concluding section will make clear that
making reflexivity situated should not be misinterpreted to
mean that in feminist research “anything goes”. Decisions
concerning positionality and representation are founded
on shared feminist epistemological values that are ground-
ed in notions of engagement and radical empathy, and
additionally, a methodology that highlights agency and
creates dialogical, discursive spaces. However in order to
 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
elaborate my argument further, the following sections will
briefly present the on-going feminist discussion on
reflexivity.
Reflexivity as a corrective measure
“Reflexivity under feminism is not only about investigat-
ing the power embedded in one's research but it is also about
doing research differently” (Pillow, 2003, 178).
The majority of feminist researchers would agree that
feminist research is done differently than other types of research.
Research relationships are aimed at being non-exploitative, and
research should include a utilitarian dimension and thus,
should not be conducted purely for the sake of knowledge. It
aims to support change whether that be change for individual
participants or as Kobayashi (2003) states research for social
change, or both.
Reflexivity in this context has a corrective function. It
ensures research relationships that are egalitarian, non-
authoritative and intersubjective. Through self-reflexivity the
researcher enables a research relationship to develop that
recognizes difference and the (im)possibilities this creates. In
this sense, reflexivity is used to correct previous ethnocentric
and naïve representations of the research relationship between
women as the “same” (Mohanty, 1988; Nagar & Geiger, 2007)
or familiar (Pillow, 2003). Reflexivity enables analysis of
“how one is inserted in grids of power relations and how that
influences methods, interpretations, and knowledge produc-
tion” (Kobayashi, 2003; Sultana, 2007). In this reflexive
alternative the researcher's positionality is pushed to the
foreground. Feminist researchers are encouraged to reflect
upon and write about their own situatedness (Chiseri-Strater,
1996; Roschelle, Toro-Morn, & Facio, 2010).
Different textual strategies can be observed regarding
weaving positionality into the text. Often the methodological
chapter serves as the location for reflexive analysis but as
Chiseri-Strater (1996, 123) states, there are “other ways of
disclosing positionality throughout the ethnographic text”,
for example by including descriptions of how others perceive
the researcher. As mentioned in the Introduction, analysis
of positionalities is found in abundance as journal articles which
show how the researcher's positionality unintentionally reveals
cultural meanings and gives glimpses into the intersubjective
research relations. Full ethnographies have the possibility
to reflexively structure the book to reflect the process of
knowledge construction. Behar's (1993) ethnographic biogra-
phy of Esperanza narrates the market vendor's story as it was
told to Behar. While Behar's presence is visible, the interplay in
the intersubjective relation becomes complete in the final
chapter wherein the author includes an autobiographic reflex-
ive narrative on her positionality. Abu-Lughod (1993) chooses a
different strategy, organizing the Bedouin stories loosely
around anthropological concepts, refusing to give authoritative
closure vis-à-vis a conclusion, and using the introduction
to explain her motivations, her positionality and her theoretical
and moral underpinnings. The stories are told by the Bedouin
women, but Abu-Lughod's presence is felt through her
description of the situational context and circumstances.
Finally, there are ethnographies like those of Willemse (2007)
and Nencel (2000, 2001) whose presence is interwoven
throughout the text, underscoring the dynamics and power
77
relations involved in the intersubjective construction of
knowledge during fieldwork.
The struggle towards post-foundational, and
post-modern reflexivity
For some authors, the corrective use of reflexivity is
problematic. Their criticism encompasses both its political and
academic dimensions. Pillow (2003) describes reflexivity as “a
tool of the privileged”. It is only the researcher who possesses
reflexivity in the text, it is the researcher that through
reflexivity shares power, “gives voice to the voiceless” (Lather,
2001) and in this sense may “perpetuate colonial relationships
while at the same time attempting to mask this power over the
subject” (Pillow, 2003, 185). Nagar states “[i]f our goal is to
transform the power hierarchies embedded in knowledge
production, it is clearly not going to happen merely through a
discussion of ‘how we represent others and ourselves’” (Nagar,
2003, 360).vii
According to the critics, the corrective form of reflexivity
and its representation in text reinforce existing strictures,
create linear explanations and conceptualize the subject as
knowable and fixed. Pillow (2003) indicates the need to
replace this modernist subject with the post-modern subject,
defining her/him as “multiple, as unknowable, as shifting”,
enabling reflexivity to be used differently. Moreover, they
propose a “double epistemology” “where the text becomes a
site of the failures of representation, and textual experiments
are not so much about solving the crisis of representation as
about troubling the very claims to represent” (Lather, 2001,
201).
