Doing Fieldwork at ‘Home’: Ethical and Emotional Considerations on the Academic-Activist Relationship

Excerpt: "For researchers employing ethnographic methods like I do, researching activism raises questions about positionality, impact, possible overidentification with the people or groups studied, distinctions between theory and action, and epistemology. The boundaries between research, advocacy, and everyday life are blurred when researchers become heavily involved in the social setting of activist groups (Davis 2003; Petray 2012), and this is why the researcher needs to reflect on the relations between research and activism, and one’s role as a researcher in the field of activism."