Revealing Oneself: When Doing Fieldwork with Journalists Challenges Your Identity Work as a Researcher in Management

Abstract

This personal reflection piece relates my experience of vulnerability as a researcher when doing ethnographic fieldwork with journalists. Drawing on my empirical and emotional experience, I show the way the encounters in the field made me feel vulnerable and challenged my identity as a researcher. The chapter also introduces the way my self-disclosure in various ways as a fellow imperfect human being – a.o. regarding motherhood – was an important way to build relationships with the research participants and gain their trust. By doing so, this reflective commentary seeks to contribute to a better understanding of the articulation between researcher identity, fieldwork, and vulnerability.

Citation

Terlinden, L. (2023), "Revealing Oneself: When Doing Fieldwork with Journalists Challenges Your Identity Work as a Researcher in Management", Delbridge, R., Helfen, M., Pekarek, A. and Purser, G. (Ed.) Ethnographies of Work (Research in the Sociology of Work, Vol. 35), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 173-181. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0277-283320230000035009