Thus, textual experimentation is called for. Lather (2001)
relates in a post-script reflection the process of decision-
making involved in the strategies of representation used in her
joint publication on a group of HIV/AIDS women living in the
United States. Attempting to write a story that gives equal
weight to the stories of the women as well as the researchers —
she and her co-author divided the page in one half for the
women's stories and the other half for their own. For her, this
was a way to displace the “privileged fixed position from which
the researcher interrogates and writes the researched”. Inter-
estingly, upon receiving the publication, several women were
disturbed by the format, they expressed their desire to have a
book that was more like a “K-mart book”, some complained
that it was not easy to read. While Lather includes these
comments in her postscript, nonetheless, its inclusion does not
resolve the dilemma that was created by sticking to this
representational strategy and their conviction. This illustration
as well as Pillow's (2003, 187) discussion of three studies that
attempt to do what she has termed “uncomfortable reflexivity”,
rejecting the familiar “rendering the knowing of their selves or
their subjects as uncomfortable and uncontainable”, as well as
Nagar (2003) and Nagar and Geiger (2007) who developed the
notion of “situated solidarities”, a form of collaborative reflexive
research between researcher's of the North and organizations of
the South, all stress the dialogic nature of research relationships
and communication and are offered as alternatives to feminist
ethnographies that use reflexivity as a corrective measure.
While these authors claim to be offering alternatives
through complicating the subject, and destabilizing the essence
of feminist methodologies, their alternatives create other rigid
78 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
solutions that exclude certain types of feminist research as good
practice. Their post-foundational, messy dialogical subjects do
not escape from being ontologically predefined. Reflexive
choices concerning textual representations are situated deci-
sions grounded in the research relationships constructed in
fieldwork, neither the research relationship or the text can be
predefined. To support my argument I present below two
research experiences in which reflexivity resulted in different
textual outcomes.
Writing oneself in or out in the text?
As implied earlier, writing oneself in the text is seen by some
as a final reflexive moment of research that shuts the door for
good on universalisms and objectivity and constitutes good
feminist practice. In an earlier article, (Nencel, 2005a), I
questioned the inflexible use of epistemological criteria for
determining good feminist practice, particularly in regard to
constructing non-hierarchical, intersubjective research rela-
tionships. Evaluating the fieldwork of the sex work study using
these criteria would have forced me to conclude that I “failed”
to conduct feminist ethnographic research because I was unable
to obtain this epistemological ideal. During fieldwork, the
power relations were unbalanced, I was frequently dependent
on the sex workers' whims and willingness to share their space
and stories. I was regularly given a limited amount of room
to maneuver in. Nonetheless, the ethnography published
(2001), is a feminist ethnography that adheres to feminist
ethics and epistemology. In the aftermath, it can be concluded
that this research experience was the first step in letting go of
the ontologically predefined fieldwork relationship. This was
substituted with an approach that defines feminist fieldwork
relations as consisting of a multitude of alternatives and
potentialities. These include frustrated and frustrating research
relationships, dialogic research relationships, collaborative
research relationships, affective relationships, antagonistic
research relations, formal research relations, etc. or a little bit
of each. Each type will demand different intensities of reflexive
analysis and accordingly, will demand different treatments in
the text.
The two cases presented below will illustrate the different
roles I chose for myself in the research contexts and their
texts.
