“We can talk to you, you’re less radical”: reflexivity and developing answerability

Abstract

This autoethnographic paper discusses the complex methodological issues of a Latina scholar activist conducting research about the undocumented in a law enforcement context in the presence of power elites. She navigates her purpose and perceived identities in withholding some identities for the purpose of accessing data. She chronicles her fieldwork, noting her cultural intuition approach, reflecting on her navigation of answerability to her immigrant community members as well as to traditional norms of academic colonizing fieldwork that serve the elite higher education institutions. She examines the possibility of maintaining integrity to her call of solidarity, advocacy, and activism en familia, to her community members and values.