A Self-reflexive Positionality to Navigate the Invective Latency of Ethnographic Relations: Insights From Lebanon and Germany

Abstract

Positionality has become increasingly important in ethnographic and autoethnographic research. The recent “reflexive turn” in migration studies has encouraged scholars to discuss the concept from different perspectives (e.g., gender, ethnicity, and class). Yet, positionality is relational: It is the result of ongoing interactions between how researchers present themselves in the field and how research participants perceive these presentations. Because self-positioning and positioning of others are mutually bound to each other, positionality reflects a continuous negotiation between actors who may be motivated by different interests. For this reason, it is necessary for researchers to analytically reflect upon the implications of these mutual positionings to more fully understand how to navigate research fields. This is especially important for sensitive research fields—like migration and forced migration—characterized by inequalities, hierarchical structures, and unequal power relations. The present article uses insights from fieldwork conducted among Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Germany between 2017 and 2019 to show how configurations of “humanitarian paternalism” and researchers’ false expectations to save the world can frame positionality as a meta-invective action. Positionality informed by self-reflexivity can help to explore the invective latency of field relations and let contradictions, discomfort, and disharmonic elements emerge. This does not mean that field relations will become more equal and that power structures and inequalities will be reduced as a result. However, being aware of these invective elements offers the opportunity to explore a level of analysis that is often overlooked and make steps toward decolonizing research methodologies and knowledge production.

Social scientists have long acknowledged the role of positionality as an essential part of (auto)ethnographic research. This is especially true for critical ethnography, where a key outcome of the research process is to reflect upon what has been learned about the “self” as a result of the study of the “other” (Chiseri-Strater, 1996, p. 119). Nowadays, positionality is central in migration and refugee studies, especially in qualitative research (Bloch, 1999; Carpi, 2020, 2021; Gatter, 2020; Kassan et al., 2020; Müller-Funk, 2021). Most ethnographic accounts conceptualize positionality as identifying taken-for-granted assumptions, beliefs, judgments, and practices throughout the entire research process. It entails recognizing how individuals embody prior personal and professional experiences and beliefs about how things work in the world. By positioning themselves in the field, researchers situate themselves geographically and socially, define their position in relation to others, and reveal their motivations and interests in investigating the field.

The way researchers and participants situate their positionality in relation to one another influences the whole research process, including the research design and methodology, the construction of methodological tools, field access, the collection of quality data, and the research results and outcomes (Rowe, 2014). Furthermore, positionality implies the recognition of the researcher as part of the research itself (Cohen et al., 2011). “The field” and “fieldwork” do not exist without the researcher’s construction of them.

The growing engagement of sociologists with issues related to positionality, and more specifically the recent “reflexive turn” in migration studies (Amelina, 2021), have led to attempts to benchmark positionality and deeply engage with the consequences of “situatedness” (Rowe, 2014). For example, many authors have framed researchers’ positionality as fluid rather than fixed, because values, identities, and other contextual aspects of positionality can change over time and in accordance with social and geographical contexts (Holmes, 2020; Rowe, 2014). Especially in sensitive research environments, ethnographers have placed particular emphasis on negotiating field access with participants and other actors because these local power-holders and non-state actors can significantly affect the production of knowledge (Carpi, 2020).

However, although increasing scholarship recognizes that positionality is relational, the various configurations of field relations—especially the conflictual elements of these relationships—still do not receive full consideration. I conceptualize positionality as a continuous negotiation of positioning as a result of ongoing interactions between how the researcher presents herself or himself to the field and the ways in which the actors in the field conceive her or him. This logic also applies for participants’ positionality, which is constructed in relationship to and with the researcher. In other words, both actors construct their positionality in relation to the other and they are perceived by the other actor through their own understanding of their positionality. This also implies that both actors’ positionalities are constructed and based upon their own interests in the relationship.

