Stranger in a Strange Land: Conducting Qualitative Literacy Research Across Contexts

Abstract

This chapter focuses on exploring researcher positionality when working in different contexts that one may be disconnected from and/or otherwise unfamiliar with. The author begins by exploring existing work in community literacy studies and race studies that problematize researcher/community partnerships. After contextualizing his perspective through discussion of existing work, the author devotes the central part of the chapter to exploring two particular experiences of the researcher working in unfamiliar contexts: a study focused on Latina/o students transitioning from high school to community college or university on the U.S.–Mexico border and a study focused on literacy education in rural and small town high schools. These explorations discuss experiences such as being a white researcher in a school that is 99 % Latina/o, and being the big city, big institution researcher in towns with only a thousand people. In the concluding sections, the author discusses several strategies he has utilized to make contexts across these different environments, such as learning local languages, choosing theoretical frameworks carefully, and building collaborative relationships with participants.