The conditionality of status: Experience-based reflections on the insider/outsider issue

When a researcher undertakes research into his/her own ethnic group, issues of positionality abound. These issues relate not only to the impact of inherent insider positionality when interacting with study participants but also in the interpretation and presentation of study findings. My research with contemporary Irish immigrants not only reinforced the advantages of being an insider but also highlighted the incomplete and unstable nature of insiderness. Heterogeneity within the study group, in terms of their geo-political, regional and religious origins, meant that presumptions of insiderness and outsiderness were frequently challenged. A new awareness of the conditionality of each positionality was forged from these experiences.