With these latter considerations in mind, this article brings attention to key structures that shape and challenge the field(s) of migration research. I specifically explore the notion of “humanitarian paternalism” (Barnett, 2011) and the misconception that as scholars we have to save the world to account for the meta-invective character of positionality. Through this self-reflective approach, and drawing upon insights from fieldwork conducted in Lebanon and Germany between 2017 and 2019, I explore the “invective latency of ethnographic relations” (see Greschke in this volume) to challenge analytical constructions that are biased by the sense of discomfort that world inequalities produce. I consider how self-reflexive positionality might offer the opportunity to produce better quality data and an opportunity to explore a level of analysis that is often overlooked. In so doing, the latter may also offer important steps toward decolonizing research methodologies and knowledge production.

The research questions driving this article are the following: What kinds of uncomfortable feelings, conflicts, troubles, and crises can be identified in field relations if we look at them through self-reflexive lenses? How can we use considerations about our feelings in ethnographic analyses?

In what follows, I first present my theoretical approach and show how “humanitarian paternalism” often conditions researchers’ fieldwork and becomes an expression of the invective latency of ethnographic relationships. I then introduce the fieldwork upon which the present article is based. In this section, I explain how I initially positioned myself in the field as well as the participants in this research. I then reflect on my positioning procedures within the framework of metainvective positioning circle. Finally, I show how self-reflexive positionality can be used as a tool for meta-invective analysis to investigate the invective latency of ethnographic relations.

Humanitarian Paternalism and How We Learn That We Have to Save the World

Young researchers may often assume that their studies should somehow contribute to improving the lives of their research participants. This assumption stems not only from our will to be good persons, to work ethically, and to do no harm to the people with whom we work. It also comes from the external world. Research-to-action approaches, applied research, and participatory research methods explicitly engage with local priorities and entail direct collaboration with those affected by the issue being studied with the aim to provide evidence and change actions (Greenwood et al., 1993). More often, however, the effects of qualitative research on populations “being studied” are not immediately evident or visible. In the short term, research may advance knowledge and deeper understandings of social problems and inequalities, but it does not provide (nor is it expected to) prescriptions or tangible solutions for addressing them.

In my work, the external pressure of helping out and contributing to solving societal problems was very clear when, while doing fieldwork among displaced Syrian families in Germany in 2019, I was often asked how my research would “help the refugees” or how it would improve the work of humanitarian actors. At times, I was refused field access by humanitarian organizations in Germany that were not convinced about the “good impact” of my research on their work or their “beneficiaries.” In their conviction to protect these people from me and my questions, they positioned these people as vulnerable individuals who would be unable to decide for themselves whether to participate in my research or not. In fact, they were following the precepts of the so-called “humanitarian paternalism.”

Humanitarian paternalism situates groups like refugees as victims and “speechless emissaries,” whose experiences of displacement compromise their abilities to reason (Malkki, 1996, p. 384). This was also reiterated by Abdelrahman, a young Syrian man I met in Munich, who stated, “Germans make refugees more victim than what they are so that they can help them better” (Abdelrahman. Personal interview. Munich, Germany. March 20, 2019). In the humanitarian context, the paternalistic approach is mostly based on stereotypes and selective humanitarianism, which communicates that the refugee is a powerless individual experiencing only violence and abuse. The literature has plenty of examples of humanitarian paternalism and some of these particularly pertain to how humanitarian paternalism has been used to frame gender-based humanitarian interventions. In a study about the protracted Sahrawi refugee situation, migration scholar Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh highlighted that refugee women in Algeria-based camps were considered “ideal refugees” by the UN Refugee Agency, framing camps as a good practice for gender mainstreaming interventions (Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, 2010). While driving refugees’ political representatives to speak under gender equality to ensure a continuation of funding, this discourse of the “ideal refugee” reinforced the exclusion of all other gender categories of non-ideal refugees from services. This is just one example of how humanitarian narratives establish who is “worthy” of humanitarian assistance by placing them into categories of exceptionalism. Along these lines, political scientist Lewis Turner has observed that Syrian refugee men in Jordan had “an uncertain position as objects of humanitarian care” (Turner, 2019, p. 3). Conceiving these men as in need of humanitarian care, or vulnerable, would have challenged the binary understanding of refugee men as political actors and refugee women as in need of empowerment (Turner, 2019, pp. 13–14).

