Abstract
Language is a significant part of any fieldwork in cultural and cross-cultural qualitative research. With a growing number of 1.25-, 1.5- and second-generation children of immigrant families entering academia, many assume their bilingual proficiency helps them bypass translational and linguistic challenges. Based on my fieldwork experience, I am exploring the linguistic challenges of intragroup research. While I presumed my bilingualism in English and Farsi would help me build communal rapport during my fieldwork, I was surprised by my participants’ choice of broken English and refusal to complete their interview in Farsi. In this article, I argue that my positionality as a researcher and the intruding Anglo culture in the research process diminished my communal identity and intensified my hierarchical position. Upon assessing the linguistic challenges, I will make recommendations and suggestions to address similar challenges in the fieldwork.
Keywords
Introduction
In cultural and cross-cultural research fieldwork, limited linguistic accessibility between the interviewer and interviewee can cause caution. In Canadian multiculturalism, the linguistic limitation of the interviewer is an omnipresent hurdle when interviewing linguistic minority groups, which are predominated by first-generation immigrant subjects. For many first-generation Canadian immigrants from the global south, the native language tends to vary from officially bilingual Canada (i.e., French and English) (Haque, 2018). Even when the multilingual immigrant participant has access to the official language, they might feel more comfortable completing the interview in their native language. These participants might experience greater fluency without the internal gap between one’s native language and the adopted new language based on their existing cultural repertoire and perspectives (Pavlenko, 2017). Many bilingual first-generation immigrants experience a distinctive self associated with their different languages (Pavlenko, 2017).
While completing fieldwork among Iranian communities in Southern Ontario, the issue of language presented itself. Even with awareness of my bilingualism, many Iranian participants were unwilling to complete their interviews in their native language, which was most accessible to them. Choosing broken English over Farsi was a challenge as it limited the available linguistic source of communication to both parties. This paper critically reflects on this impediment, precisely as I identify as an Iranian bilingual researcher. Through this reflection, I question the researcher’s gaze and the participant’s reverse gaze. This paper aims to explain the concept of reverse gaze and investigates how the participants’ reverse gaze restructures the interviewer’s position as a researcher. This analysis also explores the effects of reverse gaze on participants’ linguistic choices, even when the researcher is a bilingual community member.
In qualitative fieldwork, the interviewer and interviewee need linguistic compatibility since any linguistic gap leads to miscommunication and missing data. In preliminary interactions between the participant and interviewer, the interviewer can assess or inquire about the most desirable and accessible language for the participants to respond accordingly. Therefore, when designing a qualitative research method to explore various ethnic communities, the foreseeable language barrier encourages discussion regarding the availability of an interpreter (Bergen, 2018), linguistically proficient research assistant, or in the case of bilingual principal investigators, their involvement during data collection. While having an interpreter present is beneficial, the researcher’s capability of speaking the same language as the participant is the most reasonable solution to limit any linguistic barriers. Thus, in theory, the assumption of the researcher’s ability to speak and understand the participant’s first language ensures the accuracy of the findings. This research, however, posed many questions regarding the interviewer’s linguistic abilities and the willingness of the participants.
Research Background
This paper critically reflects on my doctorate research fieldwork experience, which took place in the winter of 2016 and spring of 2017. The research investigated the political climate of the Iranian diasporas living in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and York Region (YR), measured through the Iranian immigrants’ relationship with the three Iranian flags, each with historical and social specificity for the Iranian diasporic communities. I explored the Iranian diaspora’s interpretive experience with the politically charged multiplicity of Iranian flags exhibited in Canada. The first flag represented the pre-Islamic revolution Iran, and the second flag represented the post-Islamic revolution Iran. The third flag, which has no ensigns, has historical significance as the flag of the people and provides a social value for Iranian Diasporas as an apolitical communal representation. Applying the flag and exploring the political climate among the Iranian Diaspora in GTA and YR facilitated an understanding of the group dynamic and identity development of a small yet growing ethnic minority community. The findings indicated the diversity of Iranian Diasporas and the means of negotiating identities post-migration among first- and second-generation Iranian-Canadians. The findings emphasized the diversity of the Iranian communities based on gender, religion, sexuality, immigration generation, waves of migration, etc.
