Theory Ain't Practice: Four Novice Researchers Navigate Dilemmas of Representation Within Immigrant Populations

This article illuminates instances in which four graduate students have struggled with issues of representation—of themselves and of immigrant participants—at their research sites and in their writing. These dilemmas are situated within the literature on the politics of representation in qualitative research. Although these dilemmas are not unique to novice researchers, how graduate students experience and work through the ethical grey spaces of ethnographic research is impacted by their status as emerging researchers—that is, as ethnographers transitioning from research in theory (idealism) to research in practice (reality). Although this paper does not offer hard and fast solutions to these dilemmas, it points to ways in which novice researchers may benefit from mentors when participating in reflexive communities.