These politics of victimization, in which refugees are constructed as individuals who are incapable and unable to make decisions for themselves about their life, not only labels them in discourse (Zetter, 1991) but also constructs their positionality in particular ways that affect their capacity to be active agents of their life. Through “politics of voice” (Haile, 2020), “giving voice to the voiceless” and by “speaking on behalf of refugees,” humanitarian actors exercise a moral authority that may silence people’s voices and deny their agency. Political scientist Michael Barnett called this phenomenon “humanitarian paternalism,” meaning the condition in which the freedom of action of an individual is hindered by the actions of others and justified by beneficent or protective reasons (Barnett, 2011). This attitude not only victimizes refugees and generalizes their experiences, but it also normalizes the exceptionality of their situation. Hence, refugees stop being “seen” as individuals who became displaced due to certain life circumstances and are instead dehumanized and transformed into individuals whose condition of refugeehood is their identity.

Humanitarian paternalism carries a metainvective power, but it is not exclusive to humanitarian actors. The work of ethnographers and migration scholars often reflects humanitarian paternalism as well. For instance, humanitarian paternalism is the lens through which university training in migration studies and refugee studies is often organized. In particular, the discipline of Forced Migration Studies has initiated a phase of political humanitarianism with a strong emphasis on “civilizing the other” (Chimni, 2009). Lacking criticality, they are frequently influenced by biased assumptions about the poor migrant and the helpless refugee and the idea that doing research “on” these people would produce knowledge that will eventually have an impact on their life (Skran & Daughtry, 2007), or at least on migration policies of a country. In fact, it is extremely unlikely that research participants would see any improvement in their own life due to their participation in research or an interview. Similarly, in many countries, migration policies are rarely influenced by data and evidence-based research (Black, 2001) and they are more likely to follow political ideologies and propaganda. This is especially true as migration and forced migration are extremely politically-charged topics.

In terms of field positionality, the idea that we have to save the world is often embedded in our training as ethnographers and the research methods that we learn. In other words, we are naively taught that by being aware of power imbalances and respecting certain ethical criteria with our research methodologies, we will eventually develop the ability and power to establish more equal field relations and by default, decrease inequalities. These unrealistic considerations make us feel morally obligated and personally responsible for the ethical problems of our very unequal world, and as a consequence, we try to solve these problems vicariously in and through the social relations we establish during fieldwork. Driven by metainvective criticism, we fail to represent the state of the world and its inequalities as we experienced them in our ethnographic relations.

The crisis of ethnographic representation understood as a metainvective positioning circle opens the doors to conceive critical ethnography that problematizes power relations in field research as one of the voices that enhance the metainvective circle. As a result, we as ethnographers try to act morally “right” in the field and naively attempt to reduce power asymmetries between the research participants and ourselves. However, given that this is often structurally unrealistic, we may experience feelings of guilt and –especially in the case of migration and refugee scholars—fieldwork burnout.