Positioning myself in the text as interpreter
Against the backdrop of studies (since the 1800's) that solely
approached prostitution in Peru as a problem, and analyzed the
lives of women who prostitute as deviant, I took on a study of
prostitution in Lima to counteract these tendencies. I aimed to
do a study that approached the women who prostitute first and
foremost as women and prostitution as sex work.viii In the
1990's, the period when this fieldwork took place, little had
changed regarding the portrayal of prostitutes in Peruvian
society. They were still considered deviants.ix The state still
attempted to regulate, control and eradicate diseases through
prostitution. Their deviance was a creation of the state and
sustained by discourses recurrently produced in the media. In
this context it was clear that their deviance was the product of a
“transaction that takes place between some social group and
one who is viewed by that group as a rule-breaker” (Becker
1963, 10). While deviance has become a term with too many
negative connotations, Becker's (1963) concept of deviance
emphasizes the roles of others in turning a group of people into
“the Other”. Thus, decades of stigmatization, marginalization,
and a socially engraved discourse of prostitution as a “necessary
evil” made my relatively simple objectives of portraying the sex
workers as “women who prostitute” (2001) more difficult to
achieve than I presumed beforehand. In the ethnographic text,
this led to two textual decisions. The first was, to find a way to
conceptually represent the historically repetitive discourses and
legislation and their power in producing gendered meanings
and deviance that limited the women's potentialities as well as
restricted their movements as women and sex workers. The
concept “gendered enclosures” was used to symbolize these
processes. Secondly, and important for the argument of this
paper, I made an explicit decision to confer a prominent role to
myself in the text.
In the introductory chapter I stated:
The inclusion of myself in this book is not merely a
reflexive decision. I am not only a protagonist of the
narrative because I was present, but I have bestowed
upon myself the role of interpreter because, in the
Peruvian context of prostitution, I would be running the
risk of doing more harm than good if I let the conversa-
tions and actions go unaccompanied. They could bolster
already existing stereotypes rather than dismantle them.
Thus, I try both to make sense of things for myself, as well
as transmitting the cultural sense of the field to the
reader, both of which are essential in writing ethnography
(2001, 9).
This quote infers three reasons as to why my presence was
demanded in the text, each anchored in epistemological
principles. The first is found in the role as one of the
protagonists of research. I narrate from my perspective. I tell
the stories from within the context I heard them and I do this by
using “I” intermitting this with dialogs. This form of represen-
tation supports the epistemological goal of doing away with the
idea of the “ethnographic present” which creates an a-historic
representations of the Other. In addition, the text reflects the
temporality of fieldwork, eradicating the illusion of culture as
an unchanging static, notion. In this dimension, the text
resembles what Van Mannen (1988, 103) calls an “impression-
ist tale…Events are recounted roughly in the order in which
they are said to have occurred and carry with them all the odds
and ends that are associated with the remembered events. The
idea is to draw an audience into an unfamiliar story world….”.
However, unlike the impressionist tale that holds back on
interpretation (Van Mannen, 1988, 103) the stories related in
the ethnography were also told through my second role as
interpreter. This specific research context demanded that my
presence in the interpretive process was visible in the text. In
the ethnographic chapters I connected the daily occurrences
and conversations to the broader social context and on occasion
framed the knowledge theoretically.x Being interpreter means
accepting the authority this entails. This authority demands
a sense of responsibility against harming the research partici-
pants and representing them in a way that respects and
highlights their agency. This will be illustrated with an
ethnographic excerpt below.
 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
The women who worked on a particular street in an inner
city slum lunched at the house of a resident of the neighbor-
hood who prepared their meals. I met the women there on a
regular basis. In the time I spent with them it became evident
that certain women were intentionally excluded from the
group. More often than not, this was made clear indirectly. I
became aware of this when I unintentionally joined in an
indirect bullying session targeting one particular woman. At
this moment, two women were discussing an informative
radio program they recently heard about the symptoms of
AIDS, listing stomach problems as one of the symptoms. The
third woman, usually very outspoken, sat there quietly,
silently eating her lunch. Excited to hear how the women
passed on knowledge to each other, I participated in the
conversation. It was only when the two women left did the
third woman – the target of the conversation – turn to me
and asked why did these women talk about this, as she said,
“they know I have been complaining about stomach pains
lately”. Her comment revealed her awareness that this was
not an innocent conversation but one with ulterior motives.
