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163
The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
It is becoming increasingly important for
social and behavioural researchers to clarify their
personal motivation for their research, especially
for those utilising qualitative methodologies that
require reflexivity (see Creswell, 1994; Crotty,
1998; Etherington, 2004; Patton, 2002). As a
component of clarifying their role in the research,
these researchers often position themselves as
either ‘insiders’ or ‘outsiders’ to their research
domain (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002). Generally,
insider-researchers are those who chose to study
a group to which they belong, while outsider-
researchers do not belong to the group under
study.
It is common, but of course not necessary,
for researchers using qualitative methodologies
to study a group, organisation, or culture they
belong to, and in doing so, they begin the
research process as an insider or ‘native’ (Bonner
& Tolhurst, 2002; Hewitt-Taylor, 2002; Kanuha,
2000). Insider-researchers are often intimately
engaged with their research domains, and, unlike
outside-researchers, would rarely be described as
those who “parachute into people’s lives… and
then vanish” (Gerrard, 1995, p. 59). Despite the
researcher’s best intentions, ‘parachuting’ often
occurs because of the demands of academic
pressures. Drew (2006) referred to these
researchers as seagulls: “…a ‘seagull’ is a
researcher or consultant who flies into a
community; craps all over everything then leaves
the community to tidy up the mess” (p. 40).
Despite the diametrically opposed pressures of
academia and the commitment to community
engagement, Bishop (2006) provided a number
of examples of university-based research projects
where the researchers were sensitive to the
communities they were studying.
In a review, Bonner and Tolhurst (2002)
outlined three key advantages of being an insider
to the research domain: a superior understanding
of the group’s culture; the ability to interact
naturally with the group and its members; and a
previously established, and therefore greater,
relational intimacy with the group. Indeed, some
insider-researchers choose to conceptualise
themselves as co-investigators, co-learners,
facilitators, or advocates, rather than researchers;
this is typically an effort to minimise the power
differential between themselves and those
participating in their research (DeLyser, 2001;
Farnsworth, 1996; Harklau & Norwood, 2005).
However, each of these advantages is
related to a disadvantage. For example, greater
familiarity can lead to a loss of ‘objectivity’,
particularly in terms of inadvertently making
erroneous assumptions based on the researcher’s
prior knowledge and/or experience (DeLyser,
The researcher ‘in the middle’: Negotiating the insider/outsider dichotomy
Lauren J. Breen
Centre for Social Research
Edith Cowan University
Researchers, particularly those using qualitative methodologies, often position
themselves as ‘insiders’ rather than ‘outsiders’ to their research domain. In this
paper I discuss the role I occupied within my PhD research, including the per-
sonal experiences that led me to consider myself to be neither ‘inside’ nor
‘outside’ the research domain. I explore the ways in which my experience ‘in the
middle’ influenced my choice of research topic, the scope of my study, access to
informants, the collection and analysis of data, and the maintenance of research
rigor. I argue that the insider/outsider dichotomy is simplistic, and the distinction
is unlikely to adequately capture the role of all researchers. Instead, the role of
the researcher is better conceptualised on a continuum, rather than as an either/
or dichotomy. My role as neither an insider-researcher nor outsider-researcher
maximised the advantages of each while minimising the potential for disadvan-
tages, and meant that I was able to benefit from both in my study of grief experi-
ences responses following fatal vehicle crashes in Western Australia.
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The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
2001; Gerrish, 1997; Hewitt-Taylor, 2002).
Pitman (2002) argued that an insider’s familiarity
can provide an “illusion of sameness” (p. 285),
with potentially disastrous results. In conducting
insider research with gay women, Pitman shared
that she left a detailed message about the research
project on the answering machine of an
informant, which ‘outed’ the woman to her
university roommates. Pitman realised she had
uncritically assumed that the informants were
also open about their sexual orientation.
