Power and Positionality- Negotiating Insider:Outsider Status Within and Across Cultures

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Power and positionality:negotiating insider/outsiderstatus within and acrossculturesSharan B. Merriam , Juanita Johnson-Bailey ,Ming-Yeh Lee , Youngwha Kee , Gabo Ntseane &Mazanah MuhamadPublished online: 11 Nov 2010.

To cite this article: Sharan B. Merriam , Juanita Johnson-Bailey , Ming-YehLee , Youngwha Kee , Gabo Ntseane & Mazanah Muhamad (2001) Power andpositionality: negotiating insider/outsider status within and across cultures,International Journal of Lifelong Education, 20:5, 405-416

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Power and positionality: negotiating insider/outsider status within and across cultures

SHARAN B. MERRIAM and JUANITA JOHNSON-BAILEYThe University of Georgia, USA

MING-YEH LEESan Francisco State University, USA

YOUNGWHA KEEMyungii College, Korea

GABO NTSEANEUniversity of Botswana

MAZANAH MUHAMADUniversiti Putra Malaysia

Early discussions of insider/outsider status assumed that the researcher was predominately aninsider or an outsider and that each status carried with it certain advantages anddisadvantages. More recent discussions have unveiled the complexity inherent in either statusand have acknowledged that the boundaries between the two positions are not all that clearlydelineated. Four case studies a Black woman interviewing other Black women, Asiangraduate students in the US interviewing people from back home, an African professorlearning from African businesswomen, and a cross-cultural team studying aging in a non-Western culture are used as the data base to explore the complexities of researching withinand across cultures. Positionality, power, and representation proved to be useful concepts forexploring insider/outsider dynamics.

What does it mean to be an insider or an outsider to a particular group under study?Can women understand mens experience? Can Whites study Blacks? Straightsstudy gays? The colonized study the colonizer? Early discussions in anthropologyand sociology of insider/outsider status assumed that the researcher was either aninsider or an outsider and that each status carried with it certain advantages and

disadvantages. More recent discussions of insider/outsider status have unveiledthe complexity inherent in either status and have acknowledged that theboundaries between the two positions are not all that clearly delineated. In thereal world of data collection, there is a good bit of slippage and fluidity betweenthese two states. Critical and feminist theory, postmodernism, multiculturalism,participatory and action research are now framing our understanding of insider/outsider issues. In particular, the reconstruing of insider/outsider status in termsof ones positionality vis-a-vis race, class, gender, culture and other factors, offerus better tools for understanding the dynamics of researching within and acrossones culture.

INT. J. OF LIFELONG EDUCATION, VOL. 20, NO. 5 (SEPTEMBEROCTOBER 2001), 405416

International Journal of Lifelong Education ISSN 0260-1370 print/ISSN 1464-519X online 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltdhttp://www.tandf.co.uk/journals

DOI: 10.1080/02601370110059537

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There is a growing body of literature around issues of positionality, power,knowledge construction and representation in qualitative research. However, asall researchers have discovered, there is no substitute for actual fieldwork wherethese issues are personally encountered in sometimes unanticipated, and

oftentimes subtle ways. The purpose of this article is to explore issues of powerand positionality when conducting research within ones own culture and acrosscultural boundaries. To anchor this discussion in actual practice, we first presentfour short ta les f rom the f ie ld (Van Maanen 1988) in the voices of theresearchers as they negotiate their insider/outsider status.

Tales from the Field

All researchers begin data col lect ion wi th certa in assumptions about thephenomenon being investigated, situations to be observed, and people to beinterviewed. The more one is like the participants in terms of culture, gender,race, socio-economic class and so on, the more it is assumed that access will begranted, meanings shared, and validity of findings assured. In the following cases,a Black woman in te rviewed other Black women, two Asians in the USinterviewed others in the US from their homeland, an African woman studiedbusinesswomen in her culture, and a cross-cultural team investigated ageing in anon-western culture. In each case, researchers were challenged to examine theirassumptions about access, power relationships, and commonality of experience.

A Black woman inte rviews Black women

Johnson-Bailey examined the educational narratives of re -entry Black women.Herself a Black re-entry woman, Johnson-Bailey assumed, in accordance with theliterature, that there would be an immediate bond of sisterhood ideal for

research. This she found to be generally true for race and gender, but a morecomplicated scenario emerged with regard to class and colour.The participants and researcher held similar views on race and gender issues.

