Interpretivism and Ethnography: Positionality and Data Analysis

Introduction

In this article, I analyse two methodological issues faced during my doctoral research on a Muslim lower-caste activist organization, the All-India Pasmanda Muslim Mahaz (AIPMM), and its civic engagement. The AIPMM is a loose coalition of lower and non-caste Muslim groups which was founded in 1998 in Patna, Bihar, by journalist/activist Ali Anwar Ansari. It protests caste-based stratification within the Muslim community while also making various demands from the state for greater representation through affirmative action policies. My doctoral dissertation on the AIPMM was guided by several research questions such as on the group identities driving the AIPMM’s civic engagement and on its collective actions/claims within civil society activist networks and vis-à-vis the state. The study included a period of multi-local ethnographically informed fieldwork in northern India (February 2019–March 2019; September 2019–March 2020). ² Data were gathered through semi-structured personal/group interviews and participant observation as well as through some archival material. The ontological framework of the research project was informed by an interpretivist perspective.

This piece is divided into four main parts. In the first one, I discuss what interpretivism as an ontological perspective in social science research entails; this will also contain a brief description of its salient features. The second section deals with the issue of using ethnographic data to contribute to extant theoretical debates in scholarship (in this case, within the concept of civic engagement and state–civil society interaction); thus, it focuses on how I utilized thematic data (detailed discussion on this later) analysis to cyclically and consciously integrate the research questions, theoretical themes and field-work data with each other to further the study. While this section explicates a practical and hands-on aspect of the research process, the next one delves into a more abstract part of ethnographically informed research—the positionality of the field researcher. Given the fact that the ethnographer themself is the ‘primary research instrument’ in the field (Stuart, 2018, p. 209), discussions on the multiple social locations that they occupy has become a standard part of ethnographies. For this purpose, I reflect on the complexities/challenges that I faced as a supposed ‘insider’ to the community/group that I was studying. I also talk about my approach to representing interlocuters’ claims and other field data within ethnographic writing. Finally, the article ends with a short conclusion section.

What Is Interpretivism

Starkly opposed to positivism as an ontological perspective, interpretivism endorses a view of reality which is inter-subjective and which is influenced by the meaning that social actors attribute to it (Junjie & Yingxin, 2022). In this way, human beings differentiate themselves from natural phenomena through meaningful social actions and interactions alone. It emphasizes the socially constructed nature of reality and the interconnectedness between the researcher and the research subject. According to this position, value-neutral perceptions of social realities do not exist; rather, they are constructed by various social frames of references held by different people. A sensitivity to the social context that individuals/groups find themselves in is a hallmark of interpretivism. It is important to clarify here that this viewpoint does not stand for extreme relativism but rather for ‘how particular social groups or individuals formulate different realities and give them meaning, as well as to demonstrate how these norms explain their behavior’ (Junjie & Yingxin, 2022, p. 11).

Several features of interpretivism as a research philosophy have been noted in extant literature such as seeing ‘knowledge as historically situated and entangled in power relations’, ‘seeing the world as socially made’, forgoing ‘individualist assumptions’ that have characterized much positivist scholarship and finally a central concern ‘with language and other symbolic systems, in what is sometimes termed “culture” in the literature’ (Wedeen, 2009, pp. 80–81). These characteristics deserve some explication at this juncture. The acknowledgement that knowledge is produced in a particular historical setting and is not free from questions of power has been instrumental in bringing about an interpretivist turn in the social sciences/humanities. In this scenario, power can be seen both as a coercive force and as a more diffuse and pervasive reality in a more Foucauldian sense (Wedeen, 2009, p. 80). This perspective also sees the world as socially construed (as said before) and not as objectively available and externally discoverable before the researcher. Additionally, interpretivism views individuals as socially embedded beings rather than as atomistic selves. Finally, culture is of interest to it as an ‘abstract theoretical category’, which is meaning-specific (Wedeen, 2010, p. 261). The interpretivist regards culture largely as a semiotic structure consisting of language and other symbolic systems which take significance socially. Thus, facts are not taken at face value but rather the meaning(s) they acquire across social/cultural settings gain salience.

