‘Positionality profoundly affects all aspects of research which involve interaction with other people, especially when researching the lives of people of a different class, race, and culture from the researcher – what is referred to as researching ‘the other’’ (Howard 1997: 20). Much of the work written on the process of conducting research on elites and others has tended to assume that there exists a simple and clearly discernible dichotomy concerning the researcher’s positionality – either the researcher is an ‘outsider’ or an ‘insider’. It has been argued that being an ‘insider’ or, at least, being perceived as an ‘insider’ is the most advantageous position and gives the researcher a privileged position to understand histories, processes and events as they unfold. Positionality has often mainly been taken to concern the personal physical or social characteristics of the interviewer such as class, race, gender, nationality and age (Herod 1999).
Considering my own identity as a young Thai woman, I should – in theory – enjoy the role and position of an ‘insider’. However, things are not quite so simple. In Chiang Mai I was regarded as different – an urbanite from the capital, Bangkok – and my language, accent and dress marked me out as such (rather than a northerner). This is not to say that I did not receive a warm welcome from the villagers. They were pleased to answer my questions during both interviews and questionnaires, and also helped to find the next interviewees. Even so, it must be acknowledged that I have a positionality which, while necessarily different from that of a farang (foreigner), is nonetheless important. I was not an insider; I was not even regarded as being from the region. Not only in Chiang Mai was I regarded as an outsider, but my engagement with my research subjects in Bangkok also raised issues of positionality. Being a young, female Thai and ‘only’ a student (even one undertaking a research degree) caused some difficulties. For example, elite interviewees did not keep their appointments (as they would with a lecturer, for example, or even with a PhD student
from a Western country) and I was treated differently. As noted above, the fact that I am Thai meant that I could not escape from the obligations of being Thai.
To expand, in my experience, nearly every scheduled interview with a senior civil servant in Bangkok was characterised by a range of problems and disappointments: appointments were either cancelled at the last minute or, if kept, attended at least half an hour later than the scheduled time, even when the dates and times had been agreed upon weeks in advance. In fact, interviews were often more successful in term of timing when they were arranged at very short notice (on the day before). When I went to interview some senior officers in Chiang Mai (rather than Bangkok), I felt that interviewees were more receptive to spending time with me. Some were surprised that I had traveled such a long distance from Bangkok to Chiang Mai with the sole purpose of interviewing them alone, ‘as opposed to their being simply one person out of a large number of interviewees – i.e., that they were somehow “special” people from whom an interested ‘outsider’ wished to learn’ (Herod 1999: 323 ). However, while I made choices about the aspects of my identity that I wished to disclose during interviews, my representation was not always under my control. The elites that I interviewed made choices about the level of information that they were prepared to give based on their own perceptions of me (Mullings 1999).
When I went to make an appointment to interview a head officer of Sankamphaeng District, Chiang Mai and also the developers in the district office, a secretary of the head officer unexpectedly asked me about the university where I did my Bachelor degree. I answered him that I did my Bachelor degree in Political Science at Chulalongkorn University (usually regarded as Thailand’s premier university). He seemed pleased and he did not need my formal letter anymore as he said the head officer had attended the same department and the same university as mine. After we had made this link, the head officer of Sankamphaeng District proceeded to help me a great deal not only with the interview arrangements in Sankamphaeng District office and Ton Pao Municipality office, but he also called the head officer of Hang Dong District and asked for information and other interviewees that I needed. This accidental association established a rapport (Richards 1996) from which I gained considerable ‘return’.
In terms of appearance, as suggested by Richards (1996), I thought carefully about the best way to dress for each interview. As a PhD student interviewing a senior civil servant, especially in Bangkok, I wore a white shirt and a skirt, and sometimes even a suit to appear more professional. However, I wore a polo shirt or t-shirt, jeans and canvas shoes, and carried an old cotton bag with me when I did my fieldwork in Chiang Mai among the villages. If I had turned up in a suit when I went to interview the villagers, it would not have created quite the right impression, creating a ‘distance’ between the villagers and myself, something that I was keen to narrow. Later, in the interviews, I was surprised at the extent to which villagers would ‘open up’ and share their impressions of their work and its effect on their everyday lives.
I am aware of the ethical considerations and take responsibility for my own ethical practice. All interviewees were informed of what the research was about and what their interview involved. A list of questions was provided to provide a basic structure for the interview. Moreover, as an urban Thai from Bangkok, I paid special attention to ensuring that my research was not extractive and was sensitive to local communities and their needs and views. I intend to report the results of my study back to the communities by providing wide-ranging feedback of the results to the community officers. Furthermore, I took good care to follow Durham University ethical guidelines, which require consent forms to be filled out by research participants, as far as this is possible in a rural context in a poorer country.