"She's Mlungu but she looks like me!": disrupting insider/outsider dichotomies in ethnographic fieldwork. Issue 4 (2nd October 2017)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Powell, Crystal
• Is Part Of: Safundi. Volume 18:Issue 4(2017)
• Page Start: 400
• Page End: 416
• Publication Date: 2017-10-02
• Subjects: Ethnography -- insider -- black-American -- makwerekwere -- mlungu -- Langa; South Africa -- History -- Periodicals; United States -- History -- Periodicals; 968
• DOI: 10.1080/17533171.2017.1358012
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1753-3171

Abstract

Abstract: What happens when the biologically and socially visible (and invisible) boundaries used to maintain differences between the researcher (outsider) and the researched (insiders) are broken down or denied acknowledgment? This article explores one challenge of conducting ethnographic fieldwork in regards to race and the unintentional blurring of the insider–outsider dichotomies within the field. As an English-speaking African American attempting to penetrate Langa, a black South African, predominantly isiXhosa-speaking township, it became apparent that my physical appearance automatically relegated me to an 'insider, ' awarding me a certain and perhaps undeserved membership in the field. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork from 2011 to 2012, this article is a reflection of my experience of balancing my role as a black-American researcher – and by default an outsider – in an environment where my "outsider-ness" was visibly non-existent. This both mitigated an exacerbated my ethnographic data collection.