To explore this metainvective positioning circle, I retrospectively reflect on field relations established in my fieldwork in Lebanon and Germany between 2017 and 2019 and read them through the lens of self-reflexivity. By self-reflexive, I do not solely mean the ability to reflect on my personal beliefs and values as an individual. I also use this term to refer to my willingness to push myself beyond my comfort zone as both a researcher and an actor in the field, reflect on my feelings of comfort and discomfort vis-à-vis research participants, and consider the implication of these feelings on the knowledge that I produce with my ethnographic work. Feminist researchers (e.g., Fonow & Cook, 1991) situate reflexivity as primary to research and methodology, not only to investigate the power embedded in ethnographic research, but also as a tool to do research differently. Feminist scholar Wanda Pillow pushes this debate further by exploring what she calls the “reflexivities of discomfort,” a process that exposes aspects of one’s identity that normally are not revealed in research work. With this article, I build on the last step of this process, namely “reflexivity as transcendence” (Pillow, 2003, p. 186). After reflecting on myself, on other field actors, and the realities in the field during the years of fieldwork and later during the production of my ethnographic work, I, drawing upon self-reflexivity, transcend this process. This does not mean transcending my subjectivity and my cultural context to liberate myself from the misrepresentations of the ethnographic work and eventually produce unbiased knowledge. It rather means that the reflexive lens is now turned on the self to let the feelings that are part of field relations emerge and become part of the analysis.

Self-reflexivity as a tool for metainvective analysis provides a way to acknowledge the structural asymmetries of power in field research and to give voice to the unpleasant feelings of discomfort, the negative experiences, the methodological mistakes, and the fear of not being morally and ethically professional. Making epistemic use of these elements to navigate the uncomfortable zones of “unbounded cultures” (Marcus, 1998) can help to explore the dissonances, which fuel the invective latency of ethnographic relations and its metainvective (self)criticism.

Researching Gender Roles and Relationships Among Syrian Refugees Within the Circle of Metainvective Positioning

The fieldwork on which the present article is based was conducted between 2017 and 2019 in selected urban, semi-urban, and rural areas of Lebanon and Germany. The research (see Tuzi, 2021–2022) investigated the impact of displacement on gender roles and relationships among Syrians who forcibly migrated to Lebanon and Germany. This project specifically explored how Syrian families navigated gender role and relationship transformations in displacement.

I carried out a multi-sited ethnography (Marcus, 1995), and conducted in-depth semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and participant observations. ¹ In Lebanon, I carried out observations in Chtoura (Beqaa). In Germany, I carried out comparable observations in the city of Grimma (Saxony). In Chtoura, I spent several weeks living with the family of a Syrian friend, Ward, whom I met three years before. In Grimma, I stayed with the family of my friend Amira and engaged in different activities with them (cooking together, visiting relatives and family members, among others). My ethnographic approach was complete and partial participation: I was at times participating entirely in the activities of the families (e.g., cooking with them), and at times partially (e.g., as a guest). Both families were aware of my research, although not all of the family members were aware of my role as an observer in the home. This overt/covert observation was specifically designed to avoid the so-called “paradox of the observer” (Labov, 1972), to observe natural attitudes and behaviors without pushing people to act differently because they were being observed.

My action as a participant observer was selective. I decided to focus my observation only on those situations that could be useful to my study for two key reasons. First, I had a close relationship with the two families, and I did not want to appear invasive and only there to “study them.” Second, I did not want to become overwhelmed by the richness, diversity, and complexity of the displacement context to the detriment of my research goals and focus. After all, I was there to study particular types of roles and relationships (e.g., gender) and their transformations (e.g., family) for my dissertation project. Yet, even if I tried to maintain focus in this particular way, my data based on my participant observations, often highlighted the complexity and ambiguity of the displacement contexts in ways I did not initially anticipate or always intend, including at different levels of analysis.

Syrian families’ displacement experiences were very different in the two countries. In Lebanon, Syrians are not recognized as refugees (lājiʾiyn) but rather as displaced persons (naziḥiyn) (Mourad, 2017). Lebanon is not a signatory state of the 1951 Refugee Convention (Janmyr & Mourad, 2018). For this reason, the state operates under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) in 2003, which gives the agency the autonomy to assist displaced people in Lebanon. However, only those who are registered with the UNHCR can benefit from this assistance. This status produces a dimension of temporality because Syrians are prevented from resettling permanently in Lebanon. On the other hand, their stay in the country may in fact be permanent because they have limited to no alternative resettlement solutions.