In addition, insider-researchers are often
confronted with methodological and ethical
issues that are largely irrelevant to outsider-
researchers. Insiders often struggle to balance
their insider role (e.g., nurse, psychologist,
geographer, activist) and role of researcher
(DeLyser, 2001; Gerrish, 1997; Kanuha, 2000).
Taking on the role of the researcher often acts as
a barrier that separates the insider from those in
the setting they are researching. In her
geographical research on a gold-mining ghost
town, DeLyser (2001) wrote that she always
volunteered to clean the public toilets in an effort
to remain accepted by those she was researching,
while Gerrish (1997), who studied nurses’
perceptions of district nursing, shared that she
often offered to make coffee and wash dishes in
order to become accepted in the setting. Doing
so, however, created another tension concerning
the balance between the development of rapport
with the participants and the maintenance of the
distance required to make sense of the data.
Insider-researchers often report the
difficulties they encountered in collecting data,
especially via interviews, for two reasons. First,
the insider-researcher might encounter that his or
her reflections on the potentially personal nature
of the data can result in a difficulty in focussing
on the interview process (Kanuha, 2000).
Second, the process of interviewing can be
complicated by the assumption among their
informants that the researcher already knows the
answers. DeLyser (2001) reported that probing
for information that the informants know she
already knew sometimes appeared to aggravate
them. Kanuha (2000) did not realise the
familiarity was a potential problem – it was only
when she read the interview transcripts that she
realised how much of the interactions between
herself and the informants had gone unsaid. In
her interviews, meaning was communicated via a
shared understanding of vague comments,
innuendoes, and incomplete sentences and
descriptions. Gerrish (1997), DeLyser (2001),
and Kanuha (2000) described engaging in
numerous techniques to overcome this. However,
rather than being one-size-fits-all, these
techniques varied according to research context
and researcher’s strengths and weaknesses.
A further difficulty often encountered by
insider-researchers relates to ethical codes.
Ethical issues might arise, and need to be dealt
with, on an individual and daily basis. Although
ethical principles of privacy, confidentiality,
informed consent and non-maleficence are able
to guide researchers, there is often a lack of
guidelines as to how these principles play out in
community-based applied research (Gerrish,
1997). O’Neill (1989), and more recently, Dadich
(2003-2004), provide a number of examples that
illustrate the unexpected ethical dilemmas that
can arise when researchers are engaged in
applied community research, and discuss ways in
which these issues might be ethically prevented
or resolved.
The distinction between insider and
outsider positions correspond to contrasting
positions concerning the theory of knowledge,
with epistemologies and perspectives such as
constructionism, feminism, critical theory, and
postmodernism being especially appropriate to
the conduct of insider research. These
epistemologies and perspectives are likely to (a)
view their research process and products as ‘co-
constructions’ between the researcher and the
participants in the research; (b) regard the
research participants or respondents as active
‘informants’ to the research; and (c) attempt to
give ‘voice’ to the informants within the research
domain (Crotty, 1998; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000;
Gergen, 1999; Patton, 2002). As such, these
perspectives allow the researcher to conduct
research ‘with’ rather than ‘on’ their group or
domain of interest, which contrasts starkly with
outsider-research perspectives.
As the above review demonstrates, there
are strengths and limitations to both insider and
outsider research. Indeed, Pugh, Mitchell, and
Brooks (2000) suggested that the research
partnership between an insider and an outsider
would balance the advantages of both positions
Negotiating Insider/Outsider Roles
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The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
while minimising the disadvantages of each.
Despite emphasis on the differences between
these supposedly diametrically opposed
positions, and their underlying epistemologies, I
considered myself to be neither an insider nor
outsider in the context of my PhD research. I
argue that the insider/outsider dichotomy is
simplistic, and that neither term adequately
captured the role I occupied throughout the
research. To illustrate, I will discuss the role I
played in my research, including the personal
experiences that led me to consider myself to be
neither inside nor outside the experience I was
studying, and demonstrate how my role ‘in the
middle’ influenced my choice of research topic,
the scope of my study, access to informants, the
collection and analysis of data, and the
maintenance of research rigor.