There were silent understandings, culture-bound phrases that did not needinterpretation, and non-verbalized answers conveyed with hand gestures andfacial expressions (Johnson-Bailey 1999: 669). All of the women in the studypossessed an understanding of societal hierarchical forces that shaped anddetermined their existence. They identified racism as the specific dominating factor, and while race was never raised as an issue in the interview process, race

and the knowledge of living in a race-conscious society was a factor thatresearcher and participants shared. Johnson-Bailey (1999: 661662) comments:

It is an understanding of race, albeit through different means and at differentages, that unites the black women studied and provides a common ground of understanding and analysis that benefited me as a researcher who shared thesame racial background . . . There were several main areas of similarity thatlinked the participant and researcher narratives: self-esteem, self-doubt,guilt concerning time spent away from the family . . . It was a shared issue of womanhood that the respondents and I spoke of in synchrony.

406 S. MERRIAM ET AL.

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Disproportionately more Black women and their children are below or just slightlyabove the poverty level than Whi te women (Hacker 1992). Thus class is inextricablytied to the situations of Black women and their families, and class became aninevitable component in the investigative process. Several respondents related

growing up poor and when the researcher related similar circumstances, theaccounts were not taken at face value as the race and gender stories had been.Instead the women responded with, Well, you wouldnt know it to look at younow, or Really?.

As an issue of concern among Blacks, colourism is examined and debated inBlack communit ies in a less open manner than class. This int ra-racialdiscrimination among Blacks gives preferential treatment to those who havelighter skin shades, thin facial features, and straight hair texture. Colorism is a vestige from slavery much like class is a function of a hierarchical capi talistic

society, and sexism, evidentiary of a patriarchal system (Johnson-Bailey 1999:666). Colourism was a complicating consideration in this study. Three of theeight women in the study rai sed the is sue in an effort to determine itsimportance in the researchers life. In a particularly anxious moment in theresearch, one of the respondents described problems she had had as result of her dark skin, insinuating that the researcher would not have had similarproblems because of her lighter skin colour and good hair . While only threeovertly addressed colourism, it was noted in the analysis that the remaining women in the study unknowingly related instances of how they had benefitedfrom colorism. If class was a wall . . .to be peered across or broken down, thenissues of color were most certainly occasional landmines in our mutual processof discovery (Johnson-Bailey 1999: 668).

Interviewing my own people: Asians interviewing Asians away from home

As part of their graduate work in the United States, Drs. Youngwha Kee from

Korea, and Ming-Yeh Lee from Taiwan interviewed people from their ownculture also living in the US. While access was assumed to be relatively easy dueto a common language and culture, other factors, including certain cultural va lues, crea ted problems in collec ting and interpreting the da ta.

When interviewing away from home, the mutually perceived homogeneity cancreate a sense of community which can enhance trust and openness throughout theresearch process. Ming-Yeh found she had an endless list of potential intervieweesreferred by acquaintances. Many told her its my pleasure to help out anotherperson from the homeland, or this is the least I can do for a fellow Taiwanese

Chinese. Youngwha did not have such easy access to Koreans living in the US,perhaps because she was studying their reasons for not participating in adulteducation. Also, compared to her, the respondents were from a lower economicstatus and had relatively low levels of education; a few were illegal immigrants. Inthe rigidly hierarchical Korean culture, Youngwhas status as a doctoral studentin the US was perceived as more prestigious than that of her respondents; severalrefused co-operation and some treated Youngwha as an outsider to theircommunity. Her outsider status was further underscored by being a Christian;gaining access to non-Christians, especially Buddhists who represent Koreantraditional religion, proved difficult.

POWER AND POSITIONALITY 407

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While Ming-Yeh did not have the same access problems, she faced a validity issuedue to her topic of asking about a major life event. Chinese highly value educationand degrees and many chose a life event that was education-related. One middle-aged woman told her how she had worked her way through junior college. She

stressed, with a sense of pride in her tone, [the junior college degree] is equal toa doctoral degree in my generation. Four men told her that since childhood theirfamilies had found them the best schools and they were truly the best. Ming-Yehraises the following question about the education-related data:

It happened so frequently that I pondered whether the educational eventindeed meant a great deal to them because of the education-focused natureof Chinese culture. Or was it that when interviewed by a highly educatedwoman from the native culture, the emphasis on their own degrees and

education would add more weight to their side of the power equation?

