Writing Positionality for Qualitative Inquiry: A Meta-Analysis of Written Research provides fundamental instruction for researchers on expressing positionality and incorporating written positionality statements into their research writing. The book offers a distinctive progression from identifying problems to implementing solutions, serving as a practical manual that emphasizes positionality's importance while guiding researchers through critical reflections on their data collection and analysis practices.
Structured in three comprehensive parts, the work provides an overview of research writing practices and engages with existing scholarship to demonstrate how positionality has expanded scientific knowledge development beyond traditional objectivist foundations. Readers gain deep understanding of positionality's necessity within qualitative research through discussion of four major dimensions of written positionality, covering crucial issues such as sociocultural identities. The book explores future modes of positionality through pathways including intersectionality, intertextuality, and temporality, while an appendix featuring the author's own positionality statement serves as a practical reference exemplifying the concepts explored throughout.
This valuable resource serves both emerging and established researchers across social science disciplines seeking to enhance research rigor by situating their role in data collection and analysis. It proves particularly useful for graduate students, qualitative researchers, ethnographers, and academics in sociology, anthropology, education, psychology, and related fields who need practical guidance for developing and articulating their positionality within scholarly work.