My findings for this paper rely on 6 months of fieldwork among the Iranian communities residing in GTA and YR and a series of semi-structured interviews. Using snowball and convenience sampling, I invited willing Iranian participants residing in GTA and YR for interviews. The sampling was completed with the help of friends and acquaintances who were members of Iranian communities in those two regions. I interviewed a total of 27 Iranian-Canadians from diverse gender, sexual orientation, religion, and socio-cultural backgrounds. I planned my fieldwork in consideration with recent scholarly works, and thus felt prepared for anticipated challenges, such as building rapport, time management, getting access to the gatekeeper and other obstacles experienced by other qualitative scholars (Dickson-Swift et al., 2007; Van den Hoonaard, 2012). Despite my role as the Principal Investigator with bilingual capabilities, my fieldwork experienced an unexpected linguistic challenge during the data collection process. This challenge led to an inability to build a strong linguistic rapport with the research participants. These linguistic challenges needed my dire attention, as the validity of the research results depended on them.
As a 1.25-generation immigrant and bilingual ethnic researcher exploring my ethnic communities, I noticed a theoretical gap regarding linguistic challenges in the qualitative research method. I migrated to Canada as an adolescent who had reasonable access to Farsi before migration and managed to learn English early on in my life. Similar to many 1.25-generation immigrants, I have cultural and linguistic access to my ethnic and dominant Canadian cultures (Venturin, 2019). While I had linguistic access to my Iranian community, many participants who were aware of my bilingual abilities chose to express themselves in broken and simplified English. The puzzling experience (Souaiaia, 2021) led me to revisit and investigate the underlying reason for the challenges encountered during interactions with community members. I reassessed my methodological approaches to critically reflect on my fieldwork challenge. With the 1.5 and the 1.25 generation (the foreign-born who immigrated as children or adolescents)- and second-generation immigrants (the Canadian born with immigrant parents) increasingly entering academia, there is a likelihood of an influx of emerging scholars who are fluent in English and/or French, as well as the allophone language spoken by their immigrant parents. The reflection on these challenges suggests a linguistic pattern that other first-generation bilingual immigrant researchers could also experience.
During the data collection process, I realized my linguistic proficiencies in the participants’ language did not accommodate me. I encountered participants unwilling to speak their native communal language, even when they experienced frustration with English. To ensure participant linguistic capabilities, during preliminary meetings, my participant and I chatted in our native language to settle. However, with the mention of the first question, some participants refused to complete the interview in their ethnic language. While for some, the refusal was a reasonable choice as English was more accessible to them based on their fluency, for others, this refusal affected the way they expressed themselves. This linguistic gap was an unexpected challenge, as it didn’t reveal itself during the pre-test, and there were not many scholarly works that addressed this linguistic problem. Based on my existing literature review, none of the cross-cultural scholars addressed such linguistic challenges, and therefore, it was a surprising situation for me. While fluency in both languages is an asset during the interviewing process, in this unique case for me as an emerging ethnic minority scholar, bilingualism backfired. This challenge appears to be a new phenomenon that negatively affected my findings during the research’s qualitative data collection. To further understand the linguistic challenges in the fieldwork, it is essential to explore the existing literature for further investigation before discussing the research’s fieldwork techniques and shortcomings.
Cultural and Cross-cultural Research Challenges
In qualitative research, unforeseen challenges are anticipated due to the interactive nature of the fieldwork with human subjects. Each qualitative research fieldwork reveals new sets of challenges due to human subjects’ use of language, which is culturally and politically affiliated, and continuously negotiated based on their audience (Charalambous et al., 2021). Therefore, fieldwork obstacles vary based on the diversity of social groups’ normative values and their interaction with the dominant discourses, which effectively alter their social expectations (Charalambous et al., 2021). Many qualitative research scholars revisit and explore their experiences in the field to address their challenges and their approach to those obstacles.