Omitting my presence and my role in the text would have led
to a text that bolstered an image of the women as mean and
uncompassionate, feeding into the socially accepted idea of
their deviance and ultimately supporting opponents of
sex workers in their crusade against it. Instead, through
positioning myself in the text I created the possibility to
reveal how my presence contributed to revealing the
underlying intentions of this serendipitous moment and
thereafter as interpreter, I could situate their actions within
the broader cultural context. When analyzing this and other
similar incidents, it became clear that these incidents
illustrated what can be called a “culture of indirectness”
(Joseph, 1996). This style of communication is very common
in all social strata of Peruvian daily life. Messages are given in
conversations between the lines. My position as interpreter
enabled me to portray this incident as a common cultural
occurrence. In this sense, their actions were not evidence of
their exclusion as “social deviants” but rather a demonstra-
tion of their inclusion in the broader population of Limanean
society.
Finally, I am present in another role of interpreter: the one
that weaves pieces of silence together. Although my rela-
tionship with the women was respectful, at times enjoyable,
etc., their silences, the no-shows for interview appointments,
the life history interviews that resembled more an interro-
gation than a discursive space that was both “empowering
and destabilizing” (Bell, 1993: 31) and the lies that were told
could be interpreted as statements of non-commitment to
the project. In this dimension of interpreter an analysis of my
positionality was indispensible to understand what these
silences meant. By placing myself in the text, I was able to
reveal the meanings behind these different types of silences
making sense of how these seeming expressions of non-
commitment were ways of performing prostitution. This last
point links with epistemological issues concerning the
intersubjective nature of knowledge construction.
After several months visiting a nightclub, it became clear
that the women saw me as a “good woman”. This label had
many significations. I was a woman who did not prostitute
but did not condemn them or lecture them about the wrongs
of what they were doing. I helped them with their work by
79
distributing condoms and translating, if necessary, for foreign
clients; they could trust me knowing that I would not
compete for a client's attentions. But this same label had a
flipside that gave insight into the meanings of the silences
namely, I was the “good woman”xi as opposed to the “bad
woman” which in Peruvian gender ideology is the whore. I
was the woman who had a profession, a job, a loving
relationship, while they earned their money, as some called
it “in an ugly way”. Their goal was to leave this work as quick
as possible. Thus, my presence in the field as well as my
invitation to do a life history was a constant reminder of their
self-perceptions.
In this project, it was a difficult task to find the balance
between writing myself in the text and letting the stories, and
experiences of the women speak for themselves. Every word
was weighed against the objectives posed in regard to the
textual representations. My main objective in the text was to
represent the complexity of identity construction for a group of
women who share many commonalities with other women but
because of the stigma attached to their work have more in
common with each other. These representational decisions
developed, in part, out of the reflexive analysis of the stories
collected and the experiences constructed during fieldwork.
In sum, this research experience forced me to relinquish my
ontologically predefined ideas of the research relationship in
order to construct fieldwork relations that were mutually
respectful and workable for both myself and the women
involved in the research. This in turn had consequences for
the representational strategies used in the text. The prominent
role I gave myself as interpreter is an outcome of these
fieldwork relations that were embedded in a social context
that constructed the women as deviants. The representational
decisions I made created spaces that highlighted their agency
and thus contributed to destroying harmful stereotypes that
sustain the marginalization and stigmatization of women who
prostitute — one of the goals this research shares with other
feminist research/ethnography projects.
Doing research 9:00–5:00
Besides being of shorter duration (I went to the field for
three short intervals in a two year time-span), this research
project on identity construction of secretaries working in the
public sector in Lima was extremely different than the
previous one. I did field research in two ministries and
three different departments. With the exception of a few
women, I saw the majority only during office hours, from
9:00 to 5:00. The heads of department gave them permission
to participate in the interviews which were conducted in a
room that was set aside for this purpose.
Methodologically, the research relied heavily on what I
call a multi-segmented interview with very little participant
observation. A multi-segmented interview is a technique I
developed consisting of different components (i.e. photo-
elicitation interviews, map tracing) of varying duration. It is
aimed at producing fieldwork material that would give the
women the space to represent themselves how they wanted,
and give insight into their lives and the decisions they make
concerning their work, their home and their families. Moreover,
it contributed to the production of ethnographically rich
material in a research project with time constraints.
80 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
Combining the different segments together aims to create a
more holistic picture. I expected that the multi-segmented
interviews would create a space in which research relationships
were intersubjectively constructed. I attempted to create a
methodology that would bring me as close as possible to the
feminist epistemological ideal.
