Positionality, Interviews and Being a Researcher in Migration Studies

Abstract

This article aims to contribute to the literature on positionality in migration studies. Current literature on migration studies and positionality focus on the researcher being an insider from a migrant community or being an outsider conducting research on a migrant community different from his/her own. This article introduces assigned insider as a new category and defines it as a position when both the interviewees and the researcher are of the same local origin in which the researcher is considered an insider of the host community and the interview questions are about a migrant group. Thus, I argue that the same local origin operating as an overriding feature that goes beyond ethnicity and the interviewees being from the host community involving different ethical aspects than that from a migrant community requires assigned insider to be considered as a separate category.