In the intricate world of research, reflexivity acts as a beacon to guide researchers through the challenging areas of ethics, power dynamics and cultural differences.
Reflexivity refers to the critical reflection on one’s research role (Patnaik, 2013), which might initially seem abstract to new researchers. However, when there are opportunities to be supported in reflecting on research experiences with other researchers, this term can become clearer and more concrete. Reflexivity can be especially impactful where the researchers inhabit the roles of both ‘insider’ and ‘outsider’, such as indigenous researchers in their home context, especially regarding revealing the challenges (such as unconscious cultural inertia of researchers) and power differentials (for instance unbalanced researcher–participants power relationship).
This summer, like two clumsy baby ducks entering the water for the first time, we joined a real qualitative research project as research assistants for the first time. The project we contributed to was titled, ‘Tackling Ethical Challenges in Research with Children: Contextualising Children’s Rights in China’, led by Yan Zhu (Zhu et al., 2023). This research involved 30 Chinese participants who had close contact with children, including researchers, teachers and social workers. These participants delved into the ethical challenges they faced while conducting research with children in China through six focus group discussions for different groups of children. This project led us to slowly walk through the door of qualitative research and start thinking about the significance of reflexivity for researchers.
