Positionality statement: how to write one, with an example

A positionality statement is a short account of who you are in relation to your research: the parts of your identity, experience and beliefs that bear on the topic, your relationship to the participants, and how these shaped the way you designed the study and interpreted the data. It is common in qualitative dissertations and theses, where the researcher is part of how knowledge is produced rather than a neutral observer.

What is a positionality statement?

In Researcher positionality, written for master’s and PhD students, Andrew Holmes (2020) defines positionality as a term that ‘both describes an individual’s world view and the position they adopt about a research task and its social and political context’ (p. 1). Following Savin-Baden and Major (2013; second edition 2025), Holmes locates it in three areas: the subject under investigation, the research participants, and the research context and process. Holmes adds a fourth, time, because working out your positionality takes time and your position can change during a project.

A positionality statement puts this into words for your reader. It is not a biography. According to Holmes, a strong statement describes your lenses, the characteristics that might influence the research, your position in relation to the participants and the research context, and then explains how, where and when these might have influenced the research, or did. An examiner should finish it knowing what to keep in mind when reading your findings.

Why positionality matters: reflexivity

Who you are affects who agrees to talk to you, what they tell you, which questions you think to ask and what you notice in a transcript. In ‘Outing’ the researcher (2002), Linda Finlay argues that meanings are negotiated between researcher and participant in a particular context, so a different researcher in a different relationship would hear a different story.

Reflexivity in qualitative research is how you work with that. Finlay defines it as ‘thoughtful, conscious self-awareness’ (p. 532): continually examining your own responses, the dynamics between you and your participants, and the research process itself. Positionality and reflexivity are related but not the same. Positionality is where you stand: your identities, experiences, beliefs and relationship to the participants. Reflexivity is the ongoing practice of examining how that position affects the research, from choosing the topic to writing up. As Holmes puts it, reflexivity informs positionality.

In approaches such as reflexive thematic analysis, the aim is not to remove bias. Braun and Clarke (2022) treat the researcher’s subjectivity as a resource and stress that assumptions always influence research; the question is how. Holmes also cautions that reflexivity is no guarantee of good research, and that some parts of yourself will stay hidden from you however honest you try to be.

Insider and outsider positions

Many positionality statements discuss whether the researcher is an insider or an outsider. An insider shares the participants’ experience or group membership, such as a nurse interviewing nurses; an outsider does not. Roni Berger (2015), in Now I see it, now I don’t, discusses three common situations: sharing the participants’ experience, moving from outsider to insider during the study, and having no personal familiarity with the topic.

Holmes (2020) warns that each advantage can turn into a disadvantage, depending on the situation, and that insider and outsider are better seen as ends of a continuum than as two boxes. You can be an insider on one dimension and an outsider on another at the same time. An international master’s student who interviews other international students shares their student status but perhaps not their nationality, first language or field. Say where you stand on each dimension that matters for your research question, and whether your position changed during the study.

What to include in a positionality statement

There is no fixed template, but most good statements work through four steps, in roughly this order.

1. 1

   Aspects of your identity that are relevant to the topic

   Choose the characteristics, experiences and beliefs that bear on your research question: perhaps nationality, gender, age, class, profession, language or a personal experience of the topic. Include your theoretical stance where it matters. Leave out what is irrelevant; you decide how much to share.
2. 2

   Your relationship to the participants

   Are you an insider, an outsider or both? Do you know any of the participants, teach them, work with them or have power over them? How did you present yourself when recruiting, and how might they have seen you?
3. 3

   Your prior assumptions

   What did you expect to find, and why? Write this down before the first interview, while you can still see your expectations as assumptions rather than findings.
4. 4

   How your position shaped the design and the analysis

   This is the step most statements skip. Link each point above to a decision: a question you added, whom you recruited, how you handled a sensitive topic, a code you revised or a reading you checked. Say what you did, not only what might have happened.

Where it goes and how long it should be

In a dissertation or thesis, the positionality statement usually sits in the methodology chapter, often in a subsection headed ‘Positionality’ or ‘Reflexivity’, close to where you describe data collection. Conventions vary by discipline and department: some ask for it in the introduction, and some theses add a longer reflexive account in an appendix, so follow your programme’s handbook. Positionality statements are normally written in the first person.

There is no standard length. In a master’s dissertation a few paragraphs is typical, while a doctoral thesis often has room for a longer section on reflexivity. Treat these as typical sizes, not rules: check your handbook and word limit, and keep what helps the reader judge your analysis. Draft the statement early, then revise it when you write up, because your position may have shifted along the way.

Reflexive practices: journals and memos

A statement written the night before submission tends to be generic. The material for a specific one comes from reflexive practice during the project. Braun and Clarke (2022) show what this writing can look like with extracts from a researcher’s reflexive journal. Useful practices include:

• A reflexive journal. Keep dated entries from planning to writing up: why you chose the topic, what you expected, the decisions you made and why, and how your interpretations changed.
• A memo after each interview. Finlay (2002) describes writing field notes before and after each interview, and how they showed her the ways the research relationship shaped what participants said. A few minutes is enough: what surprised you, where you steered the conversation, how the participant seemed to see you.
• Talking it through. Discuss your readings with your supervisor, who may spot assumptions you cannot see yourself.
• Checking yourself during coding. Note where your own experience pulls you towards a reading, then look for passages that contradict it.

If writing straight after an interview is hard, record a two-minute spoken memo instead. Memos about participants are research data too, so refer to people by pseudonym, and first check your university’s rules on approved recording apps and on where to store research data. Where those rules allow it, the browser voice recorder works well for this: it uploads nothing, and the recording stays in your browser until you download it.

Invented example: a positionality statement

The researcher and study in this positionality statement example are invented. The research question is: How do international master’s students experience group work at a Danish university?

Each paragraph links part of the researcher’s position to a decision: whom to recruit, what to ask and how to code. That link is what turns a description of yourself into information about the study.

Common pitfalls

• A shopping list of identities. Louise Folkes (2023) criticises statements that give a ‘shopping list’ of characteristics, say whether participants share them, and stop there. Braun and Clarke (2023) likewise ask researchers to link their personal positioning to the analytic process. A list tells the reader who you are, not what difference it made.
• A confessional tale. John Van Maanen, in Tales of the Field (1988; second edition 2011), called ethnographic accounts that put the fieldworker’s own experience at the centre ‘confessional tales’. A statement that turns into a confession about your feelings, guilt or privilege, with no link to the study, is about you rather than your research. Finlay (2002) argues for self-awareness without navel gazing, and warns that preoccupation with your own experience can block out the participants’ voices.
• Treating your position as bias to remove. Holmes (2020) stresses that no amount of reflexivity lets you describe things objectively, so a sentence such as ‘I remained objective’ claims too much. For reflexive thematic analysis, Braun and Clarke (2023) advise linking personal reflexivity to your analysis rather than talking about bias.
• Writing it once. Participants may come to see you as more of an insider as the project goes on, and your views may change. Revise the statement when you write up.
• Sharing more than you need. You do not have to disclose health conditions, sexuality or other private details to write a good statement. Include what is relevant to your question and what you are comfortable having in a document that examiners, and perhaps a library repository, will keep.