My Role as the Researcher
In undertaking the research, I
acknowledged that my personal experiences
influenced my decision to research the
experience of grief following the loss of a loved
one in a crash in Western Australia. Further, I
acknowledged that my experiences also
influenced the way I chose to research this topic.
For some researchers, the motivation for their
choice of topic results from a combination of
experiences and moments (e.g., White, 2000).
For me, it began in the very early hours of the
11th February 1999. I was holidaying in regional
Victoria, Australia, with my partner Shannan
when his father telephoned to tell him Shannan’s
sister Skye had been killed in a crash caused by a
speeding motorist. We returned to Perth that
night.
Skye’s funeral was held a week after her
death. Neither Shannan nor I had been to a
funeral before. After the funeral, Shannan’s
mother and I were talking about it in the lounge
room. She looked over at the coffee table,
covered in photographs of her daughter, and
hesitantly stated, “I guess I better put these away
now”. I recall feeling uneasy, but I did not know
why. Thinking back to it, this was the first time I
noticed how the social norms of grief, especially
those concerning the appropriate timelines for
mourning, affect mourning practices.
Soon, cards were pouring into the mailbox,
and there were numerous death notices published
in the newspaper. I felt extremely uncomfortable
being mentioned along with Shannan and his
parents in many of these. After all, they had lost a
daughter and a sister while I did not feel that
Skye’s death was a personal loss, especially
when compared to the loss of a daughter or sister.
I thought that others in their family and many of
their close friends should have been
acknowledged before me.
Over the subsequent days, months, and
years after the crash, Shannan’s family,
particularly his parents, came into contact with
funeral directors, the media, the coronial process,
the justice system, and insurance companies. It
became clear to me that the grief resulting from
crashes does not occur in a vacuum, but actually
involves and is affected by numerous people and
systems. People bereaved though crashes likely
face legal, police and coronial investigations, and
health/medical and justice systems, among
others. Further, grief is experienced within a
network of families, friends, and the wider
community.
It amazed me how generous people could
be. Another family friend who I had heard of but
never met, visited Shannan’s parents every day
for over a year, making sure they were okay and
just being there with them and for them. She was
also a great support for Shannan. I was also
surprised at how it seemed other people could not
‘deal’ with Skye’s death and ‘disappeared’; that
is, they stopped telephoning and visiting. It was
during this time that I realised the importance of
social support and how it does not always come
from where you might expect it.
While the death of Skye was not a
momentous personal loss, I was able to observe
the gravity of the situation and appreciate the
effect the death of a loved one has on those left
behind. It is this reason that I consider myself
neither an insider nor outsider to the experience I
researched. It was my experiences, some of
which I describe here, that influenced my choice
to research the grief experiences resulting from
crashes in Western Australia. I embarked on the
initial stages of thesis development in 2001. In
the following section, I discuss the ensuing
development of the study.
The Development of the Study
In the months following Skye’s death, I
started to think about the role that psychology
could play in providing support for people
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The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
bereaved through crash fatalities. Out of personal
interest, I began to search the literature for
information on grief. Two of my findings
motivated me to explore the topic in more depth
via a thesis. First, I noticed that a significant
emphasis in the grief literature was on
intrapsychic or individual variables. However,
understanding grief as only an intrapsychic,
individual phenomenon did not fit with my
observations of the experiences of Shannan’s
family’s experiences within their social networks,
legal and coronial contexts, and so on. Nor did it
fit my orientation as a community psychologist.
It became obvious to me that a thorough
understanding of the grief experience resulting
from crashes could only be articulated through
understanding the wider context within which the
grief occurs. It is for this reason that I took a
contextual approach to the study of grief.
Community psychology, with its emphasis on
understanding individuals in their natural (non-
manipulated) contexts (Dalton, Elias, &
Wandersman, 2001; Duffy & Wong, 2003;
Thomas & Veno, 1992), provided a framework
for contextual analysis.