The ontological perspective that informs any research project is guided by its aims and the overarching questions that it seeks to answer. For my doctoral research on the AIPMM’s civic engagement, it was necessary to understand the collective claims and actions of the activists associated with it. Alongside this I was also interested in interrogating how larger civil society activist networks interact with the AIPMM. Keeping these goals in mind, I adopted an interpretivist research framework to conduct the study.

Theory and Field Data

Proponents of methodological pluralism within political science have criticized the ‘disciplinary amnesia’ in acknowledging the scholarly contributions of ethnographic studies (Schatz, 2017, p. 135). Indeed, interpretive ethnographies can help in adding to pre-existing theoretical issues within political science. My doctoral dissertation aimed to contribute to the larger theoretical debates within the concept of civic engagement through ethnographic data such as interview recordings, video recordings of public speeches, field observations and also archival material including pamphlets, periodicals and books. The research questions guiding the study were drawn from a relatively tight theoretical framework of civic engagement (and state–civil society relations). In other words, they were deduced from the burgeoning theoretical literature on group identities in civic engagement and state–civil society relations in different settings. On the other hand, the answers inductively generated from field data were used to contribute or add to the latter. In this way I mixed both inductive and deductive elements in the interpretive ethnographic exercise (Wilson & Chaddha, 2009). An interpretivist approach recognizes the importance of both theoretical and empirical material but not independently of each other—‘there is a recursive and reiterative process not only across data sources in the field, but also between theoretical and field encounters’ (Schwartz-Shea & Yanow, 2012, p. 34). Much of interpretive research, therefore, requires a cyclical movement between both empirical and theoretical parts of the research.

Data analysis is a key component in bringing both aspects of the research together. I utilized thematic analysis as a specific data analysis method which basically involves going ‘through textual data to identify specific themes (clusters of linked categories that convey similar meanings)’ (Dawson, 2013, p. 139). Thematic analysis generally utilizes a prior list of topics to scrutinize qualitative/textual material (Elliot et al., 2016, under ‘Thematic Analysis’). It is ‘a data reduction and analysis strategy by which qualitative data are segmented, categorized, summarized, and reconstructed in a way that captures the essential concepts within the data set’ (Ayres, 2008, p. 867). The textual data for this analysis predominantly came from the transcripts of the groups/personal semi-structured interviews and public speeches that I had recorded in the field. I initially started with a broad version of the transcripts, to which I added further details as the writing progressed. When specifically applied to interview data, thematic analysis allows researchers to remove a piece of information from its original context and re-categorize it according to a pre-determined list of themes (Ayres, 2008, p. 867). In this way, raw chunks of information generated across multiple sources of data can be streamlined and organized based on certain pre-chosen thematic angles. I utilized theory-driven themes to scrutinize and organize this wide corpus of data; unlike prior research-driven or inductive themes, theory-driven ones are drawn from an extant theoretical framework (Boyatzis, 1998, p. 29).

Some of the chief theory-driven themes that emerged from the research questions were ‘identity issues within civic engagement’, ‘civic engagement in civil society’ and ‘civic engagement vis-à-vis the state’. I visualized each of these themes as comprising several ‘codes’ or ‘labels that assign symbolic meaning to the descriptive or inferential information compiled during a study’ (Miles et al., 2020, under ‘First Cycles Codes and Coding’). Therefore, as the analysis developed, I broke down the themes into broad yet distinct labels which I could apply to the different nuggets of raw data that emerged from the transcripts. The codes were purposefully wide to account for contradictory responses from the interlocuters on the same subject. In this way, the thematically corresponding codes helped categorize and group similarly patterned data across the transcripts to answer the research questions. At various stages, I intuitively made analytic choices about which piece of data could be brought under a particular theme; this method of data analysis was challenging at times, given the overlaps in certain parts of the ethnographic data. Thus, the codes or labels helped to collate and categorize the ethnographic details in a mutually interactive way as the research progressed. To illuminate this process with an example—for the research question regarding ‘civic engagement and collective identities’, the major themes that I drew from the theoretical literature were ‘civic engagement’, ‘collective identities’ and ‘political participation’. Going through ethnographic data, I chalked up various topically relevant codes/labels to categorize similar pieces of raw information under the aforementioned theoretical themes such as ‘class’, ‘Bahujan’ and ‘Muslim identity’, amongst others. Therefore, with each such cyclical step, I made intuitive/instinctive choices about which pieces of data should be included under which theoretical category for a particular research question.