The research relationship with several of the women
contained a high degree of formality. In addition, with
exception of a few, our contact ceased upon the interviews'
completion. In this sense, the research relations created
through the multi-segmented interviews did not create the
relationship I envisioned.
Like the sex work project the secretary study had feminist
goals intimately linked to social change. In the first place, it
aimed to make a group of women visible who normally in
academic studies and governmental policies go unnoticed
because of their social–economic position. Working as secre-
taries they received monthly salaries. While their salaries
would never be enough to increase their socio-economic
position, it was definitely sufficient to let them strategize the
use of their monies which in turn gave them a certain degree of
economic power. Simultaneously, their professional identity
was entwined with hyper-sexualized images that depicted
them as “dumb blondes”, “trying to climb the social ladder by
marrying the boss” and finally as “sexually available”. Through
this research I hoped to desexualize the socially accepted
hyper-sexualized image of the secretary by deconstructing this
image (Nencel, 2000, 2010). Two incidents illustrated how
the hypersexual image of the secretary was incorporated in
their professional identity. At two different moments, govern-
ment representatives attempted to ban wearing of mini-skirts
to work in the public sector. The miniskirt was imbued with
both gender and sexual meanings for the public at large and as
my study showed, also for the secretaries.
Obviously, the issues for secretaries working in the public
sector are of an extremely different nature than for women
working as sex workers. For one thing, they have accepted
social positions. They considered their work to be a profession
and had clear (gendered) norms and values that they associated
with their professional identities. But the working conditions
were, for many, far from adequate. For example, it was not
uncommon to find secretaries working at a ministry for more
than 10 years on a temporary contract, depriving them of social
and secondary benefits permanent workers enjoyed.
Even though the research relationships did not live up to
the epistemological ideal and I had a far more conventional
relationship than desired with several of the research
participants, it became clear through the interviews that the
women were able to rupture the stereotypes concerning
their identities themselves.
As the above suggests, the particularities of this research
demanded that I performed a different role during fieldwork
as well as position myself differently in the text. The stories
and experiences they shared with me contained less
messages in need of interpretation. My role as interpreter
was dedicated, in part, to creating a bricolage of their
experiences and stories that would present their self-
perceptions in relation to their professional identities and to
theories that frame these experiences conceptually.xii Hence,
I was less visible, and became interpreter behind the scenes.
This should not be confused with writing a “realist tale”. Van
Mannen (1988, 47) defines the ethnographers who write
“realist tale” as
…an impersonal conduit who… passes on more-or-less
objective data in a measured intellectual style that is
uncontaminated by personal bias, political goals, or moral
judgments. A studied neutrality characterizes the realist
tale.
My role as interpreter behind the scenes was a reflexive
decision and not because being absent or less present in the
text guaranteed objectivity. It grew out of the research
relations constructed in the field, that here once again are
embedded in a broader social context.
In this project the methodological choices, the nature of the
research relationships and the self-perceptions of the secretar-
ies all contributed to the reflexive decisions taken in regard to
my presence in the text. An analysis of my positionality in these
texts would have been entirely out of place, which does not
mean it did not take place behind the scenes, it did. Although I
consider self-reflexivity to be indispensible in feminist ethnog-
raphy, this project made me consider writing oneself out of the
text as another alternative in textual representation. It made me
pose the question whether feminist research reached a point of
saturation regarding the effect that positionality can have in a
text? My doubts are shared by Kobayashi (2003, 349) who
states:
Even when it [reflexivity LN] is useful, however, and I
would argue that it is useful when it generates sincere and
engaged moral discussion that goes well beyond the
confines of any individual, then it is only one small part of
the process, and perhaps a smaller part than some of the
feminist and anti-racist scholarship of the past decade
would have us believe.
This project gave me the opportunity to explore another
way to be reflexive in feminist research which is neither
corrective nor post-modern.
Situated reflexivity: A call for “anything goes” feminist research?