Ming-Yeh also discovered that in a culture that places greater value on age andbeing male her status as a young woman created other interesting dynamics. Oneof her older interviewees said many times at different points in the interview:Only people of my age could understand this . . .young people like you have noidea. Another participant insisted on sharing her current luxury life style inlength because this is important for you to tell the Americans about our lifenow. Ming-Yeh questioned whether these comments were to demonstrate theirexpertise based on seniority. Or perhaps, like many from third world countries,did they tend to ensure the presentation of a less-distorted picture of their reality?Or did they over emphasize the part that seemed irrelevant to their story justbecause of the strong impact of the cultural value of saving face? Finally, Ming-Yeh feels that her years of overseas experience and feminist identity hadcompromised her insider status, requiring her participants to provide additionalpersuasion or instruction to assure her understanding. Some of her femaleparticipants often began their stories of gender discrimination with caveats such

as You may not see this, but in the isolated village I used to live in . . . or Youmay not understand but many famil ies in my community . . . . Ming-Yehconcludes that she had oversimplified the binary power relationship between theresearcher and the researched, and overlooked the multi-dimensional powerrelationship shaped by the prevailing cultural values, gender, educationalbackground and seniority.

Afr ican businesswomen instruct the professor

In attempting to understand how semi-literate women moved from unemploymentand poverty in rural Botswana to owning and managing successful small businessesin urban settings, Gabo Ntseane, a professor at the University of Botswana anddoctoral student in the US, encountered some unanticipated problems as aninsider. Being female and of the same culture, Gabo had no problem gaining access and establishing rapport with the businesswomen. At the same time, shewas seen as a confidant for much unrelated information. As one woman said,switch off the tape because what I am going to say is just woman to woman talk.Further, rather than telling their stories, respondents preferred to give Gabo


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advice on how to survive in their context, and what information she should have tosustain her family. As one woman put it, When you finish writing our book at theuniversity, you should come back here to learn how to manage a business.

Being an insider was not without problems because of the interlocking nature of

culture, gender and power. For example, the use of cultural understandings throughlanguage, proverbs and non-verbal expressions to explain new business conceptswas assumed to convey meaning to the researcher. But as Kondo (1990: 300301)observes, these cultural meanings are themselves multiple and contradictory . . ..They cannot be understood without reference to historical, polit ical andeconomic discourses.

During fieldwork the researchers power is negotiated, not given. Gabosacademic status was not a threat to the women who had comparatively low levelsof education. In fact, her being at the university was perceived as less rewarding

than being a small businesswoman. Age was a lso a factor. Of ten olderbusinesswomen offered suggestions on how she could best talk to the youngerones and what information was important for the book about their stories.Similarly, those younger than the researcher expected her to spend more timegiving them advice on unrelated topics. The businesswomen also felt that Gabosquestions were trivial as a middle-aged woman in their culture she shouldalready know these things. This led Gabo to step out of her insiders boots andemphasize that her professors at the university in the US where she was studying knew little about their culture, and their explanations were for them, not her.

Yet another cultural norm influenced the data collection. In Botswana, thecredibility of the information rests on how many people approve of it withconvincing comments, and not on one persons account. As an insider then, Gabowas expected to accept group interviews. As one sewing businesswoman stressed,I can not answer questions for the other person when they are here. I am theowner of the business and general manager but other people are responsible forother things in this business. Group interviews have a direct impact ontranslation and interpretation. With group interviews, the researcher has to

determine if responses from other people are part of the interview; if so, whosestory is being told?

Do all these people have to be here?; collecting data as a cross-cultural team

The driver took us to the warehouse cum office where we were scheduled tointerview a semi-retired tobacco curer, and later, a tobacco farmer. Upon

arrival both interviewees and the local extension agent met us. As we pulledout our materials, the driver, the extension agent, the two men, and threeothers lingering nearby all sat around the picnic table, ready for us to begin.I whispered to Mazanah, Do all these people have to be here?

