Hi Rosemary,
Am responding to your query about insider/outsider status in the research
process. This is an issue that ethnographers and anthropologists have
discussed for a long time and on a number of different levels. Litterature
on the emic-etic distinctions would be worth studying I think.
I studied an Indian NGO as an activity system and analysed that from a
Sociocultural theoretical perspective. The women who worked in this system
represented the complexity of Indian urban society. I have roots in the
Indian subcontinent and explicitly problematized notions of insider and
outsider not just in my role as researcher (re)visiting 'cultures' that
once were familiar but I also applied to my unit of analysis (the activity
settings where the women were working) notions of newcomers as being
*outsiders to practices* and becoming *insiders* as they appropriated
different issues in those complex institutionalized settings.
I explicate these issues in my thesis (published) which has the following
title: "Human Development and Institutional Practices. Women, Child Care
and the Mobile Creches" (1995) Tema Kommunikation, Universitet i Linkoping,
Sweden.
Best wishes,
Sangeeta
>I am interested to know about the advantage and disadvantage of being an
>insider in a qualitative research. I am researching an ethnic minority in
>India called the Nagas, and I myself I am a Naga. This group has been in
>conflict with the Indian state for the past over five decades.
>
>My methodology is in-depth interviews on the life histories of my
>interviewee. I am also interested to know what caution an insider can
>take both in conducting the research and writing. Please refer me
>books and articles.
______________________________________________________
Sangeeta Bagga-Gupta
Ph.D, M.Sc, M.Ed
Deaf & Hard-of-Hearing Studies
Department of Education, PI Phone: +46-(0)19 - 303589
University of Örebro Fax: +46-(0)19 - 303259
701 82 Örebro
SWEDEN Home (tel/fax/text-tel)
+46-(0)19 - 362228
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