In the preceding pages, four different ways to use re-
flexivity were discussed. Using reflexivity as a corrective
measure leads to texts that accentuate the researcher's
positionality. This genre of reflexive texts is also occupied
with questions concerning how reflexivity evolves in re-
search or why reflexivity could not be achieved (Roschelle et
al., 2010; Wasserfall, 1993). In the post-modern approach
these studies are criticized for, among other things, their
reproduction of colonial relations. The texts in this current
aim to unsettle the subject and knowledge. However, authors
who attempt to construct a postmodern subject (Chaundhry,
1997; Lather, 2001), run the risk of making the text trouble-
some for their research participants and the broader
academic readership. Both representational forms consider
their texts to be multi-vocal and intersubjective. Yet, neither the
post-modern nor the corrective genre escapes from ontologi-
cally predefining the research relation. The consequences
of ontologically predefining the research relation cannot be
seen in isolation. There is a lineal interdependency between
ontology, epistemology, reflexivity and the representational
 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
strategies chosen in the text. The ontological reality carves out
the available possibilities for the researchers regarding their
epistemological position. This in turn shapes the way reflexivity
is done (or not). These previous decisions are synthesized in
the decisions concerning the textual representations of the
researcher and research subject. Thus, to what extent the
researcher is present in the text; to what extent the research
subject is presented or presents her/his self in the text is
grounded in previously made decisions. Ontologically pre-
defining the research relation will limit the possible alternatives
in the ensuing decisions and analysis. Consequently, the
researcher's flexibility is limited and cannot respond to the
situatedness of the research context.
The two cases presented here illustrate other textual
decisions based on reflexive analysis that grew out of the
contextuality of field research. While I went to the field with
a predefined conception of the research relation, in each case
the circumstances obliged me to rethink my original con-
ceptualization. Another point that needs to be mentioned is
that representational decisions are also influenced by the
positionality of the researcher subjects in society at large.
The two cases described here suggest that doing research
with a stigmatized group and a group of women who enjoy
a recognized profession results in different ways of
representing them and their agency. Going to the field with
a predetermined definition of the research relationship could
make this dimension less visible.
These experiences lead me to contemplate the following.
What if all these different ways of writing oneself in or out of
the text and the representation of the intersubjective
relationship were all considered viable possibilities, without
prioritizing one above the other? This would be the first step
towards conceptualizing reflexivity and the representations
it produces as a situated act. The choice would no longer be
one or the other, but either, or, and when according to what
the situation demands. All of these alternatives would be
considered good feminist practice and are part of an inclusive
epistemological vision.
This signifies that the process of defining the research
relationship occurs through the experiences, interactions and
circumstances that transpire during fieldwork. A research
relationship is a precious gem that needs to be treated with
care. As researchers we are privileged to be able to experience
research relationships in which more often than not, intimate
knowledge is shared. While it can feel as if it is a friendship, in
the majority of the cases it is not. Instead a research relationship
should be seen as a relation comprised of friendship, affection,
professionalism, formality and perhaps, in some cases, even
some unpleasant emotions. The researcher never forgets that
there are objectives behind the construction of the relationship
and therefore the relationship will always be a research
relationship, even when research is done collaboratively. The
research relationship does not lose its intersubjective dimen-
sion, however, it is necessary to acknowledge that in some
research relationships the social, economic or political gaps
may be so great that an equal relationship cannot exist. Here I
am not assuming that the researcher is always the most
powerful, in an intersubjective research relationship both
individuals have agency. It might be the research subject who
decides that he or she will collaborate but has no desire to
construct a non-hierarchical, “equal” relationship. Who is in
81
power can also not be automatically predefined (Nencel,
2001, 2005a,b). Equal, non-hierarchical relationship is the
ideal that may be strived for, however, accepting that these
other types of relationships are possible in feminist research
signifies the acceptance of research relationships as human
relations that do not always live up to the ideal (see Nencel &
Yanow, 2008 for further discussion). Throughout these pages it
has been implied that letting go of the ontologically predefined
research relations will give the freedom to develop different
types of relationships that will be non-exploitative and
“successful” and contribute to doing feminist research based
on good practices.
Conceptualizing epistemology as inclusive and within
this reflexivity as situated, creates new problems. For
example, how can it be guaranteed that this approach does
not lead to an “anything goes” research practice? In the
remainder of the article I aim to contribute to answering this
question.
There are at least two things demanded of the researcher to
assure that feminist research does not become an “anything
goes” practice. The first is engagement and the second is
adopting a politics of radical empathy. Let me deal with each of
these separately.
