Description
As feminist researchers who use ethnographic methods to engage with military populations, we encounter tensions in the way we present ourselves to participants. A number of researchers have approached the topic of closeness with military members while critiquing militaries, and associated strategies for trust and empathy. Some highlight the importance of co-production and an emphatically critical soldier-centered approach, others discuss feminist ethics in these spaces. In this article, we build on this research and draw from our own work in Canada and Sweden, to delve into the ways we present ourselves when encountering participants on their own terms (central to feminist ethnographic work). We outline how our research participants have sometimes related to us, and how we tweak our identities to present ourselves in the way that would best build trust. The apologist – a naive girl happy to be taught, the critic – the woman who challenges military norms and is thought of as potentially threatening, or a civilian Other – who is difficult to relate to, but perhaps distant enough to open up to. Our experiences highlight the performativity sometimes required to ensure trust, and potential productive impact, tension, and strain they create within the researcher, and in the researcher-participant relationship.
