Externe Publikationen

The Solo woman researcher in the field

Rawat, Sudha / Rose Jaji
Externe Publikationen (2026)

published on ammodi.com, 10.07.2026

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The sharing of solo women researchers’ experiences is making inroads into social research and challenging male-biased methodologies. In this blog post, we draw from our respective experiences while conducting ethnographic research with refugees (Sudha in India and Rose in Kenya). We observe that solo women researchers’ experience the field in gendered ways that have contradictory manifestations. On the one hand, they are not always taken seriously as researchers and, in some instances, experience sexual harassment or worse. On the other hand, their self-identification as researchers is sometimes regarded as a pretext for nefarious activities, which can endanger their lives. 
Based on these challenges, we highlight three main points. First, women researchers’ self-positioning in the field does not necessarily influence how their interlocutors position and relate with them. Second, gender has fluid and sometimes contradictory meanings that women researchers constantly navigate. Third, gender is mediated by other social categories that alternately create mutual identification and difference between women researchers and interlocutors of various genders. 

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