Indeed, my becoming comfortable with the collective, group-oriented culture of Malaysia was something that I, as the outsider, had to work at in conducting astudy of older learners with my insider colleague Mazanah. As a cross-culturalteam, we learned to draw on the strengths of insider and outsider positions,minimizing, we hoped, some of the drawbacks. As an insider, Mazanah could


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utilize her knowledge of this status and hierarchy-conscious culture to negotiateaccess through village elders, work supervisors, and revered family members. Atthe same time, my outsider status rendered me something of a curiosity and someagreed to be interviewed so they could have a close encounter with a white lady.

My outsider status became an asset with regard to eliciting fuller explanationsthan would have been given to Mazanah, the insider, who was assumed to alreadyknow. For example, in our interview with an elder statesman and devout Muslim,Mazanahs efforts to have him elaborate on why he felt contributing to society washis most important task at this stage of life was met with a look of disbelief and thecomment, Why do you ask this? You should know!. In another interview, getting the last child married was mentioned as an important task yet to be accomplished.Mazanahs follow-up question of Why? elicited a Youre one of us. You know.Since Mazanah is Malaysian and Moslem, it seemed ludicrous to them to have to

explain to her what they meant. At these junctures Mazanah would point out thatof course she knew, but they had to help explain it so that I, a foreigner to theirculture, would understand. To assist this process, I learned to take a more activerole in asking questions in English, whether or not respondents knew any English,so that it was clear that I, rather than Mazanah, was wanting to know.

In some situations, Mazanah was more of an insider than at other times. Being Malaysian and a Moslem, Mazanah was afforded a general insider status, butunless one actually lives in a particular village or town, one is somewhat of anoutsider to the community. This was true even when we went to the village whereshe was born and raised. Because she had left her village and moved to the city,she is in a peripheral position compared to the true insiders who had remained.In our research, we sought the assistance of the true insider in the interview.Further, her position as an insider was most clear when interviewing MalayMoslem women. However, her education and social class rendered her more orless of an insider, depending on the interviewee. By virtue of her Westerneducation and university affiliation, Mazanah was something of an outsider-within, a position Collins (1986) has identified with regard to African-American

academic women who make creative use of their marginality as intellectuals tostudy African-American women. Gender, especially as it plays out in a highlypatriarchal, Islamic culture was another factor that affected Mazanahs position. And although she had the Malay culture in common wi th other Malaysians, andunderstood much of the customs and religions of Chinese and Indian Malays, forthese groups (which together constitute 40% of the population of Malaysia), herinsider status was decentralized even more. For the few interviews with elderlyIndian Malays that were conducted in Tamil, both Mazanah and I were outsidersdependent on our translators for understanding.

In functioning as an insider/outsider team in conducting our study of olderadulthood in Malaysia, our interaction created what Bartunek and Lewis (1996:61) call a kind of marginal lens through which to examine subject matter.Crossing experientially and cognitively different standpoints creates this lens. Itrequires maintaining tension and distinctness among the standpoints. They goon to point out that in insider/outsider pairings, the outsider s assumptions,language, and cognitive frames are made explicit in the insiders questions and vice-versa. The part ies, in a colloquial sense, keep each other honest or atleast more conscious than a single party working alone may easily achieve(1996: 62).


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Positionality, power, and representation

It has commonly been assumed that being an insider means easy access, the abilityto ask more meaningful questions and read non-verbal cues, and most importantly,

be able to project a more truthful, authentic understanding of the culture understudy. On the other hand, insiders have been accused of being inherently biased,and too close to the culture to be curious enough to raise provocative questions.The insiders strengths become the outsider s weaknesses and vice-versa. Theoutsiders advantage lies in curiosity with the unfamiliar, the ability to ask tabooquestions, and being seen as non-aligned with subgroups thus often getting moreinformation. However, as the above scenarios demonstrate, thesecharacterizations of insider/outsider are far too simple. Recent discussionsdrawing from critical and feminist theory, postmodernism and multiculturalism

offer us a deeper understanding of our experiences in the field. Three themes inparticular positionality, power, and representation are relevant for framing the insider/outsider debate.

