Hi, I’m Leila, and I’m currently doing a PhD exploring the experiences of women who are independent workers, including entrepreneurs, freelancers, and the self-employed, who use online communities as part of their working lives.

My first study is collecting data through a series of interviews with women and community hosts across two online communities where I’m also a paying member. These are spaces I didn’t join as a researcher, but as someone looking for connection, support, and belonging in independent work.

Alongside the research itself, I’ll be keeping a series of blog posts as part of my reflexivity practice. These posts will sit under a little series I’m calling Field Notes (from the Inside) reflections on researching communities I belong to, in real time.

Everything we know is shaped by where we stand in the world.

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Field notes from the inside.

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our bodies, our histories, our relationships, access to power, safety, time, and

resources.

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None of us observe life from a neutral platform.

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And the feminist scholar Donna Haraway called this a situated knowledge.

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She argued that there's no view from nowhere.

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And what we call objectivity is always shaped by perspective, even when that perspective

has learned to pass itself off as universal.

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So she said this in the 1980s, a time when science and technology were widely imagined as

neutral and detached and value free.

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But she insisted that knowledge is always produced from somewhere.

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So I found myself thinking about her work because I'm researching communities that I

belong to.

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And if all knowledge is situated, then the question is not whether I am involved, but how

I account for that involvement.

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In psychology, especially in the qualitative type of research that I'm doing at the

moment, we don't pretend that um as a researcher, we're some kind of neutral observer

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hovering around the data.

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We know that we're in it and we're asking questions.

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We're building interpretations.

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We're deciding what feels meaningful.

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Reflexivity is basically the practice of turning the lens back on ourselves and asking,

well, why did that comment stand out for me?

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And what does this tell me?

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Why is it so compelling?

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What am I bringing to this conversation because of my experiences?

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And where might I be filling in gaps because something feels familiar?

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It certainly isn't about beating yourself up as a researcher for having a perspective

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or trying to be perfectly unbiased, which is impossible.

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It's about holding things up, turning them around and really inspecting them.

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And it becomes especially important when you're researching spaces you belong to.

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When the language is shared or when someone describes something and part of you

instinctively says, of course, that's just how it is.

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One thing that's been really useful though, is thinking about

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my reflexive notes that I took last time I did insider research as part of my master's

degree.

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Reading them has been a nice reminder to notice those of course moments and how they

showed up in my thinking and how I slowed down my analysis to question them.

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There is one quote from my master's where one of the participants described online spaces

as smoke and mirrors.

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Now this was

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research around imposter phenomenon and I remember immediately understanding what that

person meant and even noting that reaction in a transcript as a reflexive moment.

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And at the time that instant recognition probably felt like an insider moment but that's

where reflexivity asks you to pause because smoke and mirrors isn't just about that

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appearance of polished social media.

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It was actually uh

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know, fear of exposure, self-censorship, blurred audiences, and deciding what can be

shared safely.

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It was about navigating visibility in spaces where reward, well, spaces that reward

performance, but don't always show the full reality.

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So it asked me to think about my own visibility at the same time.

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if everything does feel like an illusion in online spaces, where does that leave the way I

share?

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Am I part of this performance too?

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My familiarity with the Communities and Researching can be a real gift.

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It'll allow me to hear nuance, understand context, perhaps even read between the lines,

but it can also smooth over things that deserve much closer attention.

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For me, it's less about trying to eliminate my own involvement and just be more honest

about it.

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because if all knowledge is situated, as Haraway suggests, then the work isn't to pretend

I'm standing outside of these communities, it's to be very clear where I'm standing while

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I study them.

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Hi, I'm Leila and I'm currently doing a PhD exploring the experiences of women who are

independent workers, including entrepreneurs, freelancers and the self-employed, who use

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mixed-gender online communities as part of their working lives.

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My first study is collecting data through a series of interviews with women and community

hosts across two online communities.

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But I'm also a paying member in these spaces and I didn't join as a researcher, but as

somebody many years ago looking for connection, support and belonging in independent work.

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Alongside the research itself, I'll be keeping a series of blog posts on my reflexivity

practice.

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And these posts will sit under a little series called Field Notes from the Inside.

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And they're just reflections on research in the communities that I'm a member of in real

time.

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If you're joining me today, it's possible that you have taken part in one of my interviews

and I just want to say a final thank you for being part of such valuable research and for

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sharing your experiences with me in our shared context.