In Germany, almost all Syrian nationals who claimed asylum have been granted the status of refugee, which falls within the 1951 Refugee Convention, or subsidiary protection. ² The latter is regulated by the 2011 Qualification Directive of the European Council, ³ and it is a form of protection granted to third-country nationals or stateless persons, who are at risk of suffering serious harm if they return to their country of origin. This is a form of protection that the majority of Syrians were initially granted and it does not ensure the same privileges as the full refugee status, including the right to family reunification. For this reason, the legal and political framework of Germany at the time of this fieldwork also held Syrian refugees in the country in a “state” of temporality. They could not think of themselves as permanently resettled while being de facto in permanent displacement. This dimension of temporality created several vulnerabilities among Syrian participants in both countries.

While positioning myself vis-à-vis the field participants, I tended to work “by the book” and to present myself through the lens of what I pictured would be my positionality statement. I assumed that certain categories of my identity would be more important than others: for example, class, gender, and race. From a more privileged position than many participants, I assumed that I was positioning myself as a white, heterosexual, middle-class woman from Europe. I also assumed that it would not have been useful for me to give any information about my ontological understanding of social reality and particularly gender dynamics, namely that I consider gender identities to be socially constructed within specific cultural, social, and historical contexts. In this way, I could have created a space for the participants in my research to express their own worldview in a completely unbiased way. I would, on the other hand, provide information about my experiences as a researcher and as a language teacher for migrants and refugees, which I assumed would help create bonds with research participants.

Similarly, in selecting field participants and positioning them in my research, I followed implicit norms that conveyed a certain idea of diversity in the research sampling. For example, I decided that participants would be part of one of the three types of households that I recognized to be the most common among Syrians: nuclear, extended, or separated households. I also interviewed participants from a selected number of areas. Most of them are from urban or semi-urban areas, including Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Deir ez-Zor, Qamishly, as-Sweida, ar-Raqqa, and Idlib. Some families were also from the Golan Heights, rural Tartus, and Latakia. Most participants are Sunni Syrians, and they come from working or lower middle-class backgrounds. Most had completed primary or secondary education at the time of the interview. Only a small number of participants I interviewed were from upper-middle-class backgrounds. An even smaller minority were university educated or were enrolled in a university program in Syria or in the resettlement country. Although I was not able to select participants according to pre-established categories, and I interviewed almost any Syrian who would accept to be interviewed, I was very convinced that my sample represented the diversity of the Syrian population. In fact, I violated this diversity norm by not including, for example, more upper-middle-class or upper-class Syrian families, non-heteronormative families, or more Christian or Alawi Syrians. I was further convinced that these selection criteria would be important for answering my research questions.

Finally, I was convinced that participants took part in my study voluntarily. Throughout my fieldwork, I diligently followed research ethics protocols. Before the start of any observation or interview, I took time to introduce my work and myself. I explained the research and their participation role in detail in Arabic to them. I described how the interview would be conducted to provide a clear picture to participants of how our conversation would unfold. Finally, I always asked for informed consent in oral or written form and informed participants that they had the right and the possibility to withdraw their participation at any time. Moreover, as my fieldwork occurred in both countries within a highly politicized field as that of forced migration, many challenges emerged, which could have compromised my work. To overcome those unexpected barriers, I used my creativity to adjust my level of involvement in the field (Li, 2008). For example, to apply the Do No Harm principle, I often found myself attempting to reduce my presence in the lives of participants. In spite of these efforts, throughout my fieldwork, I ignored many elements of field relations, something I later realized by applying the self-reflexive lens to my positioning analysis. I present some of these reflections in the following section.

The Invective Latency of Ethnographic Relations

When we retrospectively analyze field relations through the lens of self-reflexivity, we realize how many unexpected elements emerge from the analysis. In the previous steps of my reflexive analysis of my fieldwork in Lebanon and Germany, I extensively reflected on field relations and on how participants responded to my allegedly transparent positionality. I further assumed that I understood their position toward me, and I projected these assumptions onto my work.