The question of ‘intuition’ can be mulled upon further especially because its application is an important aspect of qualitative data analysis. In my case, intuition was broadly informed by two inter-related factors—first, my reading of the larger literature on the concept of civic engagement and, second, my main goal, which was to answer the research questions for the dissertation. In other words, keeping the larger lines of enquiry within relevant theoretical scholarship and the over-arching research questions in mind lent some coherence to the instinctive nature of data analysis; without such guiding lights, an intuitive approach runs the risk of becoming unfocussed and unfruitful instead of making the task simpler and more straightforward. Thus, to tap into intuition, a researcher needs to simultaneously be aware of these various reiterative components of the research project. This entire exercise also throws into relief the centrality of the researcher’s assessment and interpretation of the ethnographic material.

Self-reflexivity and Positionality in the Field

Interpretivist research assumes that the researcher both impacts and is impacted by the subject matter being studied; in this way, the interpretivist is not separate from the world of the researched (Weber, 2004, p. iv). Because of this, mulling over the various intersecting social identities that the researcher inhabits cannot be dismissed as mere ‘navel gazing’ but rather constitutes an important aspect of interpretive empirical work.

My positionality within the field vis-à-vis my interlocuters highlights the delicate nature of conducting so-called ‘insider ethnography’; there were two bases on which I shared a similar social location as that of most of my interlocuters—religion and caste background. I recurrently noticed how being considered as an insider to the community not only eased my access to the world of their activism but also put my interlocuters at greater ease when talking to me. For example, when establishing contact with a particular interlocuter for the first time on the phone, I initially sensed a reluctance/hesitance from him. Halfway through, while I was trying to gain further contacts from him and a possible appointment in the future for a personal interview, he asked me my caste location; after hearing my answer, I could sense a feeling of ease and comfort emerge from his side. This was followed up by months of interactions with him on WhatsApp through which he graciously helped me with digital AIPMM pamphlets/leaflets and answers to my queries. Later that year, when I met him face-to-face for an interview, he narrated his personal experience of caste discrimination at the hands of upper-caste Muslims in his village in Uttar Pradesh; during the conversation, I could clearly see that this brought up difficult emotions within him. This example illustrates the impact of being an insider to the group that you are studying, especially the relative ease in gaining interlocuters’ trust and access to their inner world, both of which are crucial in doing ethnographic research. I became sensitive to the fact that without the sharing of a similar caste background as them, my interlocuters would not have been too comfortable sharing deeply personal experiences. ³ Such instances also lead one to reflect the added sense of responsibility that occupying a ‘trusted insider’ position brings with it. This positioning also had its potential pitfalls; some of my interlocuters felt that since I come from the same caste location as them, I would join their activism as well (this was implied in various interviews). In these cases, dealing with such expectations with honesty and transparency becomes crucial for the ‘insider’ field researcher. In my situation, this also involved maintaining a distance from the research subject while simultaneously being sympathetic about the anti-caste cause/activism that they espoused. While it would be incorrect to assume that academic and activist orientations can never come together, I personally found it helpful to differentiate between the two in the field.

It is important to add at this juncture that the insider–outsider dichotomy has often been debated in scholarship—the central question being whether an ethnographer can occupy an absolute position as an insider or outsider to the community that they are studying (Bhargav, 2024; Bukamal, 2022; Schatz, 2009). It has been argued rather convincingly that instead of seeing the anthropologist as a fixed entity based on the insider/outsider binary, it is more helpful to see them as composed ‘of shifting identifications amid a field of interpenetrating communities and power relations’ (Narayan, 1993, p. 671). In other words, the ethnographer occupies a multitude of social locations at any given point of time, which may complicate the insider–outsider dynamic. In my case, for example, I found two aspects of my identity as complicating my interactions in the field—my gender and my position as a doctoral researcher at a European university.

