(Re)Constituting Ethnographic Identities

In this essay, the authors sketch out a dialogic consideration of how identity is constituted in qualitative research. They call into question the role of the researcher, asking how he or she not only helps construct his or her own identity in and through the research project but also how the researcher works to maintain the very identities and phenomena he or she thinks he or she is working to deconstruct. The authors put these issues into play with a dialogue, weaving their voices and their independent research projects together to illuminate how different scholars in different sites work to performatively (re)constitute the “subjects” in and of their research. Ultimately, the form of this essay makes possible the immediacy of the authors’ struggle within their scholarly practice, ending with a vision for new ways of hearing identity in production.