In 2018, I met Salim, a man from rural Damascus whom I interviewed in the suburbs of Beirut, Lebanon. Salim had his application to resettle in Italy rejected, while some of his relatives were preparing to leave. Migrating to Italy or any other European country was a big concern for Salim and I was, at that time, the only chance that he could see to have his dream realized.

I should mention that in Lebanon, as an Italian, I was often associated with an Italian organization that helped Syrian families to resettle in Italy and France through the humanitarian corridor channels. For many Syrians in some areas of Lebanon, these actors were sometimes the only glimmer of hope for a life away from a refugee camp, tight economic circumstances, or other dire living conditions that one might experience as a displaced person in the country.

Salim started his interview with me by saying that he hoped that this interview would be the first step on a path to Italy. I immediately felt great discomfort. The man was convinced that I could somehow help him to migrate. I felt embarrassed by the idea that he accepted to participate only with the conviction that I somehow had a visa hidden for him in my pockets. I naively assumed that explaining the situation and making it clear that I could not help him to migrate in any way would have re-created the balance I needed to interview him about gender role and relationship transformations. He nevertheless kept his expectations alive during the whole interaction and responded to my questions with stereotyped comments about Europe, picturing it as an idealized place to migrate and have an easy life. I had the impression that he was trying to convince me that he was knowledgeable enough to deserve my help.

I surprisingly found myself reacting defensively to his comments and questions, but I did not understand the invective latency of our interaction. I read this conflictual interaction as a lack of understanding by Salim. I, however, took responsibility for this and assumed that the language I used might have created confusion. When inviting participants for an interview, I used the Arabic word muqābale, “interview.” I assumed that because this term was widely used in the humanitarian context concerning the recognition of refugee status (in Germany) and resettlement to a third country (in Lebanon), this might have created confusion among participants, who did not understand the real purpose of my work.

In my initial reflection of my positionality and Salim’s positionality, I assumed that by using a misleading term, muqābale, I might have raised expectations that I was not able to meet and I had the feeling I had obtained consent for an interview under false pretenses. This was a moment in which the invective latency of transnational ethnographic relations manifested in my discomfort and embarrassment. I felt uneasy because my intentions as a researcher were misunderstood, but also because of my defensive reaction and the sense of guilt that I consequently felt for not being able to help Salim. In terms of positioning analysis, the relationship established with Salim was not that of a researcher with participants, where I was opening a space for his voice to be heard. It was rather a relationship between a settled Italian resident and a displaced Syrian seeking residence in Italy. In other words, Salim had his own interests as well: He did not want his voice to be heard in the way I wanted it to be heard. Rather, his interests in our interview were directed toward establishing transnational bonds with Italy, and more precisely, obtaining an Italian passport. My explanation to Salim that I would not be able to help him obtain residency in Italy was clearly not instrumental enough for him to stop hoping that I could help him. His most important existential concern was to be permitted to go to Italy. My interaction with him was an opportunity to establish social ties that would bring him closer to addressing this concern, something he believed would be achieved if he did me the favor of answering my questions.

On other occasions, in both Lebanon and Germany, the invective latency of ethnographic relations manifested in the form of alteration of social positions. I was often in a more privileged position than other actors in the field were, and I expected to be in a more powerful position in my interactions with participants, too. I was uncomfortable in this position, and for this reason, I often made attempts to balance power by making my presence in participants’ lives less invasive and finding ways to empathize with participants’ experiences. One of these attempts was to open the space for participants to take space in the research by giving them the opportunity to take something back, for example, by asking questions to me or inquiring about my experience as a woman living in a foreign country. I assumed that research participants would be interested in discussing these topics from different perspectives. In fact, the question that I was asked the most was if I were married and if I had children. When I said that I was not married and had no children, I could see subtle changes in the relationship. I assumed that this shift was due to the disappointment that participants had toward me for not being “expert enough”—how could I talk about relationships and even study them if I was not married? How could I be taken seriously by participants?

