Favourites and others: reflexivity and the shaping of subjectivities and data in qualitative research

Abstract

This article discusses some of the dilemmas still surrounding researcher subjectivity and reflexivity in qualitative research. It explores the example of qualitative research into British migration to Tenerife, which involved ethnographic data collection in two principal employment areas: lap dancing and timeshare sales. It explains the setting and methodology of the research project, exploring the especially thorny ground of researching into a group whose ‘otherness’ on some levels manifests in ‘good’ data, partly because the group’s opinions and discourses jar with one’s own political ideology. Exploring the British migrants’ reasons for moving to Tenerife was central to the research, and the data showed that these migration motives were couched in ideas about class, gender, and race identity. Collecting data of that nature brought to the fore ideas about inequality, othering and difference and these ‘outed’ notions became pivotal to my relationships with the migrants in the field. The article considers the dynamics of reflexivity of this particular empirical situation, exploring how and why certain groups become ‘unloveable’ and how this affects the research in terms of ethics, epistemology and ultimately data.