In a preliminary review of qualitative scholarly works, specific themes are recurring, including time management, getting access, managing gatekeepers, building rapport, and other similar interactive constraints (Dickson-Swift et al., 2007; Van den Hoonaard, 2012). These interactive challenges vary in different social groups; Therefore, when investigating the minority status participants, especially immigrants and those with limited access to the dominant language, the research introduces a new set of challenges, both culturally and linguistically (Charalambous et al., 2021). Banerjee and Sowards (2020) state that managing communicational challenges has become an essential part of cross-cultural and translational research. Cross-cultural research entails a technical, cultural, and social gap between the participant and researcher, which can lead to ethical dilemmas. The two authors are multilingual, and their ability benefits their international and translational research. While indicating the linguistic challenges and fieldwork privileges and shortcomings, this paper and similar scholarly works (Turnbull, 2018; Vähäsantanen & Saarinen, 2013; Osanami Törngren & Nge, 2018) explore the hierarchical relationship between the participant and researcher when there are linguistic limitations for first-generation immigrants and ethnic minority community members.
The Hierarchical Relationship Between Participants and Investigator
In any research with human subjects, an inherent power imbalance stems from the hierarchical orders based on the researcher’s role as an investigator and the participants’ role as the subject of study (Banerjee & Sowards, 2020; Turnbull, 2018; Vähäsantanen & Saarinen, 2013). The needed knowledge gap between researcher and participants causes a socially linguistic divide even in mono-linguistic conversation. Many researchers acknowledged the social gap, which is the difference in the relationship between the participant and investigator as an ‘insider’ or ‘outsider’ experience during the qualitative fieldwork (Osanami Törngren & Nge, 2018). The social hierarchy of interviewer and interviewee sets the researcher in an elevated position of hierarchy, using interview questions to gradually direct the interviewee’s account based on the needs of the research (ibid). The introduction of cultural and linguistic differences into the fieldwork further complicates the relationship between the interviewer and interviewee, as the colonial language that carries the foundational white gaze is unavoidable in discussions in cross-cultural research (ibid). The white gaze, which is the by-product of the Western educational institutions (Souaiaia, 2021), locates and normalizes the secondary position (Pailey, 2020) of non-white bodies in the white hegemonic discourse (Yancy, 2016). The white gaze acknowledgement is a preventive measure during post-colonial fieldwork research, and I will explore this further when addressing the reverse gaze. By acknowledging the gaze, the researcher indicates their awareness and their attempt to avoid the gaze. In addition to the existing cultural divide, the artificial environment and asymmetrical interview structure continuously distance the interviewer from the interviewee. The current discussion regarding structural hierarchy takes limited account of intersectional and cross-cultural research (Yancy, 2016).
The hierarchical relationship between the interviewer and interviewee (i.e. the “researcher and the gatekeeper”) is part of an ongoing intersectional power dynamic between the two parties (Lund et al., 2016; Osanami Törngren & Nge, 2018). The interview’s environmental power dynamic is intersectional, as the power dynamic between the researcher and the subjects is gendered, racialized, classed, and cultural. While Osanami Törngren and Nge (2018) explore the researcher’s gaze (as the dominant gaze), they argue that anyone outside of one’s racial group can impose the racially dominating gaze, which further augments the existing power imbalance between the investigator and participants. In response to this power imbalance, feminist and post-colonial scholars encourage the construction of non-hierarchical space to exchange individual narratives. Feminist researchers instigate the insider/outsider acknowledgement and maintaining emotional attachment to attain reciprocity (Acker, 2001). Acker revisits Patricia Hill Collins’ (1991) description of the qualitative researcher as an outsider within, which relates to the experience of the black feminist researcher and their existing unique cultural relationship with other racialized women (ibid). The racialized scholar retains their existing marginalized identity to limit the social hierarchy between the researcher and participants. In addition, through the post-colonial approach, the researcher employs decolonized language to avoid a unidirectional researcher’s gaze that excludes a participant’s agency (Lund et al., 2016, 281). Therefore, the interviewing process requires structural changes to reflect feminist and post-colonial discourse to limit the investigator’s gaze. These approaches increasingly encourage community-based research that invites participants in the research process to alleviate the power imbalance between the participant and the researcher (Bischoff and Jany, 2018; Strand et al., 2003).
