The researcher wears gucci: Reflexive considerations of dress and embodiment in ethnographic research

This article offers a reflexive ethnographic account of how clothing shaped the author’s fieldwork among Congolese refugees in Nairobi, Kenya. Prompted by a passing comment on her “baggy trousers,” the author traces how her clothed body became both a site and method of inquiry, revealing how fashion mediates selfhood and knowledge production. Through efforts to begin to ‘dress Congolese,’ the author engaged in a process of sartorial and bodily transformation that revealed the researchers’ body as a dynamic research instrument. The author illustrates how clothing choices shaped her presence in the field, the quality of interactions with interlocutors, and her own being-in-the-world. Empirical vignettes—from shopping with a local Sapeur to getting tailored outfits—demonstrate how dress functioned as both ethnographic material and a methodological tool, offering insights into Congolese aesthetics of distinction, appropriateness, and style. In doing so, the paper argues that recognizing the fashioned body as a key medium through which researchers engage with the world can deepen understandings of researcher identity, fieldwork dynamics, and situated knowledge.