“Where are you from?”: Researching about diversity as both an insider and outsider in Indonesia

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Bio

Drawing from personal experience in conducting doctoral research in multicultural Indonesia, in this session I discuss the importance of considering researcher’s positionality and identity, especially when conducting qualitative research.

The research which explores the accommodation and teaching of diversity in Indonesian schools makes my identity a highly relevant factor in researcher-participant interactions. I specifically explore the potential and challenges of conducting ‘sensitive’ research as a triple minority (non-Muslim, Chinese and woman) at the time of heightened ethnic and religious tension. In doing so, I continuously reflect on the dual ‘insider-outsider’ identity dynamics and how this might have shaped the research design and findings as well as the reporting of those findings. Overall, I have found that my racial, ethnic, gender and religious backgrounds were negotiated during the interactions and simultaneously how participants negotiated the different and shared backgrounds through identity-related questions they asked. In agreement with Törngren & Ngeh (2018), I argue that the demarcation of boundaries of the different identities is fluid, where the assignment of various categories to oneself is a result of daily interactions (Hatoss, 2012) and situational contexts (Sin, 2007). It is thus crucial to practice reflexivity throughout the research process to ensure quality research.

Event Details

Thursday 25 October 2018
12:45 - 14:00
Department of Education, Seminar Room B

Event Speakers

Tracey Harjatanaya (DPhil Student, Department of Education)