Recalling Pillow's quote at the beginning of this article “
[r]eflexivity under feminism is not only about investigating
the power embedded in one's research but it is also about
doing research differently” (Pillow, 2003, 178). Approaching
reflexivity situatedly does not change the objectives of
feminist research. It aims to question existing power
relations and contribute to change. This implies that feminist
researchers are engaged. Borrowing from Lamphere (2003,
153) she delineates three different domains that are the
anthropologists' responsibility:
In the United States we have come to realize that we need to
do three things as we become increasingly engaged with the
world: first, transform our relations with the public in order
to overcome entrenched stereotypes and foster current
images that accurately depict anthropology today; second,
continue to change our relations with the communities we
work with, by attending to their concerns in formulating
research questions and by viewing them as equal partners in
carrying out research and educational activities; and third,
work out effective ways of doing research on critical social
issues that will expand the influence of anthropology in
political arenas and policy debates.
Being an engaged researcher signifies addressing and
moving with (in) different groups. Lamphere suggests that in
order to reach our objectives as engaged researchers it is
necessary to go beyond the communities of your participants
to include broader realms of society. This means that as
engaged feminist researchers we need to produce “diverse
knowledges to reach different audiences” (Nagar, 2003, 366).
Taking this one step further, I contend if engaged feminist
researchers are expected to produce diverse knowledges,
hence different degrees of reflexivity and representation are
called for in the texts.
A politics of radical empathy, according to Dana-Ain Davisxiii
…relies on developing a relatedness that increases
compassion… it involves sharing the degrees of social
82 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
capital possessed by the researcher. What a politics of
radical empathy means is that we can move between
theorizing, practice and empathy. It means that we can
talk about representational practices while standing next
to people such that our representations empathically
demonstrate the experiences of their existences, their
needs and their wants… a politics of radical empathy
mandates that we dare not divorce ourselves from the
prospect of closeness.
Adopting a politics of radical empathy signifies that a
researcher is willing to take risks regarding representational
strategies, as in my case with the sex workers consciously
weaving myself into the text as interpreter, to avoid putting
the research subjects at risk — without my position in the
text my/their words could harm them instead of seek justice.
A politics of radical empathy rests on a conceptualization
of reflexivity which is attuned to the complexities of the
research context.
Being engaged and adopting a politics of radical
empathy bring to the foreground one final question
which needs to be answered. How can it be ensured that
what is written about the research subject coincides with
how the research subject would portray herself? Going
back and discussing it with the subjects, and sending it
to be read before publishing are obvious ways of
accomplishing this goal. But what if the researcher is
doing research with a transient group, difficult to find
again (undocumented migrants for example), or the
subjects have erased all the traces of their past making
them impossible to find as is the case with many sex
workers, or lastly, the subjects are not interested in reading
what you have written, is there a way to assure that what
you write stays true to how they would want to be
represented? There is no hundred percent guarantee,
however, it all boils down to methodology.
Feminist research methodology provides methods that
create spaces for self-representation. Although life histo-
ries is considered the ultimate form to accomplish this,
research practicalities like time may not permit using this
method. More importantly, there are research subjects
who are willing to corroborate in the research but do not
want to do life histories, finding them too confrontational
(Nencel, 2005a,b). Lather (2001, 200) coins the term
“methodological economies of responsibility” which is not
elaborated in detail, but nonetheless suggests that a
dimension of reflexivity is needed to sustain a fit between
methodologies and responsibilities as a researcher. The
methods used in feminist methodology give the possibility
for the research subjects to be involved up to the degree that
they want to and represent themselves the way see fit. These
methodological and representational experimentations “must
be accompanied by a continued interrogation of how our
supposedly ‘improved’ representational strategies might con-
stitute new silences” (Nagar, 2003, 367 referring to Peake &
Trotz 1999, 35).
In conclusion, proposing reflexivity as a situated act, does not
simplify doing feminist research. As this article illustrates this has
consequences for the researchers' ontological definition of
reality, their epistemological position, the methodologies used
as well as the representational strategies chosen in the text.
