Ramdeo, Janet ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2744-8572 (2024) Gatekeeping of researcher positionality: should this be the norm in research with/on racially minoritised participants? In: The London Institute of Social Studies Research Methodology Conference: Decolonising Research Methodologies and Methods (RMC 2023), 16th June, 2023, Birkbeck, University of London. (Unpublished)

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Abstract

In 2020, Dr Addy Adeleine and nine other Black academics, researchers, community representatives and professionals involved in research wrote an open letter to UKRI to highlight the inequalities in the award of £4.3 million to explore Covid-19 and its disproportionate impact on Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic communities. They noted that none of the funding was awarded to Black academic leads but that one member of the awards assessment panel was co-investigator on three of the six successfully awarded studies. They raised in their letter the apparent lack of critical reflection on the inherent systems, processes and power imbalances and questioned the balance of panelists who have specific specialism and training in race, ethnicity and inequality as an independent field of inquiry. They further noted concerns presented by Black individuals, many of whom have repeatedly expressed a desire to challenge and study the impact of systemic and structural racism but are invisible when appropriate research funding is awarded. In this situation, questions arise about who was gatekeeping the qualifications, backgrounds and particularly the positionality of the academic leads awarded this funding. Why did the awarding panel neglect to consider that “members of affected communities should be leaders in the response and not just be supportive voices within the research framework”? What made the successfully awarded academic leads most suited to explore the experiences of racially minoritised communities when Black academic leads were bypassed?
Gatekeeping in social science research is often associated with access to participants, particularly vulnerable, marginalised or minoritised communities, for data collection purposes (Aaltonen and Kivijärvi, 2019; Emmel et al, 2007; Singh and Wassenaar, 2016). However, this paper raises the question of whether there should also be gatekeepers from conception to dissemination that ensure that researchers consider and articulate the researcher/researched power dynamics and ‘who they are’ in the research process involving these communities, particularly when there is not a match between the researcher and researched. The ethical approval process will generally require researchers to consider power imbalances and whilst some ethnographic researchers explicitly express their positionality in the dissemination of their research, this is not consistent and the depth of reflexivity varies. More problematic is the broader issue of who is being afforded the opportunities to conducted funded research with minoritised communities without gatekeeping whether they are justifying ‘who they are’ and what makes them the most appropriate researchers to conduct this research, as highlighted by the open letter to UKRI.
In research that specifically involves racially minoritised communities, locating the researcher in areas related to social and political contexts of the research and the researched group, including the impact of ‘race’ and ethnic differences or similarities, and researcher ontological and epistemological beliefs which influence their research are particularly pertinent. Researcher positionality “reflects the position that the researcher has chosen to adopt within a given research study” (Savin-Baden and Major, 2013, p. 71), influencing how research is conducted, its outcomes and results. Holmes (2020) notes that some aspects of positionality are considered fixed, such as social identities (gender, ‘race’/ethnicity, skin-colour, nationality) whilst other aspects are more fluid, subjective and contextual, such as political views and personal life experiences. Fletcher (2010) notes that the researcher positionality, and specifically researcher biographies related to ‘race’ and/or ethnicity, problematises fieldwork and permeates all stages of the research – from “the questions they ask, to those that are ignored, from problem mutilation to analysis, representation and writing” (2010, p. 2). Positionality is informed by reflexivity. Reflexivity is the concept that researchers “should acknowledge and disclose their selves in research, seeking to understand their part in it, or influence on it” (Cohen et al, 2011). Although much has been written about researcher positionality (Manohar et al, 2017; Milner, 2007, as examples), articulation of a researcher’s position relies on the researcher’s willingness to declare their ontological and epistemological standpoints in relation to the researched group, the importance researchers place on discussing this concept, the openness to be critiqued on researcher/researched differences and power structures which are presented or omitted in research outputs and who, if anyone, is asking them ‘who they are’ in relation to their researched community. Although positionality statements are increasingly being included in outputs, not all researchers conducting studies with racially minoritised groups explicitly acknowledge their positionality. Should this be a choice or an expected norm? Who could and should hold researchers accountable for acknowledging and disclosing their selves if the researcher themselves do not?
I am a racially minoritised Early Career Researcher (ECR) but I was not ‘race’ matched to the Black women participants in my own research project. During the research process and in disseminating my work, I experienced multiple forms of checks and balances through gatekeepers who forced me to robustly articulate my positionality and who I am in the research process, making the researcher biography inescapable. Was this to authenticate my suitability to carry out research with Black communities in a way that the example of the UKRI failed to do? This paper presents an autoethnographic perspective of the experiences of being asked four specific questions by a range of stakeholders through the research activity and publication process, acting as gatekeepers about my positionality. I then raise the question of whether the practice of gatekeeping researcher positionality should be embedded in the research process with racially minoritised participants, from conception to dissemination, and who or what processes could potentially act as these gatekeepers.
References:
Aaltonen, S. and Kivijärvi, A. (2019) Disrupting professional practices with research-driven intervention. Researcher-gatekeeper negotiations in the context of targeted youth services, Qualitative Social Work, 18(4), pp. 621-637. DOI: 10.1177/1473325018757080.
Cohan, L., Manion, L. and Morrison, K. R. B. (2011) Research Methods in Education, London: Routledge.
Emmel, N., Hughes, K. and Greenhalgh (2007) Accessing socially excluded people- Trust and the gatekeeper in the researcher-participant relationship, Sociological research online, 12(2) pp. 43-55. DOI: 10.5253/sro.1512.
Fletcher, T. (2010) “Being inside and outside the field”. An exploration of identity, positionality and reflexivity in inter-racial research, Leisure Identities and Authenticity (LSA Publication), Vol. 107, pp. 1-20.
Holmes, A. G. D. (2020) Researcher Positionality – A Consideration of Its Influence and Place in Qualitative Research – A new Researcher Guide, International Journal of Education, 8(4), pp. 1-10. DOI: 10.34293/education.v8i4.3232.
Manohar, N., Liamputtong, P., Bhole, S. and Arora, A. (2017) Researcher Positionality in Cross-Cultural and Sensitive Research, Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, pp. 1-15. DOI: 10.1007/978-981-10-2779-6_35-1.
Milner, H. R. (2007) Race, Culture, and Researcher Positionality: Working Through Dangers Seen, Unseen, and Unforseen, Educational Researcher, 36(7), pp. 388-400, DOI: 10.3102/0013189X07309471.
Savin-Baden, M. and Major, C. H. (2013) Qualitative Research: The Essential Guide to Theory and Practice, London: Routledge.
Singh, S. and Wassenaar, D. R. (2016) Contextualising the role of the gatekeeper in social science research, South African Journal of Bioethics and Law, 9(1), pp. 42-46. DOI: 10.7196/SAJBL.465.

Item Type:	Conference or Conference Paper (Paper)
Uncontrolled Keywords:	positionality, race research, self-reflexivity
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > H Social Sciences (General) H Social Sciences > HT Communities. Classes. Races L Education > L Education (General)
Faculty / School / Research Centre / Research Group:	Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences Faculty of Education, Health & Human Sciences > School of Education (EDU)
Related URLs:	Organisation Organisation
Last Modified:	13 Feb 2026 14:12
URI:	https://gala.gre.ac.uk/id/eprint/52480

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