While the researcher’s gaze and social hierarchy affect the power imbalance during the interviewing process, the researchers are not the only ones that allocate the imbalance of power. The participants are also actively involved in creating an imbalanced social hierarchy during the interviewing process. The hierarchy is placed not by the interviewer but rather by the interviewee. I will here introduce the concept of the reverse gaze
Linguistic and Translational Challenges
In cross-cultural research, one of the distinct challenges of qualitative research is linguistic compatibilities between the researcher and participants (Bergen, 2018). In cases of cross-cultural research, the investigator might have limited or no access to the participants’ language. This linguistic limitation will negatively affect the results, which leaves the data collection in a puzzling state of the translation and interpreter intervention (Choi et al., 2012; Wong & Poon, 2010). Much cross-cultural research relies on the support of interpreters and translators to make the data accessible to the Principal Investigator and their research team (Knight, 2015; Nelson & Marston, 2020; Saksena & McMorrow, 2020; Senthanar et al., 2020). While the role of translator or interpreter is argued to be neutral, the translation process is not devoid of the power dynamic. Translators have to decide the meaning of each idea and phrase for the researchers, which leaves them with a partial account of interactions (Wong & Poon, 2010). The challenges stem from the culturally oriented definition of concepts and phrases and the loss of meaning in the translation process (ibid). However, according to the research at hand, the linguistic gap may persist in ethnically similar fieldwork where the participant and researcher share a common language.
According to my research, funded and supported by Western academic institutions, even when the research is conducted in a space where participants and principal investigators share similar linguistic backgrounds, the study remains a cross-cultural experience. Souaiaia (2021) argues that the academic training of each new scholar instils Western norms and values, which need to be directly challenged. Souaiaia’s (ibid) exploration of human rights and Islam among both Muslim and non-Muslim scholars leads to the general argument that Western scholars and their students are “all products of an educational and professional system rooted in enlightenment legacy.” Therefore, scholars in various fields need to challenge the normalization of Western values in all disciplines.
For instance, as a product of the Anglo-Canadian university system, I am expected to follow the dominant Anglo- or Franco-Canadian language as dominant linguistic expectations to communicate with other Canadian scholars. To apply the most accessible language according to my academic institution, I am required to translate the collected raw data into English. The process of translation is rather complicated as language is inherently complex. When addressing the translation of collected data to the report’s official language, ideas might lose their authenticity and cultural values (Al-Amer et al., 2016). As mentioned earlier, translation affects the accuracy of cross-cultural and cross-language data (Pelzang & Hutchinson, 2018). Most importantly, the intruding dominant language (i.e. French or English) enforces the colonial cultural experience during the interview process, even when the interviewer and interviewee share the same language. As Philip Larkin, Bernadette Dierckx de Casterlé, and Paul Schotsmans (2007) argue, translation and its techniques subsequently affect the validity of produced data, and its eventual results.
Unexpected Linguistic Challenges for Bilingual Ethnic Researchers
While there is an assumption regarding cross-cultural researchers and the negative consequences of their language barriers for the research findings (Choi et al., 2012), there is an influx of bilingual scholars with an immigrant background who are either the 1.5-, 1.25- or the second generation. These emerging scholars are often fluent in both languages and have access to both linguistic lexicons, but there is limited exploration of their experience as bilingual Canadian qualitative researchers. In this qualitative research paper, I am focusing on my fieldwork experience and linguistic challenges as a member of the ethnic community that is the subject of study.
Challenges in Studying the Iranian Diaspora: My Personal Experience as a Bilingual Researcher
Preparation for Fieldwork; Assumptions and Expectations
As mentioned, my research focuses on the experience of Iranian communities residing in GTA and YR. Before entering the research field, I prepared myself to manage different fieldwork challenges that may arise during each interview based on the existing scholarly guidelines. For exploring my ethnic community, semi-structured interviews were the most successful data collection technique. Semi-structured interviews successfully encourage rapport, facilitate an environment for authentic interaction, and provide questions that lead the discussion between the researcher and participant (Brown & Danaher, 2019, 77), as well as a safe space for the participants to share their experiences in a conversational manner.
