Sitting in the Soup – Negotiating the Challenges of Being an Insider in Qualitative Health Research

Insider research refers to research conducted by individuals who are members of the group being studied. This reflexive article explores the personal and methodological journey of being an insider researcher investigating firefighters’ experiences of suicide exposure, while being both an active firefighter and someone with lived experience of suicide bereavement. Through first-person narrative, the article traces evolution from positivist certainty to embracing the metaphor of ‘sitting in the soup’ of uncertainty as essential to skilled insider research. Drawing on Consoli’s life capital framework and affect theory scholarship, the article demonstrates how healing from personal trauma became a methodological prerequisite, enabling conscious engagement with the affective entanglement inherent in insider positioning. Central to this approach is recognition that reflexivity must operate as core practice prior to and throughout the entire research process. The article proposes that insider positioning is paradoxical and dynamic rather than fixed, and that thorough self-knowledge transforms embedded subjectivity from methodological liability into epistemological strength. When conducted with sophisticated reflexive competence, insider research enables deeper, more nuanced understanding of human experience while maintaining academic rigour.