I would notice how this interaction and their disappointment placed me in a more vulnerable position. However, I still felt that my strong feminist beliefs about a woman realizing herself beyond the social expectations of being a mother and a wife would protect me against these metainvective acts of disempowerment. I understood this dynamic as the generational dimension of positionality taking space: As unmarried, I was considered a daughter rather than an adult and hence was not seen as an equal by married women.

In fact, when reflecting on the invective latency of ethnographic relations in retrospect, I realized that it was not disappointment that I had seen, but pity and compassion. Participants felt sorry for me because, as a woman in her 30s, I was not married and had no children. What I perceived as disappointment was only the projection of my own insecurities as a woman in academia. However, having understood the invective latency of this interaction, a different kind of feeling emerged, namely, the reminiscence of my social background as a woman raised in a Southern European country, where patriarchal structures are subtle, yet still exist. Being reminded that a woman is not a woman enough without a husband and children, I felt inferior. As much as I have spent my life fighting those assumptions, those beliefs are still somewhere inside my head, as they have been internalized in my socialization as a woman.

A further aspect of altered social positions produced by the invective latency of ethnographic relations occurred, especially in Germany, where I expected the divide between gender relations of locals and refugees to be more evident. I assumed that participants’ positionality, and in particular their ontological position, was one of biological essentialism. In particular, in another attempt to balance power relations, I would not reveal my considerations about gender as socially constructed, because I assumed this would allow them the space to express themselves freely. In this way, however, I assumed that because of their (social, religious, and educational) backgrounds, they would not be aware of these debates and therefore they could not understand them. In this way, driven by these assumptions, I established a metainvective dynamic and deprived us all of a stimulating conversation, and one that would have likely produced useful data for analysis.

Conclusion

In this article, I illustrated the dilemma that contemporary ethnographers face while doing research within the metainvective circle of the crisis of ethnographic representation and legitimacy. As an attempt to escape this circle, we feel personally responsible for the ethical problems of the world and its inequalities. Consequently, we naively adopt the ethical idealizations from critical-normative approaches to methodology, and we attempt to balance these inequalities indirectly in the social relations we establish during fieldwork. Balancing power is obviously not possible through one act of research and attempts to do so may lead one to overlook the experiences and social relations established in the field.

Using a self-reflexive lens, intended as a magnifying glass turned on the self and our emotions of comfort and discomfort in relation to our interlocutors, might help to account for the humanitarian paternalism that is embedded in our work and to recognize that we do not have the power to level out inequalities. What we do, instead, is disguise these power imbalances through instrumental invective interactions. Using the latter as data, however, will allow us to identify processes of humanitarian paternalism and politics of giving voice to the “subaltern” and, as a consequence, learn how to conduct more sincere and candid conversations with our interlocutors.

The self-reflexive lens has been instrumental to answer the research questions driving this article. First, what kind of uncomfortable feelings, conflicts, troubles, and crises can be identified in field relations if we look at them through a self-reflexive lens? Second, how can we use these considerations to produce better-quality data? As I have shown through examples from my fieldwork in Lebanon and Germany, a series of feelings can be identified when focusing on the invective latency of ethnographic relations. While these feelings remain often overlooked, repressed, and silenced in ethnographic work, I argue that recognizing them as part of the data and analysis might help to contribute to a more honest understanding of the “other” as a counterpart to the ethnographic self. In this sense, the relationship between ethnographers and “their others” gains its epistemic justification as a proxy relationship for understanding moral dilemmas in contemporary society. Under this lens, a self-reflexive positionality could help to counter methodological colonialism (Alatas, 2003) and make contributions toward decolonizing research methodologies (Tuhiwai Smith, 2021). Another idea toward furthering this goal might be giving back the ethnographic work to the population being “researched” to understand whether what has been communicated to us has been truly understood.