positions positions..

In fieldworking, positioning describes the personal responses of the researcher to the data. This is important in ethnographic writing because such themes help to provide connections for the reader and writer of the study, and provides a credibility to the researcher as he/she recognizes their presence and influence in the ehtnography. Through observations and data collection the researcher may interpret and collect data in a seeminly subjective manner, although positioning essentially promotes "objectivity through intersubjectivity, the method of connecting as many different perspectives on the same data as possible" (131).

There are several methods in which a researcher may position themselves in relationship to the enthnography. Fixed positions include relatively invariable factors like age, class, gender, race of the researcher. These are usually not examined or considered during a study, according to the article. Subjective positions include the researchers life experiences that may influence the study, especially on an emotional level. Lastly, textual positions consist of the language choices implemented throughout the study to interpret and present the data.

Such positions in ethnographic writing can be observed in Ralph Cintron's "A Boy and His Wall". An example of a fixed position may be the authors background as an American male - his middle class caucasian background is shown as he is studying the Latino community. This is especially evident when he first describes Valerio's home and family. Furthermore, subjective positioning elements of Cintron can be seen as well. His childhood and life growing up in the United States would influence this writing. Any especially obvious example would include that provided on page 100, where he describes Valerio's feelings towards the word chero, and how he can relate to the experience, suggesting that he had also had a similar personal experience in the past. Additionally, the author recognizes that spending time with Valerio and the family influences the way he began to think and interact - experiences from the study itself prove to have also promoted subject positioning elements in his ethnography. His writing as a whole is certainly influences by his background and and personal experiences in relation to the Latino community, from which the textual positioning elements are derived. His word choices and descriptions of different situations reveal his underlying feelings towards the community, which in a sense re-iterate his background an socioeconomic class (he alludes to this on several occasions).

Question: if you have already completed your first fieldworking session, do you find any of these elements already present, or have a sense of these elements may be present next time or in your writing? Do you perhaps notice any obvious subjective/fixed positioning (like these had influenced Citron's writing and feelings( already occurring in your research?