Researchers’ identities and their consequences for fieldwork. The methodological and scientific implications of gender,illicit practices and disclosure.

Abstract

Is it possible to conduct rigorous, reflexive social science research without revealing something of oneself? This is the question I propose to address in this article, analysing the influence that my personal identities as a researcher, my gender identity, and my experiences in the drug scene had on my access to this field, the nature of the data gathered and the process of analysing that data. As a woman who uses drugs writing a research thesis on female drug users in Bordeaux and Montreal, I was very well integrated into the Bordeaux field context and much less so in Montreal, resulting in an asymmetrical comparison. This asymmetry cannot be explained without taking into account my own personal experience among drug users. My gender identity also shaped the data-gathering process: during my field research I had to contend with sexual harassment, as well as being on the receiving end of stereotypes undermining my credibility, all the while dealing with my own emotional trauma linked to past experiences of sexual violence. The resulting research is a form of “delinquent ethnography”, whose participatory dimension has clear scientific and methodological advantages, but which also raises important ethical questions. This article concludes with some proposals for protecting women researchers from gender violence and inequality in their fieldwork.