Abstract
This article uses examples of the experience I had in the field as an indigenous researcher in Turkey in order to problematize claims to knowledge. I contend that for researchers who are positioned as relative “insiders,” whether indigenous or bicultural, such aspects of the researcher identity as gender, class, professional and relationship status are made especially salient, perhaps even more so in Middle Eastern contexts. I also argue that while indigenous status can be both empowering and restricting, the insider/outsider position can be employed as a useful vantage point for “rethinking the familiar.” I discuss with examples how this position informed my researcher role and my perspective on what is traditional.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abu-Lughod, L. (1988) “Fieldwork of a ‘dutiful’ daughter.” In S. Altorki and El-Solh (Eds.)Arab women in the field. New York: Syracuse University Press.
Abu-Lughod, L. (1993).Writing women's worlds: Bedouin stories. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Acker, J., Barry, K. & Esseveld, J. (1983) “Objectivity and truth: Problems in doing feminist research.”Women's Studies International Forum, 6, 4, 423–435.
Aguilar, J. (1981) “Insider research: An ethnography of a debate.” In D. A. Messerschmidt (ed.),Anthropologists at home in North America: Methods and issues in the study of one's own society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Altorki, S. (1988) “At home in the field.” In S. Altorki and F. El-Solh (Eds.)Arab women in the field. New York: Syracuse University Press.
Atkinson, J. M. (1982) “Anthropology: A review essay.”Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 8, 2, 437–458.
Bhavnani, K. (1993) “Tracing the contours: Feminist research and feminist objectivity.”Women's Studies International Forum, 16, 2, 95–104.
Bertaux-Wiame, I. (1981) “The life-history approach to the study of internal migration.” In D. Bertaux (Ed.)Biography and society: The life-history approach in the social sciences. Sage Publications.
Bolak, H. (1995) “Towards a conceptualization of marital power dynamics: Women breadwinners and working class households in Turkey.” In S. Tekeli (Ed)Women in modern Turkish society. N.J.: Zed Press.
Buckley, P. (1993) “Observing the other: Reflections on anthropological fieldwork.”Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 42, 2, 2, 613–635.
Chodorow, N. (1989) “Seventies questions for thirties women: Gender and generation in a study of early women psychoanalysts.” In N. Chodorow, (1989)Feminism and Psychoanalysis. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Clark, M. H. (1983) “Variations on themes of male and female: Reflections on gender bias in fieldwork in rural Greece.”Women's Studies, 10, 117–133.
Clifford, J. (1986) “Introduction: Partial truths.” In J. Clifford and G. E. Marcus (Eds.)Writing Culture: The poetics and politics of ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Collins, P. H. (1986) “Learning from the outsider within: The sociological significance of Black feminist thought.”Social Problems, 33, “6.
Daniels, A. K. (1983) “Self-deception and self-discovery in fieldwork.”Qualitative Sociology, 6, 3, 195–214.
Dorn, P. (1986) “Gender and personhood: Turkish jewish proverbs and the politics of reputation.”Women's Studies International Forum, 9, 3, 295–301.
Early, E. A. (1985) “Catharsis and creation. The everyday narratives of baladi women of Cairo.”Anthropological Quarterly. Self and Society in the Middle East (Special Issue), 172–181.
Fine, M. (1989) “Coping with rape: Perspectives on consciousness.” In R. Unger (Ed.)Representations: Social constructions of gender. Amityville: Baywood Publishing.
Fine, M. & Gordon, S. M. (1989) “Feminist transformations of/despite psychology.” In M. Crawford & M. Gentry (eds.)Gender and thought: psychological perspectives. New York: Springer.
Freilich, M. (Ed.) (1977)Marginal natives: Anthropologists at work. New York: Harper & Row.
Friedl, E. (1970) “Fieldwork in a Greek village.” In P. Golde (Ed.),Women in the field. Chicago: Aldine.
Gannage, C. (1986)Double day, double bind: Women garment workers. Toronto: The Women's Press.
Golde, P. (ed.) (1986)Women in the field: anthropological perspectives. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Gordon, D. (1988) “Writing culture, writing feminism: The poetics and politics of experimental ethnography.”Inscriptions, 3/4, 7–24.