Positionality

The notion of positionality rests on the assumption that a culture is more than amonoli thic enti ty to which one belongs or not . All cultures (including subcultures) are characterized by internal variation (Aguilar 1981: 25). To saythat one is an insider raises the question of What is it that an insider is insiderof? Aguilar notes that a more realistic model of the situation would view thelocal ethnographer as relatively inside (or outside) with respect to a multiplicity of social and cultural characteristics of a heterogeneous population (p. 25). Further,ones position vis-a-vis the culture can change. For example, as the collective,group-oriented nature of Malaysian culture characterized nearly all of ourinterviewing sessions, my positionality as an uncomfortable outsider shifted. I

began to expect others to be present and activities to be going on simultaneouslywith the interview. The most amusing example of this was an interview with anelderly Indian barber with the usual entourage of contact person, interpreter, andnephew. The five of us were squeezed into a corner of his small shop while lessthan five feet away his assistant cut hair, shaved, and chatted with customers.

A number of writers have addressed this notion of posit ional ity vis-a -vis culture.Villenas (1996: 722), for example, in exploring the relationship between herChicana cultural background and her relationships with both the Latinocommunity of study, and the dominant English-speaking community of power

and authority, realizes that as researchers, we can be insiders and outsiders to aparticular community of research participants at many different levels and atdifferent t imes. Recently, Banks (1998: 5), arguing from a multiculturalperspective, points out that we are all members of cultural communities wherethe interpretation of our life experiences is mediated by the interaction of acomplex set of status variables, such as gender, social class, age, polit icalaffiliation, religion, and region.

Positionality is thus determined by where one stands in relation to the other.More importantly, these positions can shift: The loci along which we are alignedwith or set apart from those whom we study are multiple and in flux. Factors


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such as education, gender, sexual orientation, class, race, or sheer duration of contacts may at different times outweigh the cultural identity we associate withinsider or outsider status (Narayan 1993: 671672). This is of course truewhether one is studying ones own or another culture. Johnson-Bailey (1999), for

example, points out that as an African-American woman researcher she was aninsider studying African-American women; however, d ifferences in social classand colour (whether she was lighter or darker than her interviewees) made herless of an insider, creating tensions in the interview process. Ming-yeh andYoungwha considered themselves insiders interviewing people from theirrespective cultures. Both discovered, however, that age, gender, social class andeducation rendered them less of an insider than they had anticipated. Youngwhashifted her position to more of an insider by becoming a regular customer atKorean restaurants and shops of several potential interviewees. Once perceived

as a regular client who was known to them, they permitted an interview. Gaboassumed since she was a middle-aged woman from the local community that thebusinesswomen would see her as an insider. But as a university woman, Gabo was viewed as an outsider to whom it was laborious to explain the seemingly obvious.From their perspective, she should have known what they knew. To get theneeded information she had to assume an outsider status, calling upon her USprofessors who, she told them, knew nothing of their culture.

Other positionalities are possible when focusing on insider/outsider variations.Banks (1998: 7) has proposed a typology based on the assumption that in a diversepluralistic society . . . individuals are socialized within ethnic, racial, and culturalcommunities and share knowledge that can differ in significant ways from thoseindividuals socialized within other microcultures. In this typology there are fourpossible positions. The indigenous-insider is one who endorses the unique values,perspectives, behaviors, beliefs, and knowledge of his or her indigenouscommunity and who can speak with authority about it (p. 7). Johnson-Bailey asa Black woman interviewing other re-entry Black women would be considered anindigenous-insider . Similarly with Mazanah when interviewing Malay Moslem

women. The indigenous-outsider , a second position, has experienced high levels of cultural assimilation into an outsider or oppositional culture but remainsconnected with his or her indigenous community. Ming-Yeh Lee, a long-timeresident of the US but still also Taiwanese Chinese is the best example of thiscategory, although Youngwha, Gabo, and Mazanah, by virtue of having studiedfor a doctoral degree outside of their own culture, would also fall into thiscategory. The external-insider both rejects much of his or her ind igenouscommunity and endorses those of another culture to become an adoptedinsider. Finally, the external-outsider is socialized within a community different

from the one in which he or she is doing research (p. 8). As a frequent visitor andshort-term resident of Malaysia, this last position in the typology characterizedmy participation in the study of ageing and learning in a non-western culture.