Second, I observed that the classic
bereavement theories were by and large
constructed from data collected from North
American, white, middle-class, middle-aged,
widows grieving the loss of their husbands, often
after a long illness or adapted from models of
dying (see Center for the Advancement of
Health, 2004; Schlernitzauer et al., 1998;
Stroebe, 1998; Stroebe, Stroebe, & Schut, 2003,
for reviews). I began to wonder about the degree
to which these findings would transfer to other
bereaved populations, such as those bereaved
through crashes. I wondered whether or not the
findings from the classic studies were being
uncritically applied to people with different
bereavement circumstances and I became
concerned with this possibility. Crash deaths are
sudden, unexpected, violent, and usually
preventable (Hobbs & Adshead, 1997; Sleet &
Branche, 2004; Stewart & Lord, 2002; Waller,
2001; World Health Organization, 2004; Zaza et
al., 2001). As a result, the characteristics of crash
deaths differ from many other reasons for death,
such illness or old age. In addition, the victims of
crash fatalities are of a significantly younger age
than those who die from natural causes
(Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2005; World
Health Organization, 2004). A further
characteristic of crash deaths is their ‘hidden’ or
acceptable nature. Crash fatalities are generally
not considered to be legitimate in the way that
deaths through war, aeroplane crashes, natural
disasters, or acts of terrorism are (e.g., Adshead,
1997; Browning, 2002; Clark, 2000; Clark &
Franzmann, 2002; Di Gallo & Parry-Jones, 1996;
Gregory, 1998; Mitchell, 1997; Tehrani, 2004;
Vigilant & Williamson, 2003; World Health
Organization, 2004; Williams, 1997), yet the
experience can be just as devastating to those
affected (e.g., Federation of European Road
Traffic Victims, 1993, 1995; Lehman, Wortman,
& Williams, 1987; Lord, 1987, 1996, 2000;
Shanfield & Swain, 1984; Sprang, 1997; Tehrani,
2004; World Health Organization, 2004;
Williams, 1997). For these reasons, the social,
cultural, historical, and political contexts within
which the bereavement experience is housed
became increasingly important to me.
Congruent with my contextual line of
thinking, I chose to explore the grief experience
in the aftermath of crashes within the context of
Western Australia. Research that attends to the
context within which a phenomenon occurs is
gaining increasing recognition, as an
understanding of the context facilitates
understanding of the experience under study. As
a result, my research was developed from within
the constructionist epistemology (Crotty, 1998;
Gergen, 1999). By focussing on a particular
phenomenon within a particular context, I
anticipated that my research would have greater
practical implications in the delivery of services
to those bereaved through crashes in Western
Australia.
Aims and Research Questions
The broad aims of this research were to
explore the experience of grief resulting from
losing a loved one in a crash in Western Australia
and to describe the influence of the contextual
factors on the grief experience. The research
questions were:
1 What is the experience of grief
resulting from a crash?
2 What factors affect the experience of
grief resulting from crashes? In what
ways do they affect the grief
experience?
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3 Are there relationships between these
factors? If so, what are they and how
do they affect the grief experience
resulting from crashes?
4 What are the implications for
Western Australia in terms of service
delivery pertinent to crash-related
bereavement?
These emerged directly from the
experiences discussed previously, and the
interrogation of the research literature.
Research Design
In the study of grief following fatal crashes
in Western Australia, constructionist grounded
theory was utilised because the research aims
were exploratory, applied, and situated within a
non-manipulated context (Creswell, 1994;
Denzin, 1972; Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin,
1990, 1998). The epistemology and methodology
were chosen because they assist in uncovering
the multiple perspectives that exist within
complex social and psychological phenomena
(Crotty, 1998; Patton, 2002; Strauss, 1987).
Reality is ascribed through our interactions with
the world (Burgess-Limerick & Burgess-
Limerick, 1998; Crotty, 1998). Social
constructionism suggests that both the participant
and the researcher are actively involved in
ascribing and co-constructing meaning (Crotty,
1998).
Immersion into the area of study was
required to understand the multiple perspectives.
