How to Understand Positionalities

What are positionalities, and how can we better understand our own, and each other’s?

In research and M&E, positionality is an important element of a research report. It is both a process by which you can understand yourself as a person and a researcher, including your biases and privileges, as well as a way for you to see how they affect your perspectives as a researcher. On top of that, positionality can also be a tangible piece of reflection shared in the research, as a positionality statement.

It’s of course not always safe or ethical to share your positionality statement, depending on how open you are about your biases and privileges; so please be aware of the consequences of sharing yours widely, and keep your data safe.

Positionality shows who, what, and how you are in relation to others and to the systems in your context. It’s a relational tool then, that looks at the role of power here. For example, I am 36 years old. I am older compared to some age groups and younger compared to others. At this stage in my life, I have some experiences and perspectives that give me power over someone who is 16. However, I may not be given the seriousness or credibility of someone with 10 more years of life experience, so that puts me at a relative position of weakness to someone older.

If I am working on a research report around ageism therefore, I have a limited understanding of what that is. I don’t have lived experience of ageism; I have experienced being dismissed for my youth when I started working early. I have also been kept away from certain opportunities and roles because of my relative youth in the work place.

However, since I am still of working age I do not experience the full gamut of ageism as it affects older people, or those who have also retired, or those who do not work. I cannot understand their perspectives, the systems of oppression they face, or what life looks like to them.

I am therefore limited in my abilities as a researcher to represent this data as accurately as someone with that expertise could. This is one of the elements that would go into my positionality for this research report, for example. The reader has the right to know my limitations in professional ability, and the biases in my perspective that affected my work.

A great starting point to identify your positionalities is to look at a structure similar to Silvia Duckworth’s wheel of power and privilege. It will show you a good cross-section of various intersecting identities and beliefs, which affect both your professional and personal life.

If you’re doing a positionality study right, you will be forced to reckon with and confront some ideas that traverse both. Make sure you’re ready for it and have a good level of self awareness before.

For example, if you have multiple university degrees you will need to understand how that has automatically given you access to certain opportunities that those without as many will never have access to. You may have been handed a research assignment where someone else would have been instantly dismissed because their academic qualifications are not as valuable.

Instead of doing the easy thing and getting defensive about it, I encourage all of us to reflect on the opportunities our privileges give us to make reparations.

What does that mean for you as a person and researcher, and what privileges have you taken for granted as a result of that power? Reflect on that and what it means for your work. Then take the time after your research as been submitted to think about what that means for your personal life, and other aspects of your life, and how you can use that position of relative power to advocate for others.