As concept, however, positionality risks becoming an empty container if it is not also experienced and understood by those of us engaging in both research and teaching. How do we understand what we teach? In which ways do our preconceptions affect our abilities to observe a field? What about our embodiment in the field? How is an empirical encounter shaped and reshaped by the dynamics of people involved in it, including us as researchers?
Program:
- 09:00-09:30 Introduction (Helena Margrethe Strandli Schmidt & Tonje Baugerud)
- 09:30-10:00 Keynote (Marta Bivand Erdal, Research Professor in Migration Studies, PRIO: On the concept of positionality
- 10:00-10:15 Break
- 10:15-11:00 Workshopping positionality
Group discussions, reflections on researcher and teaching experiences emphasizing the dynamics of positionality - 11:00-11:30 Open discussion
About Marta Bivand Erdal
Marta Bivand Erdal is a Research Professor in Migration Studies, at Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), where she is Co-Director of the PRIO Migration Center.
As a Human Geographer she is interested in the impacts of migration and transnationalism in both emigration and immigration contexts, including migration & development, remittances, and migration-related diversity. Marta’s work draws on interview, focus group, and survey data, paying critical attention to the use of categories. From 2019-2021 she coordinated the qualitative data collection in 10 countries and 26 research areas for the EU-funded MIGNEX project. She is currently investigating connections between migration – of different durations and distances – and social mobility into the middle classes in Asia, in the ERC funded research project MigrationRhythms. Marta has published extensively in migration studies and regularly engages with governmental and non-governmental stakeholders.