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Confronting the insider-outsider polemic in conducting research with diasporic communities: towards a community-based approach.

Article Excerpt
Abstract

Researchers focusing on diasporic contexts face the difficult task of wearing their "academic hats" while at the same time building meaningful relationships with immigrant communities. This is no more apparent (and important) than with "non-community" (i.e., outsider) researchers. Here diasporic communities, having already experienced the trauma of forced migration, must see the academic researcher as one they can trust and who is invested in their long-term well being. In this paper I address methodological and philosophical concerns related to the insider-outsider researcher distinction and to conducting research as an "outsider." The principle aims of the paper are to critically examine the distinctions that create and perpetuate the insider-outsider polemic, explore what this polemic "looks like" within diasporic contexts, and consider community-based participatory research as one "vehicle" that might effectively address some of the thorniest problems associated with the insider-outsider distinction.

Resume

Les chercheurs consacrant leurs travaux aux contextes diasporiques sont confrontes a la difficile tache de porter leurs "chapeaux d'universitaire" et d'etablir en meme temps des rapports significatifs avec les communautes d'immigres. Cela est encore moins evident (et important) pour les chercheurs "non communautaires" (c.-a-d., etrangers). Les communautes diasporiques, ayant deja eprouve le traumatisme de la migration forcee, doivent percevoir le chercheur universitaire comine quelqu'un en qui elles peuvent faire confiance et qui tient a coeur leur bien-etre a long terme. Dans cet article, je traite des problemes d'ordres methodologiques et philosophiques lies a la distinction entre chercheur initie et chercheur etranger, et a la conduite des recherches en tant qu' "etranger". Les objectifs principaux de cet article sont d'examiner de facon critique les distinctions qui creent et qui perpetuent la polemique initie-etranger, d'explorer comment cette polemique est percue dans des contextes diasporiques, et de considerer la recherche participative communautaire comine un "vehicule "qui pourrait traiter de facon efficace certains des problemes les plus epineux lies a la distinction initie-etranger

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In this paper I address the insider-outsider researcher distinction as it relates to conducting research with diasporic communities. (1) While the distinction has in many cases legitimate historical precedent and real perpetuating factors (such as racista and classism),basic philosophical problems associated with the dualism, such as group boundaries and group membership, remain. The distinction becomes even more complicated in this regard given the fluid and dynamic nature of diasporic communities wherein there may exist multiple homes and multiple belongings. (2) Yet despite philosophical complications with the insider-outsider dualism, ethical issues pertaining to non-refugee academics engaging in refugee research persist. Most pertinent is the fulfillment of what Karen Jacobsen and Loren Landau identify as the "dual imperative" in refugee research, namely, to satisfy rigorous academic research standards while also ensuring that the knowledge and understanding generated by forced migration research be used toward the advancement of refugee protection and the betterment of refugee policy. (3) Community-based participatory research is one vehicle that might effectively address some of the thorniest problems associated with the insider-outsider distinction related to research with diasporic communities and concomitantly address the imperative articulated by Jacobsen and Landau. This is particularly so with regard to bridging the academic-community divide and herein (re)defining the role of the outsider researcher and his / her relation to diasporic communities at large.

I begin this article with an overview of the basic ways in which the insider-outsider researcher distinction has been created and maintained, giving special attention to the manners in which universities and communities, and academic and non-academic cultures, have been separated. I then move to examining complications regarding the distinction, including the special context of research within diasporic contexts. Thirdly I attend to Jacobsen and Landau's dual imperative in refugee research, drawing relations between the imperative and "outsider" researcher. I conclude the article with a discussion of community-based research, and the promises it holds for both the researcher and the researched.

Conceptualizing and Understanding Insider-Outsider Distinctions

The term "outsider researcher" with reference to relations between researcher and the researched is most basically understood in terms of group membership, wherein an "outsider" is a non-"member" of the community in question. Hence a man researching women, a black researching whites, and a heterosexual researching gays may all be said to be "outsider" researchers by virtue of their not being women, whites, or gays. By the same token, members of these communities conducting research about these communities may be construed as "insider" researchers. The implicit assumption behind distinguishing insiders from outsiders based on group membership is that only such insiders can properly understand and represent the experience of their community. (4)

Yet basic group membership or non-membership only scratches the surface of the reasons for and tensions inherent in insider-outsider distinctions,...

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