Abstract
This essay addresses how, throughout ethnographies of communication, researchers (re)negotiate their roles and voices with the speech communities they study. The authors demonstrate how a (re)negotiation process occurs throughout moments of pre-fieldwork where a researcher struggles with how to make sense of his or her role in relation to those studied, fieldwork where a member manages to tack back and forth between the role of member and the role of researcher, and late stages of fieldwork where role (re)definition comes after spending many months in the field. The moments of data collection occurred in three scenes that are a Finnish classroom, a Jewish havurah, and a Puerto Rican board of director's meeting. Presenting this explication of how these moments and/or reflexive turns of role negotiation occur throughout the researcher's time with a speech community provides a way to understand this aspect of fieldwork.
Journal Title
Iowa Journal of Communication
Volume
33
Issue
1
First Page
106
Last Page
123
Language
en
File Format
application/pdf
Recommended Citation
Milburn, Trudy; Wilkins, Richard J.; and Wilkins, Karen W.
(2001)
"Reflexive Moments: Negotiating Researcher Roles in Participant Observation,"
Iowa Journal of Communication: Vol. 33:
No.
1, Article 11.
Available at:
https://scholarworks.uni.edu/ijc/vol33/iss1/11
Copyright
©2001 Iowa Communication Association
