Dis/closures of positionality: An auto-ethnographic exploration of the political-epistemological implications of doing research on inclusion and exclusion in Europe

This article argues that researchers should consider positionality not as a one-time declaration of social identity, but as an ongoing practice of epistemic suspicion that reveals how our knowledge is shaped not only by who we are, but also by the historically sedimented structures that make us intelligible as ‘knowers’ in the first place. We bring empirical material collected in an ethnographic study on race, (in)equality, and discrimination into conversation with auto-ethnographic reflections and theories of critical ethnography. In doing so, we examine how our position as researchers is deeply embedded in hegemonic political-epistemological discourses that we cannot overcome or safely contain in ‘positionality statements’. To stay with the trouble, we refrain from drawing a clear conclusion and instead formulate a catalogue of questions that have emerged in the course of this research to engage with the discomfort, contradictions, and complicity that arise in the production of critical knowledge.