As such, data were drawn four main avenues,
maximising variability in the data: in-depth,
recursive interviews (Minichiello, Aroni,
Timewell, & Alexander, 1995) with 21 Western
Australians bereaved via the death of a family
member in a crash at least 12 months prior to
data collection; semi-structured interviews with
10 people working in the setting relevant to road
safety and the aftermath of crashes (e.g., Office
of the State Coroner, Victim Support Service,
Police); ‘scoping and profiling’ to familiarise
myself with the context of road crashes, crash
fatalities, and grief in Western Australia (e.g., I
attended various government road safety
meetings, a meeting of The Compassionate
Friends (a mutual-help group for bereaved
parents), and the unveiling of a crash fatality
remembrance memorial); and the examination of
public documents such as government websites,
reports, brochures, mass media campaigns
concerning road safety, and newspaper articles
on road safety, crashes, and grief. The collection
and analysis of data via multiple avenues aided
my understanding of the setting and context of
the crash deaths in Western Australia (Berg,
2001). Data Collection
My position as neither an ‘insider’ in nor
an ‘outsider’ to the research domain proved to be
both a help and a hindrance in collecting data.
Generally, it is thought that the recruitment of
informants can be potentially difficult when the
researcher does not occupy the position of an
‘insider’, largely because the researcher must
first establish trust and rapport with the group.
However, unlike other outsider-researchers (e.g.,
Pitman, 2002), I did not struggle with the
recruitment of bereaved informants. I concluded
that a result of being ‘silenced’ by those around
them (see Breen, 2004, 2007; Breen &
O’Connor, 2007), the bereaved informants were
keen to ‘voice’ their experiences to someone who
was willing to listen to them, even if I did not
share aspects of their experiences.
My position as an ‘outsider’ was far more
apparent in my attempts to recruit and interview
the setting informants. These interviews were
formal, shorter, and I was rarely offered
refreshments. In addition, I experienced an acute
case of gate keeping by the assistant of one of the
people I was keen to interview. The gatekeeper
first asked me to clarify why I wanted to
interview her boss, and then requested that I
email the questions/topics to her. After
complying with her request, she informed me that
the questions were ‘not very good’, and so she
decided to answer the questions herself via email.
As a result of immersing myself in the
context of crash fatalities in Western Australia, I
became aware of some important language
issues. Some bereaved people do not like
euphemisms for death, such as ‘passed on’,
‘passed away’, and ‘no longer with us’ (see
Wass, 2004). Furthermore, the term ‘accident’ is
often considered offensive to people bereaved
through the actions of another, because the term
implies a random event that is unpredictable and
inevitable rather than preventable (see Ball-
Rokeach, Hale, Schaffer, Porras, Harris, &
Drayton, 1999; Howarth, 1997; Job, 1999;
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The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
Loimer & Guarnieri, 1996; Sleet & Branche,
2004; Stewart & Lord, 2002, 2003; Vigilant &
Williamson, 2003). Consequently, I was careful
to use the words that were used by each bereaved
informant to avoid using terms that they might
find offensive.
To learn from each interview, I reflected on
each by maintaining a journal. The following
entry was made after interviewing
‘Joan’ (pseudonyms are used for all informants):
I felt funny about it today – she was
getting upset at the beginning, reading
[to me] stuff she’d written not long
after her son died, and I didn’t feel sad
at all, and that feels funny. I don’t like
it. I don’t want to feel nothing, be
desensitised. I feel that it is a great
privilege to hear the stories I have
heard. Most people wouldn’t [hear
them], either to protect themselves or
would just never come across this
number of people bereaved this way, so
I do think it is a privilege. Also, I think
I may have asked Joan a few leading
questions. She was anxious at first, and
not sure what to say, so when I
elaborated on my questions, I may have
been leading – need to check the
transcript.