Power

There is a growing literature on the inequities present in all phases of social life,including research activities where these inequities are framed in terms of power-based relationships between the researcher and the researched. In the mid-


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seventies anthropology itself went through a crisis when it began to realize howexploitive it could be. Lewis (1973: 584), for example, cites Galtungs concept of scientific colonialism as the idea of unlimited right of access to data of any kind, just as the colonial power fe lt it had the right to lay its hand on any product of

commercial value in the territory. In this model the researcher holds all thepower; the researched are colonized and oppressed (Sanjek 1993).More recent analyses have exposed the power-based dynamics inherent in any

and all research and have suggested that power is something to not only be awareof, but to negotiate in the research process. In particular, feminist scholars areconcerned with foregrounding womens experiences, with participants having anequal relationship with the researcher, with the research experience being empowering, and with a more interactive relationship with the reader/consumerof the research (Lather 1991, Cotterill 1992, Reinharz 1992). Participatory action

research also focuses on the poli tical empowerment of people throughparticipation in knowledge construction. Participants are colleagues in theresearch process, equally in control of the research (Merriam and Simpson 2000).Likewise, teacher research is based on the notion that knowledge for teaching isinside/outside, a juxtaposition intended to call attention to teachers as knowersand to the complex and distinctly nonlinear relationships of knowledge andteaching as they are embedded in the contexts and relations of power (Cochran-Smith and Lytle 1993: xi).

In any team research, power is a factor and Mazanah and I were conscious of thebalance between my greater methodological knowledge and her greater culturalknowledge. The power of our position as professors at the university facilitatedconnecting with gatekeepers to gain access to participants. On the other hand,those we interviewed subtly negotiated our power as researchers by determining where and when the interview was held, who else would be present, and of coursewhat information was shared. Both verbally and non-verbally, people weinterviewed and often others present would express their amusement or disbelief at our questions. For example, the sister of one interviewee sat next to our

respondent but with her back to us, punctuating our interview with loudchuckling and asides to her sister about the silliness of the questions.Ming-Yeh also observed how the power dynamics of the interview process are

negotiated by the interviewer, the interviewees, and the culturally embeddedinterview context constructed by both. As noted earlier, Ming-Yeh wonderedwhether the frequent reference to education-related events was due to theseevents being t ruly significant in their lives, or because they were being interviewed by a highly educated woman from the native culture, emphasizing their own education would accrue more weight to their side of the power

equation. Age was another factor in that interviewees would position themselvesas older, more experienced, thus deserving of more status than the youngerresearcher. Ming-Yeh positions the power dynamics of the interview processwithin the cultural context. The power relationships embedded in the interviewcontext, she observes, are subject to the influences of gender, educationalbackground, and seniority the same elements that structure Taiwanese Chinesesociety. Her strong feminist orientation also made for a complex interaction withher more traditional respondents (Hsiung 1996).

Gabo also had to subtly negotiate the power dynamics of her situation. Herposition as a highly educated, university-affiliated woman carried little weight


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with the street-wise businesswomen of her study. She had to draw upon her personalskills and understanding of the Botswana family and group oriented culture toestablish rapport with the women. Conflicting interests characterized some of thedata collection. Her doing research was unimportant to the women; their

interests were centred on what she would do with the information, how she wouldtell their stories, and how these stories could be helpful in their efforts for greaterpower in this highly patriarchal society.

Representation

Every researcher struggles with representing the truth of their findings as well asallowing the voices of their participants to be heard. Some of the assumptions

underlying earlier, more static understandings of insider/outsider statuses werebased on positivist notions of reality. The insider, it was thought, had betteraccess to the introspective meanings of experience within a status or a group(Merton 1978: 41). The outsider though, could see things not evident to insiders,and render a more objective portrayal of the reality under study. Constructivistand postmodern notions of truth and reality make for a much more complexunderstanding of the truths insiders and outsiders uncover. Constructivists arguethat knowledge/reality/truth is constructed by individuals and by humancommunities, while postmodernists assert that there is no single truth or realityindependent of the knower. From a postmodern perspective, when it comes totruth, there is either no truth, many truths, or truth for a particular culture. Inother words, if truth is possible, it is relative . . .. All claims to Truth are seen asarbitrary acts of power that include and exclude individuals and groups(Cunningham and Fitzgerald 1996: 49).

