Confronting the Discomfort: A Critical Analysis of Privilege and Positionality in Development

Abstract

This autoethnographic piece seeks to demonstrate the continuous reflexive journey of researchers in acknowledging and addressing their privileges. Through reflections on fieldnotes and a subsequent paper written during my own doctoral research, I will explore how my immersion within postcolonial scholarship forced me to address how my own positionality in the field has re-enacted colonial dynamics in the field of global education. Thus, the paper will argue that in the same vein that we call on learners and educators to reflect on their privileges and positionality through pedagogical practices, we too as researchers must consider how the privileges we hold impacts our epistemological and methodological approach to study.