Insider-researchers have a tendency to rely
solely or primarily on informants with whom
they are familiar with and feel most comfortable
with (Bonner & Tolhurst, 2002). However, I
knew only three of the bereaved informants and
had previously met three of the setting
informants. The familiarity with three of the
bereaved informants affected the interview with
one of them. Although I did not ask her to do so,
she referred to me in the third person, as though
‘Lauren’ was another person rather than someone
she knew who also happened to be interviewing
her. Upon revisiting the transcript and tape, I
became aware of the interview’s “artificial
officiousness” (Kanuha, 2000, p. 443).
While the bereaved informants were keen
to know why I was interested in the research
topic, the setting informants appeared
disinterested in my motivations. Some of the
latter seemed to assume I was an outsider, as they
said things that I do not believe they would sat to
someone they knew was bereaved through a
crash fatality. For example, the informant from
the Office of the State Coroner stated;
…the thing that binds all families in
sudden death, be it road trauma or
others, is simply the sheer horror and the
initial denial that takes place, and
intelligent people deny [their grief] by
asking lots of questions without actually
thinking through the relevance the
answer is going to have, you know? …
Really what it is, is the desire to purge
their anger and their hurt on some poor
unsuspecting bastard.
Our multiple identities, in terms of
demographic characteristics as well as our role in
the research, readily impact upon data collection,
in terms of what is ‘seen’ and ‘unseen’ and what
is considered ‘important’ and
‘unimportant’ (Langhout, 2006). In my mid-
twenties at the time of the interviews, I believe
my age was of greatest influence; this became
particularly apparently when I wanted to explore
with the bereaved informants the effect of their
losses on their intimate relationships. The
literature refers to the effect of bereavement, and
particularly the death of a child, has on spousal/
marital relationships in term of their physical and
emotional intimacy (Hagemeister & Rosenblatt,
1997; Riches, 2005; Riches & Dawson, 1996).
Despite literature support, I felt uncomfortable
probing the bereaved informants with specific
questions about their intimate relationships. I
might have felt able to do so had I been older at
the times of the interviews, or had I been an
‘insider’ to their experiences. Yet, even without
specific questions, I was able to access detailed
information about their relationships. Some
candidly described instances where they verbally,
and sometimes physically, fought with their
spouses because they felt they were not
supported or understood. Natasha spoke of how
she often screamed to her husband Jim that she
wished he had died, rather than their daughter
Jess: “I used to thump on his chest, and say,
‘Why couldn’t it be you? I could live without
you, but I can’t live without Jess!’”. Similarly,
Karen also spoke of quarrels with her husband
where they blamed each other for their son’s
death:
I’ve been through all of that, the guilt
feelings, there’s naturally guilt feelings
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The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
yeah and then there’s the blame and I’ve
been there too… I know that I have had
to forgive myself for any role [in his
death]… You have to reach a point to go
over it and over it [and] believe me, [I]
did that millions of times, to see what,
what if, what could have happened if
this or what if that how could it have
been that, how could the outcome have
been different you know if we had
changed this that or something else. And
we fought about it, my husband and I,
it’s like ‘oh yes well maybe you should
have been looking after him’…
Although I regarded my age as a potential
hindrance, my appearance as a young, naïve
researcher facilitated access to information from
the setting informants. Some make comments
that I do not believe they would have shared with
a researcher they considered to be experienced
and polished. For example, when questioning the
Road Safety Council informant over the nexus
between politics and the state’s road safety
strategy, he commented:
What [the Liberal-National party]
didn’t realise was that after two years
the government was going to change
and in came Labor. Being politicians,
they looked at it and said ‘we need a
plan but we want it to be our plan’ so
what we had to do is basically go
through a process of refocusing and
relooking [sic] at it… So we didn’t
change the whole plan, because what
you could say, was that one wrong? It
wasn’t, it was pretty right… Now,
very soon, they’re going to bring out
their new strategy, under the Labor
Government. I’m sure if they lose the
election in two years time, we’ll be
doing the same thing again for the
Liberal Party, but that’s politics.