When I reached out to my available community members, I initially did not self-identify as a cross-cultural researcher since my Iranian background was a precursor to my research topic and interview participant selection. I was under the assumption that my ethnic identity and linguistic abilities would facilitate communal connection and allow me to gather authentic data based on the communities’ narratives. I assumed my bilingual abilities and pre-existing communal connection would minimize many typical challenges of field research, such as difficulties in accessing gatekeepers and in recruiting willing participants. I believed my researcher gaze would be subsided because of my existing ethnic connection, cultural awareness, and long-term community involvement.
As an Iranian-Canadian researcher, I was theoretically prepared to surpass the gatekeepers and build rapport with my community members. Significantly, I was completely aware of the reliability of the translation process and its effects on the findings (Al-Amer et al., 2016). Even though I have full access to both languages and cultures, I had an understanding of translation’s limitations and its inadequacy regarding culturally, socially, and historically specific terminologies (Miedema & de Jong, 2005), which was likely to negatively affected the authenticity of respondents’ narratives. However, I estimated my cultural literacy would limit the translational gaps. During the analysis, I anticipated this translational challenge by developing certain strategies, such as cross-referencing my transcribed data with audio-recorded data during the writing process or taking descriptive notes about the participants during the interviews to capture the tone of voice and body language. But notably, similar to many bilingual scholars, I aimed to bypass the cross-cultural linguistic gap by taking advantage of my bilingual ability, which is a problematic assumption (Temple, 2006).
The Reality of the Fieldwork and Group Positionality
While I was theoretically prepared to handle the challenges of the fieldwork, I was not practically prepared for the unforeseen forthcoming linguistic problems. As a community member and a bilingual researcher, I had access to the Iranian community’s official language. However, my assumptions limited my field preparation. I was under the assumption that all participants would choose the most accessible language. For instance, if they are more comfortable with Farsi, knowing my linguistic abilities, they would choose the Farsi language by default, and visa versa. In retrospect, this was my shortcoming that prioritized individuals’ ethnic identity over their linguistic agency. This misconception disregarded my participants’ agency to select the language they deemed appropriate for the interviewing purposes, as well as their assumptions about me.
Theoretically, I was aware of my positionality and the hierarchical power imbalance between the researcher and interviewee. As a post-colonial feminist interviewer, I attempted to reduce this hierarchical relationship by creating a safe space for participants to feel confident and comfortable to share their political views without the fear of judgment by taking a passive role and allowing the participant to decide how to approach the interview. Before each interview, I would start the session with small talk in Farsi and general Iranian pleasantries and exhibiting my insider knowledge by asking about participant’s family and general discussion about the life in Iran, such as inflation and oppression in Iran. I would also provide each participant with the space to ask about my family and me, even to the point that I volunteered a personal narrative of my experience as a member of the diaspora (especially those who knew some of my family members). The chat was to ease the participant and help them to settle in. Another reason for the small talk was to demonstrate my Farsi proficiency and provide an informed opportunity for respondents to choose Farsi for ease of conversation. Lastly, I intended to negotiate the existing power imbalance by sharing the space and giving full linguistic preference to the participants without enforcing a linguistic selection.
I strategically chose semi-structured interviews and organized each interview to encourage rapport with the participant. While I eased into interviewing and slowly asked each question, I was unable to gain the participants’ complete trust. While I am fluent in both Farsi and English, many of my participants opted to speak English. While we established a Farsi environment, as soon as I started the interview by asking the first question in Farsi, the participants chose to respond in English. In some cases, English was an appropriate selection, and it made it easier for the transcription and translation process, as the participant shared the narrative in their selected language. However, English was not an ideal choice in other cases because the limits of the language caused stress and frustration, not for me, but for the participants. When their broken English led to my confusion, I asked for further clarification in a mix of Farsi and English, and to my surprise, the respondents tended to clarify their answers in English. Many of the participants were adamantly unwilling to complete the interview in Farsi or even a mix of Farsi and English.
My inability to build rapport with the respondents hindered my research progress. Due to the language barrier, the respondents were unable to share the full account of their experiences adequately. Some of their English responses were unusable in my analysis as I was in danger of overgeneralizing the responses. Furthermore, to avoid the stressful experiences or embarrassment of faulty use of the English language, some participants intentionally stayed away from complex topics and omitted some critical and complicated details from their narrative, details which they could have articulated easily and eloquently in Farsi. The linguistic gap led to missing data, which negatively affected the findings.
