Social Movements and the Positionality of the Researcher-Activist

Monday, 7 July 2025: 13:00-14:45
Location: FSE016 (Faculty of Education Sciences (FSE))
RC42 Social Psychology (host committee)
RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change

Language: English and Spanish

Within social mobilisation studies, the positionality of the researcher-activist plays a central role in understanding and analysing social manifestations. In contexts of political polarisation, multiple violence, social and armed conflicts, researcher-activists are exposed to risk scenarios and constant changes and face methodological and practical challenges in dealing with complex social situations in the midst of their research. Current interdisciplinary literature has undertaken to study central aspects of the positionality of the researcher-activist in fieldwork, where a fracture in the dominant axiological neutrality is evident. From this perspective, there is a quest to rethink the subjectivity of the researcher-activist and how they are involved and engaged with their study subjects.

We are calling for paper presentations that can offer new insights into the study of social mobilisation and the positionality of the researcher-activist through fieldwork experiences in contexts of polarisation, multiple violence or conflict. For this session we propose some guiding questions: How does fieldwork put in tension the methodological designs within the study of social movements and the positionality of the researcher-activist? What research tools are useful to work with the experience of the researcher-activist during fieldwork? How do these experiences allow us to understand the demands and subjectivities not only of the researcher-activists but also of the social actors who are part of social movements? And finally, how does being part of the fieldwork impact the researcher-activist's approach?

Session Organizers:
Marian ORJUELA, Heidelberg University | Germany, United Kingdom and Karla HENRIQUEZ OJEDA, Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium
Oral Presentations
The Ethics and Politics of Representation in Researching with Social Movement Activists in the Social Media Age
Mandy LEE, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland; Outi KÄHÄRI, University of Oulu, Finland
Prácticas Emergentes De Cientistas Sociales Miembros De Organizaciones Civiles, En El Trabajo Por Los DDHH Durante El Estallido Social y La Convención Constitucional En Chile (2019-2022)
Milena MORALES BONICH, Universitat Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain
Inquiring Student Agency in Secondary Education: Key Challenges for an Exploratory Research
Giuseppe LIPARI, Scuola Normale Superiore, Italy
Making "Rapport"——Fieldwork on Social Movements
Masato TANIGUCHI, Keio University, Japan
Inside Border Solidarities: Navigating Ethics and Engagement in Research-Activism Along the Balkan Routes
Chiara MARTINI, Italy
Distributed Papers
Feminist, Ally or Outsider: Analyzing the 2019 "Un Violador En Tu Camino" Protests in Turkey As a Male Researcher
Batuhan EREN, Italy
Affordances-Driven Ethics for Research on and with Chat Apps: Notes from the Global South
Mr. Sérgio BARBOSA, MA, University of Brasilia, Brazil
See more of: RC42 Social Psychology
See more of: RC48 Social Movements, Collective Actions and Social Change
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