Nonetheless, conceptualizing it as such attunes feminist research
to the demands of doing research in a globalized world; a
world in which gender inequality, violence and exclusion have
unfortunately not disappeared, but manifest in the same and
different ways as in the past. The use of reflexivity as a
situated act needs to be explored further. I hope that this
article has convinced other feminist researchers to join me
on this venture.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the editors of this special issue, Tine
Davids and Karin Willemse, for their supportive and
insightful comments of an earlier draft of this article and
Kathy Davis with whom I engaged in inspiring conversa-
tions with about this paper. I am also indebted to the
anonymous readers whose comments pushed me a step
further.
Endnotes
i
The concept “situatedness” as well as situated knowledge, have become
fully integrated into feminist vocabulary. Often, references to its origins are
omitted. It goes without saying that feminist theory and practice are indebted to
Donna Haraway (1991) for coining the term and making its use possible.
ii
It must be stressed that this article approaches the concept represen-
tation and text from a methodological perspective. It should not be confused
with its use in postmodern theory which uses these terms in relation to
discursive practice. Their use here is related to the anthropological tradition
which simultaneously acknowledges the text as a construct and as a product
that depicts embodied fieldwork. Moreover, the use of the term ontology
and epistemology is also discussed here as methodological concepts that
underlie the choices made in research. While representation does concern
how to depict the positionality and agency of the research subjects, my
concern here is about the textual decisions and strategies used and does not
refer to the theoretical conceptualization of agency in relation to materiality,
discourse and structures (Barad, 2001).
iii
In the critique of the feminist use of reflexivity and positionality by
Nagar and Geiger (2007, p.3) (http://www.tc.umn.edu/~nagar/documents/
NagarandGeigerfinaldraftReflexivityandPositionalityinFeministFieldworkjan07.
pdf). They posed this question to distance themselves from other feminist
concerns regarding reflexivity. I convert their critical query about the
ontological predefinition of the research relationship into an assertion that
underlies the entire argument of this paper, namely that a problem exists in
how different feminist currents ontologically predefined the research relation-
ship which ultimately limits the possible epistemological paths as well as
reflexive strategies.
iv
This implies that when a research relationship does not live up to the
ontological reality/epistemological ideal, they are assessed against the
norms embedded in this reality. Research relationships can be labeled
“unsuccessful” and the research project considered a “failure”.
v
See for example Hemmings (2011) for this discussion in relation to
feminist theory in general and Nencel (2007) for its developments and
consequences for anthropology.
vi
Both research projects were made possible by grants funded by WOTRO a
subdivision of The Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO), The
Hague, Netherlands.
vii
All three authors are to a greater or lesser degree inspired by Kamala
Visweswaren, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, and Trinh T. Minh-ha. I have not
included them in the references because I do not refer directly to their work.
viii
Throughout the ethnography I chose to use the term “women who
prostitute” to emphasize their identities as women. The label sex worker, at the
time this research took place, had absolutely no significance for the women I got
to know. For the majority of health workers I spoke to, when I used the term sex
worker a skeptical smirk appeared on their face because they could not envision
prostitution as work. This reinforced the idea that using the term sex work
would distort the representation of the contemporaneous social dynamics.
ix
I am not implying here, that twenty years from now they are no longer
considered deviant, however during these past twenty years new social
 L. Nencel / Women's Studies International Forum 43 (2014) 75–83
actors, i.e. sex worker rights organization, have been established which have
had a certain degree of success in demonstrating to the public that
prostitution is work and not an issue of deviance.
x
The theoretical discussion in the last chapter flowed out of the
ethnography, making the distance between the two minimal.
xi
One of the ways they made this clear was by telling the clients that I
was not working there. This went against my own preference of trying to
blend in as much as I can. Among other things, I felt at the time it was a way
of showing my solidarity. However, their insistence in making sure that the
clients knew the difference was a way of offering me protection as well as
making clear that I am not one of them.
xii
Kelly, Linda, and Burton (1992, 147) describe theoretical reflexivity as
the “theoretical understanding of the site from which one is working which
creates the standpoint from which one works. Conceptualizing theory as a
standpoint embeds it within the researcher's epistemological position.
Theory is not something that is being tested but how one learns about
reality.
xiii
Unpublished comments received during the panel of the Transgressing
Research Relations, AAA meeting November 2012, San Francisco, USA.
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