This article discusses the conditions of research in international and European contexts, in particular European elite politics and politicians, arguing that the researcher is a central agent and research instrument in this process. The article suggests that the researcher finds herself renegotiating parts of her socially assigned identity in relation to European national and international structures and discusses the ways in which the gendered ‘self’ remains the centre of a research project above other identity componentseven in such conditions that might appear to be gender neutral. The article examines the micro-politics of research from the level of archive research to elite interviewing.
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