Positionality and Ethics in the Qualitative Research of Migrants’ Homes

This article discusses ethical decisions in the qualitative research of homes, with particular focus on a situation, in which a researcher studies his/her own migrant community. While exploring more common topics, such as negotiating access and receiving permission to photograph within participants’ homes, this article will also highlight issues that occur specifically within community-based ethnographic studies among Russian migrants. Using examples from the study of Russian immigrants’ homes in the UK, this article raises important questions of social positioning and power distribution within studied community. It will demonstrate the complexities of ethical decision making at different stages of the research process, which reflects the constantly changing relationship(s) between the cultural and social backgrounds and identities of researchers and participants. The insider and outsider role of the researcher is relative and the constant need to balance it, while simultaneously creating difficult ethical dilemmas, often reveals rich data and moves the whole research process forward.