Gender as a factor deserves more unpacking in this context. Everyday social scenarios often require appropriate gendered comportment from individuals, which includes details such as appropriate mannerisms, speech and attire. Field encounters between the researcher and the interlocuters are not very different from this. It is no surprise, therefore, that being a researcher (and that too a woman as well), gender-based concerns had an impact on my research experiences; there were two major areas where I felt this the most—the nature of questions/issues that I could raise during interviews with certain interlocuters and how easily/comfortably I could move around in the field, which impacted the data that I collected. For example, barring one person, all the interlocuters that I interviewed were male; while I had plans to speak to one more female interlocuter, I could not travel to her location because of the political turmoil in the country during the late 2019 to early 2020 period. While speaking to the male interlocuters, it felt difficult to bring up gender-specific concerns that lower-caste Muslim women face in their lives. Even though all of them were extremely forthcoming and obliging with their responses on various issues, I could not carve out the space to discuss women-specific ones with them. Ultimately,

I only found it appropriate to discuss gender-specific issues with the one female interlocuter that I encountered face-to-face. In this way the already marginal topic of gender justice became even more liminal in the field, which ended up having a bearing on my data. Additionally, being a female researcher impacts one’s mobility significantly; there have been several instances in which I had to unfortunately forego interviews because they had been arranged in an inconvenient time/space. Such examples bring the researcher face-to-face with their own limitations in the field. However, in these cases, it is important to remain mindful of the larger gender-based social mores and precautions and act accordingly, even if one disagrees with them.

A significant aspect of self-reflexivity also happens to be consciousness regarding the power dynamics between the ethnographer and the interlocuters whose actions and articulations are sought to be represented in ethnographic writing (Jerolmack & Khan, 2018). The ethnographic account of a particular group/community/society may inform different views/opinions about the latter and therefore deserves to be undertaken carefully. As I discussed earlier, a key part of the interpretivist perspective is to acknowledge how power dynamics are imbricated within knowledge production. While this involves being aware of one’s own biases/prejudices, it also includes adopting an approach towards interview data that allows for a faithful yet analytical representation of the interlocuters’ claims and actions. Given this reason, my attitude towards the interlocuter was not informed by an attempt to determine the veracity of their claims; in other words, I did not ‘test’ articulations in the field through a ‘true or false’ perspective. Nor was it my attempt to ‘correct’ my respondents’ views/knowledge about anything (which could of course be disrespectful to them). This is because interpretivism requires a specific attitude towards validating empirical knowledge, which is different from ‘truth correspondence’ (Moilanen, 2000). Some have argued that interpretivists view ‘facts’ as culturally/collectively mediated and of different kinds because there are different ways of seeing a particular phenomenon (Wedeen, 2010, p. 267). This does not mean that researchers simply write up ethnographic data in a non-evaluative manner; in my case, I utilized pre-existing scholarship along with a moderately critical lens to represent my respondents’ utterances and collective actions on the ground. In practice, for example, this negates taking field articulations at face value but instead attempts to express them in an academically rigorous and explanatory way without being disparaging or condescending towards them. Not doing this would be tantamount to a breach of research ethics, especially with regard to the faith interlocuters repose in the researcher. Placing my interlocuters’ actions in the larger sociopolitical reality also allowed me to contextualize their activities and claims for social scientific writing. In such a way, I attempted to represent the claims of interlocuters in my ethnographic writing.

Conclusion

Even though interpretivist research in the social sciences can help in unearthing the ways in which individuals/groups engage in meaningful actions in different contexts, they also bring their own specific challenges for the researcher to navigate. In this article, I elaborated on the scholarly literature on interpretivism and its important features. I also discussed my own experiences with two specific issues in interpretive ethnographically which informed research in my doctoral project on the AIPMM’s civic engagement, namely the integration of theory and data and representing ethnographic data through an ‘insider’ position. Despite these concerns, an interpretivist perspective allowed for my doctoral dissertation to be grounded in dynamic empirical sociopolitical contexts, which is crucial for ethnographic research.