Furthermore, I questioned the Office of the
State Coroner informant about the reasons why
families do not perceive they are supported when
viewing their deceased loved ones at the
mortuary. For example, the bereaved informants
reported that the mortuary employees spoke
bluntly and clinically about their deceased loved
ones, or were seen having a joke amongst
themselves. The Office of the State Coroner
informant justified the behaviour of mortuary
employees in the following manner:
Now 99 per cent of the time the
viewings are done by the techies
(technicians). The techies tell them
everything, but they tell them in a fairly
distant voice… People get annoyed and
say ‘oh the techie was polite but he was
very cold, very distant’ and you can’t
say to a family ‘well in about an hour’s
time he’s going to put a Stryker saw
through her head. He can’t really afford
to get too close to you’.
Data Analysis
Insider-researchers are sometimes criticised
for being advocates rather that ‘real’ or
‘legitimate’ researchers (Bonner & Tolhurst,
2002). Kanuha (2000) wrote that “for each of the
ways that being an insider researcher enhances
the depth and breadth of understanding to a
population that may not be accessible to a
nonnative scientist, questions about objectivity,
reflexivity, and authenticity of a research project
are raised” (p. 444). It might be argued that
removing oneself from the research context
might reduce these criticisms. However, it is
naïve to think that (a) minimal exposure to the
research context would automatically reduce or
eliminate bias, and (b) from a constructionist
point of view, bias can ever be truly eliminated.
Like those accused of ‘going native’ (Kanuha,
2000; Harklau & Norwood, 2005; Pugh et al.,
2000), some people (both in and out of the
university setting) familiar with my personal
experience questioned the credibility of my
analysis, and stated would be ‘biased’.
Interestingly, not one recommended extra care in
the analytic process because I do not have the
experience of losing a loved one in a crash.
Indeed, being ‘in the middle’ made it easier to
keep questioning the research material, because I
was not ‘inside’ or ‘outside’ of it.
Maximising Research Rigor
Rigor within the research process was
maximised via the data collection and analysis
procedures I engaged in as well as the adherence
to a number of processes recommended by and
for qualitative researchers. Traditional research
outcomes like internal and external validity,
reliability, and objectivity are not considered
appropriate in qualitative methodologies. Instead,
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The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
other terms are used, such as credibility,
dependability, confirmability, and transferability
(Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Nagy & Viney, 1994). I
utilised four main procedures in order maximise
the research rigor.
First, I employed multiple sources of data
and methods of data collection (Berg, 2001;
Maykut & Morehouse, 1994, Morse, 1994;
Patton, 2002; Strauss, 1987). Second, as an audit
trail, I kept a journal where I documented the
daily tasks and memos (Etherington, 2004;
Lincoln & Guba, 1985; Maykut & Morehouse,
1994; Morse, 1994; Nagy & Viney, 1994;
Strauss, 1987; Strauss & Corbin, 1990, 1998).
Third, I checked my interpretations with the
informants to ensure accuracy (Maykut &
Morehouse, 1994). I invited three bereaved
informants to participate in a short second
interview to clarify my interpretations of the data
(Breakwell, 1995; Silverman, 1993). All three
appeared satisfied with my interpretations. In
addition, I sent all informants a summary of my
results and invited them to provide comments
and clarifications where necessary. Further, an
article similar to the results summary was
published in The Compassionate Friends
Australian National Newsletter in July 2004
(Breen, 2004), and was an example of the
transformational psychopolitical validity of the
research (Prilleltensky, 2003). Similarly, I
verified or ‘trialled’ the theory by presenting it to
different audiences for comment (Strauss, 1987).
Finally, I provided a detailed description of both
the setting and the informants involved in the
study so that readers could determine the
credibility and transferability of findings to
different contexts based on the level of similarity
between research setting and other settings
(Burgess-Limerick & Burgess-Limerick, 1998;
Nagy & Viney, 1994).