Due to the ethnic nature of my research, when I expressed my frustration with my ethnic participants’ linguistic challenges, some colleagues either expressed utter disgust at my ignorance or expressed a surprised and confused sympathy. No one had a solution to this linguistic challenge. Unfortunately, the respondent’s linguistic selection would significantly affect the validity and authenticity of the collected data. Therefore, I needed to re-evaluate my technique and readjust my representation to limit these linguistic barriers and improve the quality of my findings. When reconsidering my research techniques and shortcomings, I questioned the underlying reasons for many early participants’ unwillingness to speak Farsi and how I, as a researcher, could alter my interview techniques to bond with my participants and encourage authentic responses. While this behaviour appears to be atypical, I argue that the intervention of the English language, my hierarchical position as a researcher, the reverse gaze of my participants, and my location as a researcher affiliated with a higher educational institution influenced the interviewees’ linguistic choices.
Assessment and Re-Evaluation
Upon assessing my technique, I noticed my assumption and my shortcomings based on those assumptions. I argue that while I am ethnically and racially a member of the Iranian diaspora, I continue to bear the gaze of a researcher from a different social and educational stratum (Lund et al., 2016). Due to my preconceived ethnic identity, I failed to acknowledge my participants’ perception of my positionality and location of power before entering the field. While I was employing the post-colonial feminist approach to limit my hierarchy, my participants continued to notice my existing hierarchical location of power. While I had access to the community’s language and understood the community’s code of conduct, I was unable to gain their trust and to establish rapport (Fontana and Frey, 2010, 655) because I was in an asymmetrical relationship as a researcher with my participants (Osanami Törngren & Nge, 2018), even though I assumed my ethnicity would surpass that hierarchical relationship.
I re-evaluated my interview techniques to assess my shortcomings. I attended each interview with my question guide and Letter of Informed (LOI) consent approved by McMaster University’s Research Ethics Board. The presented document alone was a cultural breach, which created a linguistic hierarchy by introducing the Canadian educational institutions as the dominant habitus. While during each interview, I instigated the interaction with Farsi as the preferable language, the English language of the consent forms and its social connection with Canadian higher educational institutions transformed my identity. The participants perceived the chat as a communal experience, but the interview was part of the dominant discourse. Therefore, it shifted the general atmosphere of the interview’s communal interaction. While I aimed to establish my communal social location by setting communal boundaries, the participants did not perceive me as an average community member. I was an outsider, and my participants using the reverse gaze situated my position during the interviews. While I was under the assumption that my communal relations would limit my hierarchical location, my participants reconstructed and maintained the hierarchical boundaries of interviewing through their reverse gaze. The participant’s reversed gaze assigned my role as an outsider with a distinct social hierarchy as an investigator during the interviewing process. When exploring the interviewer’s gaze, many scholars failed to discuss the participant’s active involvement in restructuring and allocating the power imbalance during the interview process.
My self-perception as a researcher did not align with my participants’ (Fontana & Frey, 2010) perceptions of me when entering the field. I did not self-identify as a cross-cultural researcher during fieldwork, but my participant allocated that role to me. Therefore, my participants did not see these interviews as a communal experience but rather an intercommunal experience to share their silenced narratives. For many of the respondents, the interview experience was participating in an Anglophone encounter with higher education, and they attempted to express their account in a way that provided them with a sense of connection. I argue that the rejection of ethnic language was an act of empowerment by imposing salient linguistic borders to create a sense of belonging with the dominant discourse (Anthias, 2020). As Anthias (ibid) argues, belonging is both fixed and fluid, creating different conditions for different groups. While Anthias discusses the concept of belonging from a transnational perspective of the phenomenon, I believe her analysis relates to this discussion. The hyper-communal experience questions the research participant’s sense of belonging in the dominant culture. I needed to acknowledge the gap between my self-perception and the community’s perception of me. The public meeting places and ethics documents in English encouraged the colonial Anglo-culture to intrude on this ethnic experience. To build a rapport with the participants for the deep discussion, I Acker, 2001 had to actively restructure my approach to create an ethnic, communal experience.
