TY - JOUR

T1 - On assistants and researchers

T2 - Power, positionality and vulnerability during fieldwork on the Colombian conflict

AU - Rodríguez, Laura Ramírez

AU - Minatti, Wolfgang

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

PY - 2024

Y1 - 2024

N2 - As field researchers have increasingly explored the methodological ‘backstage’ of their fieldwork, the relationship between researcher and assistant has come to the fore. While the literature has discussed gender, coloniality, and exploitation inherent to such work arrangements, less has been written about how the relation conditions and is conditioned by experiences of vulnerability. In this article, an assistant and a researcher address this gap analysing their relationship during a joint fieldwork experience in Colombia in 2021. We argue that the relation between researcher and research assistant should be conceived as being entangled in situations of vulnerability. We focus on vulnerability across and within the relation, highlighting the interactions of researchers and assistants’ positionalities and reflecting on how certain situations can heighten tensions of power and friendship. We show that a conceptualisation of the assistant–researcher relationship as conditioned by vulnerability allows us to consider the ethics arising from this relationship.

AB - As field researchers have increasingly explored the methodological ‘backstage’ of their fieldwork, the relationship between researcher and assistant has come to the fore. While the literature has discussed gender, coloniality, and exploitation inherent to such work arrangements, less has been written about how the relation conditions and is conditioned by experiences of vulnerability. In this article, an assistant and a researcher address this gap analysing their relationship during a joint fieldwork experience in Colombia in 2021. We argue that the relation between researcher and research assistant should be conceived as being entangled in situations of vulnerability. We focus on vulnerability across and within the relation, highlighting the interactions of researchers and assistants’ positionalities and reflecting on how certain situations can heighten tensions of power and friendship. We show that a conceptualisation of the assistant–researcher relationship as conditioned by vulnerability allows us to consider the ethics arising from this relationship.

KW - collaboration

KW - ethics of preparedness

KW - ethnography

KW - fieldwork

KW - friendship

KW - positionality

KW - power

KW - reflexivity

KW - research assistant

KW - vulnerability

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85203294914&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1177/14687941241277744

DO - 10.1177/14687941241277744

M3 - Journal articles

AN - SCOPUS:85203294914

JO - Qualitative Research

JF - Qualitative Research

SN - 1468-7941

ER -