Conclusion
Despite the epistemological/theoretical/
paradigms we usually align ourselves with,
papers where researchers explicitly discuss their
position in their research are rare, even within
community psychology journals where it might
be expected (Langhout, 2006). Possible
explanations for this scarcity include the notion
that reflective papers require an adherence to a
philosophical standpoint that is not dominant
within disciplines such as psychology; engaging
in a reflexive process is often seen as narcissistic
and navel gazing; the belief that it has the
potential to undermine the legitimacy of the
research and researcher, and the process requires
introspection, self-questioning, vulnerability, and
humility (Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Farnsworth,
1996; Harklau & Norwood, 2005; Kanuha, 2000;
Langhout, 2006). In writing this
‘autoethnography’ (Ellis & Bochner, 2000), I
have highlighted the extent to which my role in
the research influenced all aspects of the research
process – notably, the selection of the research
topic, the scope of the study, access to
informants, the collection and analysis of data,
and the maintenance of research rigor. This
highlights the need to make explicit the
researcher orientation.
Some talk about the role of the researcher
as a continuum between ‘complete participant/
member researcher’ and ‘complete
observer’ (Ellis & Bochner, 2000; Kearns, 2000).
However, most theorisers fail to differentiate
between those who being a research project from
within the community they are intending to
study, and those who become intimately involved
in the community of study as a result of research
process (DeLyser, 2001). An extreme view
suggests we are all insiders; “as communicating
humans studying humans communicating, we are
inside what we a studying” (Ellis & Bochner,
2000, p. 743). Further, DeLyser (2001) asserted,
“in every research project we navigate complex
and multi-faceted insider-outsider issues” (p.
442). In the context of my study, where I
positioned myself as neither an insider nor an
outsider to the grief experience I was studying, I
concur with other social and behavioural
researchers who argue that the role of the
researcher is better conceptualised on a
continuum, rather than as an either/or dichotomy
(see Hodkinson, 2005, for a review).
In embodying an insider role, an outsider
role, or any role along the continuum, applied
research encompasses particular challenges
requiring careful consideration and appropriate
responses. Because I was not an insider to the
experience of grief following crashes, I immersed
myself into the domain. I was able to take the
time to do so because the research was a PhD
project, which reduced the likelihood of
becoming a parachuter (Gerrish, 1995) or seagull
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The Australian Community Psychologist Volume 19 No 1 May 2007
(Drew, 2006). Similarly, because I was not an
outsider, I benefited from the assumption that I
was independent, unbiased, and objective, all of
which remain important currency within
mainstream psychology. I was also more likely to
be more able to identify the key players, power
differentials, differences, and dynamics that
existed within the research domain, which are
likely to be ‘unseen’ by insider-researchers
(Pitman, 2002). My role as neither an insider-
researcher nor outsider-researcher was
particularly advantageous in the context of my
PhD study. It maximised the advantages of each
while minimising the potential for disadvantages.
It also meant that I was able to benefit from both
in my study of grief responses following crashes
in Western Australia.
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Acknowledgements
This paper was drawn from the author’s Doctor
of Philosophy (Psychology) research project
completed in the School of Psychology at Edith
Cowan University. I would like to acknowledge
the principal supervisor, Dr Moira O’Connor
(Edith Cowan University), associate supervisor,
Associate Professor Margaret Mitchell (Edith
Cowan University), and adjunct supervisor Dr
Christopher C. Sonn (Victoria University).
Earlier versions of this paper were presented at
the ‘Lost in Translation: Critical Perspectives in
Community Psychology’ forum and the
‘Psychology Showcase Inaugural Qualitative
Research Conference: Issues and Processes in
Qualitative Research’, both in Perth, Australia.
The author would like to acknowledge Dr Dawn
Darlaston-Jones (University of Notre Dame) and
the reviewers for their thoughtful comments and
suggestions on an earlier draft.
Address correspondence to
Lauren Breen
Centre for Social Research
Edith Cowan University
100 Joondalup Drive
Joondalup
Western Australia 6027
Australia
Email:l.breen@ecu.edu.au
Negotiating Insider/Outsider Roles
