Abstract
Researchers have long debated the perils and possibilities associated with being an insider or an outsider while conducting qualitative research. This paper revisits this insider-outsider debate by drawing on the experiential insights of a legally blind researcher who, as a part of a comparative study, conducted qualitative interviews with 29 young adults with visual impairments from Oslo and Delhi in 2017 and 2018. It inquires into how the researcher’s positionality and identity influences the process of knowledge production while conducting Global North-South comparative disability research. Based on critical reflections across different stages of the research process, the paper problematizes the simplistic binaries, such as insider-outsider, Privileged-Oppressed, Us-Them and Native-Foreign. It argues for the adoption of an in-betweener researcher status located somewhere on the insider-outsider continua. Comparative disability research entailing Global North and Global South countries is scarce. This paper offers valuable epistemological insights for other researchers working with marginalized groups.
Highlights
The question associated with insider and outsider researcher positionality has been vociferously debated in social research (Bridges 2017; Crossley et al 2016; Griffith 1998; Hellawell 2006)
This paper has a unique empirical and epistemic vantage point because of two factors. It is based on the observations secured from the fieldwork conducted in Oslo and Delhi entailing young adults with visual impairments ( YAVI)
Knowledge production and its dissemination is predominantly unidirectional, flowing from Global North to South (Grech & Soldatic 2016), thereby constituting a challenge of ‘scholarly colonialism’ (Meekosha 2008: 2) and perpetuating the power imbalance across the Global North-South divide (Crossley et al 2016). This comparative research is conducted by a person with a severe visual impairment endeavoring to surface the hitherto marginalized voice of YAVI who are economically excluded and socio-culturally othered across countries belonging to the Global North and Global South (Chhabra 2020)
Summary
Researchers have long debated the perils and possibilities associated with being an insider or an outsider while conducting qualitative research This paper revisits this insider-outsider debate by drawing on the experiential insights of a legally blind researcher who, as a part of a comparative study, conducted qualitative interviews with 29 young adults with visual impairments from Oslo and Delhi in 2017 and 2018. It inquires into how the researcher’s positionality and identity influences the process of knowledge production while conducting Global North-South comparative disability research.
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