I acknowledged the linguistic challenges as a cross-cultural issue of belonging and imbalance of social hierarchy; therefore, I consciously took the initiative to establish the interviewing environment as a communal environment to be accessible to the community’s needs. While building on my existing post-colonial feminist approach, I acknowledged the reverse gaze of my participants to create an experience that was related to communities’ ethnic identity. I realized that, in order to build rapport with interview participants, my identity as a researcher has to be secondary to my identity as a community member. I became flexible regarding the interview location because some participants felt comfortable at their place of residence as a host rather than as interview subjects. I was invited into the community’s safe space by introducing the interview into the private sphere.
Before the short chat and settling in, I presented the participants with the LOI consent form. My first task was to explain the ethics forms and ask for the participants’ signatures. I clearly explained the LOI’s significance for respondents’ welfare and security but simultaneously separated the interviewing atmosphere from the required legal documentation to actively maintain the communal experience of the interview. After signing the LOI forms, I started the initiating chats about life and Persian pleasantries to ease in. I memorized each question, and while chatting, I conversationally introduced each question about the interviewee’s experience with the flag and the Iranian community’s dominant discourse, using the colloquial language and cultural cues to become an insider. The separation of paperwork and use of colloquial language and cultural cues were crucial in minimizing the hierarchical gap, as we were no longer in an interview setting. We were discussing a political debate regarding our ethnic community within the communal setting. While posing the questions for clarification and relatability, I provided each interviewee with full agency over the interview’s trajectory, which positioned the participant as the expert and further minimized my position of power. Many responded positively to this approach, as they revealed the most intimate details of their experience as an immigrant, of which I was privileged to be a part. By minimizing the status difference and the general empirical hierarchy between the interviewer and interviewee (Fontana and Frey, 2010, 658), I aimed to build rapport with each participant.
With the new sense of belonging and blurred boundaries in the ethnic atmosphere, many participants felt comfortable and started to speak in Farsi to express themselves. While the discussion wandered off from the main topic, their accounts produced richer and more valid data. With the limited intrusion of the dominant language (i.e., English) and interviewees’ volition to direct the interviews, many interviewees felt confident enough to disclose private and personal accounts of their experiences in the diasporas, which created an emotional bond between us and provided me with a fertile and insightful narrative of each account. The emotional bond helped me understand each participant’s experience in diasporas and their interpretation of each flag.
Recommendations and Suggestions
Based on my existing research experience, for future researchers, who might have a similar conundrum, it is important to consider and evaluate the position of power as an academic researcher first, and a community member second. For the 1.5-, 1.25-, and second-generation immigrants with bilingual abilities, it is important to actively acknowledge the hierarchical position as a researcher within one’s ethnic community, because the community members might perceive the researcher as an outsider. Through active acknowledgement of one’s social status, the researcher can address their communal shortcomings based on their community’s socio-cultural expectations and readjust based on the needs of the group. In this research, I narrowed down the gap by limiting English language intrusion and the use of culturally appropriate and colloquial Farsi language to express my communal connection. I actively re-evaluated the interview power imbalance and encouraged the participant to direct the interviewing trajectory. The interview was no longer a hierarchical question and answer between the interviewer and the interviewee; instead, it was a collaborative experience between two community members.
Conclusion
The interviewer’s ethnic connection to the community does not guarantee a cultural fieldwork experience. The fieldwork remains cross-cultural experience, and similar to any cross-cultural research, language remains an inescapable intruding challenge. Therefore, my position as a bilingual Iranian-Canadian researcher might benefit my data collection process, but I was expected to acknowledge my cross-cultural position as a researcher actively. While I did not identify myself as a cross-cultural researcher, my participants allocated that position on me. The Iranian community perceived me as a researcher first and a community member second. Therefore, cross-cultural linguistic challenges became prevalent in this research. The participants were unwilling to speak in the most comfortable language for them. My social positionality as a researcher and the use of English made the experience inaccessible to my ethnic community. By revisiting my fieldwork experience, I aim to explore the unexpected linguistic challenges experienced by bilingual ethnic immigrant researchers, especially with the growing 1.5-, 1.25-, and second-generation immigrant researchers who have bilingual abilities but lack the proper training to utilize it.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: Ontario Graduate Scholarship.
