Researching my people, researching the "other": Field experiences of two researchers along shifting positionalities

Two researchers-one an Arab-Bedouin studying her own people from the Bedouin community, and the other belonging to Israel's hegemonic Jewish society, studying women from the Druze minority-examine their positionalities as manifested in the field, analyzing their experiences and interaction with participants. Considerable importance and significant implications are customarily ascribed to the issue of whether a researcher is part of the culture studied or external to it. By contrast, this study challenges prevailing notions in professional literature, exploring fluctuations in the positioning of both researchers that occurred as they conducted their study, despite their ostensibly clear and obvious position, analyzing these effects on the sense of affinity to or remoteness from the participants, their culture and inner worlds.