Haraway, D. (1988) “Situated knowledges: The science question in feminism and the privilege of partial perspective.”Feminist Studies, 14, 3, 575–599.
Harding, S. (1991)Whose science, whose knowledge? Thinking from women's lives. Ithaca, NY.: Cornell University Press.
Hare-Mustin, R. (1989) “The problem of gender in family therapy theory.” In M. Goldrick, C. M. Anderson and F. Walsh (Eds.)Women in families: A framework for family therapy. N.Y.: W.W. Norton & Co., Inc.
Hondagneu-Sotelo, P. (1988) “Gender and fieldwork.”Women's Studies International Forum, 11, 6, 611–618.
Joseph, S. (1988) “Feminization, familism, self and politics.” In S. Altorki and F. El-Solh (Eds.)Arab women in the field. New York: Syracuse University Press.
Joseph, S. (1993) “Gender and relationality among Arab families in Lebanon.”Feminist Studies, 19, 3, 465–486.
Kawar, Amal (1991) “The intersection of gender and politics: Revising a political science course.”Women's Studies International Forum, 14, 305–309.
Kikumura, A. (1981)Through harsh winters. Novato, CA: Chandler and Sharp.
Krieger, S. (1985) “Beyond ‘subjectivity’: The use of the self in social science.”Qualitative Sociology, 8, 4, 309–324.
Martin, E. (1987)The woman in the body: A cultural analysis of reproduction. Boston, Mass.: Beacon Press.
Mascia-Lees, F. Sharpe, P. & Cohen, C. B. (1989) “The postmodernist turn in anthropology: Cautions from a feminist perspective.”Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 15, 11, 7–33.
Morsy, S. (1988) “Fieldwork in my Egyptian homeland.” In S. Altorki and F. El-Solh (Eds.)Arab women in the field. New York: Syracuse University Press.”
Ohnuki-Tierney, E. (1984) “Native anthropologists.”American Ethnologist, 11, 3, 584–586.
Ong, A. (1988) “Colonialism and modernity: feminist re-presentations of women in non-Western societies.”Inscriptions, 3/4, 79–93.
Ortner, S. (1984) “Theory in anthropology since the sixties.”Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History, 26, 1.
Parlee, M. B. (1979) “Psychology and women.”Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, 5, 1, 521–533.
Reinharz, S. (1983) “Experiential analysis: A contribution to feminist research.” In G. Bowles and D. Klein (Eds.)Theories of Women's Studies. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.”
Reinharz, S. (1984)On becoming a social scientist. Transaction Books.
Reinharz, S. (1994) “Rethinking the familiar: Developing a healthy distrust of implicit messages, presumed fairness and benign neutrality. Distinguished Publication Award Invited Address, Association of Women in Psychology.
Ribbens, J. (1989) “Interviewing-An ‘unnatural situation’?”Women's Studies International Forum, 12, 6, 579–592.
Scheper-Hughes, N. (1983) “Introduction: The problem of bias in androcentric and feminist anthropology.”Women's Studies, 10.
Scheper-Hughes, N. & Clark, M. (Eds.) (1983)Women's Studies, 10. Special Issue.
Sherif, C. (1979) “Bias in psychology.” In J. Sherman & T. Beck (Eds.)The prism of sex: Essays in the sociology of knowledge. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press.
Smith, D. (1987) “The everyday world as a problematic: A feminist methodology.” In D. Smith (Ed.)The everyday world as a problematic: A feminist sociology. Boston: Northeastern University Press.
Stacey, J. (1988) “Can there be feminist ethnography?”Women's Studies International Forum, 11, 1, 21–27.
Stephenson, J. B. & Greer, L. S. (1981) “Ethnographers in their own cultures: Two appalachian cases.”Human Organization, 40, 2, 123–130.
Strathern, M. (1987) “An awkward relationship: The case of feminism and anthropology.”Signs: Journal of Women in Cultural and Society, 12, 2, 276–292.
Warren, C. A. (1988)Gender issues in field research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Whitehead, T. L. & Conaway, M. E. (Eds.) (1988)Self, sex and gender in cross-cultural fieldwork. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bolak, H.C. Studying one's own in the Middle East: Negotiating gender and self-other dynamics in the field. Qual Sociol 19, 107–130 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393250
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02393250