Between Boundaries: Reflexivity of Discomfort With ‘Significant Other’

This article explores the complexities of my reflexive ethnography, stemming from my shifting subjectivities as a researcher. Drawing on the notion of discomfort, I delve into my contested positionality, situated in the nexus of underlying political and historical forces. My multilayered identity—both as an insider due to my national and religious identity and as an outsider for my ethnicity—constructs a liminal space for me as a Bengali researcher researching the Bihari minorities in Bangladesh. Drawing on my epistemological and personal encounters with the research context, I engage in a critical dialogue with the discourse of reflexive ethnography regarding power dynamics among researchers, participants, and the context. I explore the fluidity of boundary‐making by conceptualising ‘significant otherness’ as a relationship marked by distance and proximity between the researcher and the researched. I resonate with the critique that the use of reflexivity is often reduced to validating data and familiarising the unfamiliar instead of challenging the status quo. Therefore, this paper does not promise any definite, comfortable answer but aims to provoke uncomfortable thoughts while practising reflexive positionality in the context of multivocal research.