The case descriptions presented earlier in this article all reveal the researchersstruggles with accurately interpreting their participants perspectives. Johnson-Bai ley (1999: 666667) speaks of the code Blacks use to discuss colour

discrimination, for example:

Before my interview with Marcie, when we were engaged in the obligatorypre-interview chitchat, she inquired about my social background and mysoror ity aff il ia tions. I knew immediately that th is was part of ourcommunitys code for ascertaining where color stood in our lives. Sheidentified my sorority as having a preference for light-skinned women. Iassured her that this was not important to me and that I considered the ideaof colorism as akin to having a slave mentality . . .. Nevertheless, Marcie let

me know several times that my light skin stood between us as a source of tension by casually referring to the snobbishness of the yella girls like meat her exclusive all-womens school.

Gabo struggled with understanding the African proverbs as applied to businessconcepts. Ming-Yeh and Youngwha needed to consider how Asian cultural valueswere shaping the responses to their questions. Mazanah and I had troubleconveying what we wanted to know because the topic of our research ageing and learning and the research methodology were foreign to our participants.For example, asking what it meant to successfully age was quickly dropped as


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being incomprehensible in a culture that doesnt think about ageing the wayWestern research has defined it. We had similar problems with questions aboutwhat they valued most at this stage in life, who was a role model for them forageing, and what learning act ivities they engaged in (Merriam and Mazanah 2000).

Understanding and fairly representing participants perspectives is furthercomplicated when language translation is involved. Although Gabo, Ming-Yeh,and Youngwha all interviewed in their native languages, the findings from ananalysis of these interviews (most of which were translated into English) werepresented in English. Idioms, metaphors, cultural nuances translate awkwardly, if at all, and almost always need to be explained. Mazanah and I were furtherencumbered by the fact that the older generation of Malaysians has had littleformal education and the Indian and Chinese Malay elderly more often than nothave lived within their ethnic communities speaking their native language. In one

interview with an 83-year-old Indian Malay who had spent his work life on arubber plantation, the interview began with my asking a question in English.Mazanah translated into Malay, and the nephew of our participant translatedinto the mans Tamil language of south India. Occasionally the nephews son,and our contact person, would help clarify in Tamil. His answers were in Tamil,translated into Malay and then into English. Of course we worried about whetherthe translation back to us of respondents answers had captured their meanings.Ideally, trained bilingual or trilingual translators would have accompanied us onthese interviews. But as with most research, the reality of data collection andanalysis involves compromise and negotiation. During the interview itself, ouronly option, in addition to asking multiple variations of the same question, was totrust our interpreters. That common patterns did emerge across interviewsconducted in four different languages (Malay, Tamil, Chinese, English), we feltlent some measure of validity to the translations. Paz (1992: 154) captures how apostmodern view of knowledge construction is underscored in the many truths initerations of the same text:

On the one hand, the world is presented to us as a collection of similarities, onthe other as a growing heap of texts, each slightly different from the one thatcame before it. Translations of translations of translations. Each text is unique, yet at the same time it is the translation of another text. No text can becompletely original because language i tself in i ts essence is already atranslation first from a non-verbal world, and then because each sign andeach phrase is a translation of another sign, another phrase.

Conclusion

What an insider sees and understands will be different from, but as valid as whatan outsider understands. As Lewis (1973: 590) recognized more than 25 years ago,If anthropology is to adapt to the realities of the modern world, it will be necessaryto approach the study . . . through a multiplicity of perspectives as these areinfluenced by different interests and needs. The views of both insider andoutsider must be accepted as legitimate attempts to understand the nature of culture. We would argue that drawing from contemporary perspectives oninsider/outsider status, that in the course of a study, not only will the researcher


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experience moments of being both insider and outsider, but that these positions arerelative to the cultural values and norms of both the researcher and the participants.Narayan (1993: 679) captures the interactivity of positionality, power, andknowledge with his discussion of positioned knowledges and partial perspectives.

He writes, To acknowledge particular and personal locations is to admit thelimits of ones purview from these positions. It is also to undermine the notion of objectivity, because from particular locations all understanding becomessubjectively based and forged through interactions within fields of powerrelations. Through reflecting on the experiences of a Black woman interviewing Black women, Asians interviewing people from home, an African scholarinterviewing local businesswomen, and a cross-cultural team studying ageing andlearning in a non-western culture, we hope that we have helped uncover theintricacies of claiming an insider or outsider status. A closer look at these

fieldwork experiences revealed multiple insider/outsider positionalities andcomplex power dynamics, factors bearing on knowledge construction andrepresentation in the research process.

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Power and Positionality- Negotiating Insider:Outsider Status Within and Across Cultures