The Impact of Our Life Position on Our Critical Research

Critical research is a key factor for the understanding and representation of intersectional identities concerns. While doing critical research it is important to consider our positionality, as it entails the relationship between features of our identity such as race, gender, sexuality, class, etc. with the environment, specific events or current social anxieties. Also, our positionality allows us to identify possible links between specific features of our identity with power hierarchies or privileges. Throughout positionality we are able to have a positive impact over our feminist research, as it allows us to provide personal experiences, access to specific information or personal connections that can help us to understand or aid in specific situations.

However, sometimes our positionality may make us biased towards a specific situation but it is still necessary to identify how our position in the world impacts our critical research. For instance, my critical research can be informed by my feminism and my position as a white woman and international student from Mexico, by living in Canada I have access to a foreign and develop educational system that provides extensive information about current and controversial themes. For instance, the role of women in the public sphere.

Based on personal experiences and my position as a person with strong religious influences from a Catholic education and a Catholic family, I grow up with the idea that public spaces such as positions in politics belong to men while the private arena tends to be assigned for women. However, after being exposed to a different educational system and be surrounded by a different environment I learned crucial information while challenging ongoing ideas in Mexico that affect negatively the position of women in society. Moreover, my position as an immigrant allows me to have a wide understanding of the possible discomforts or discriminations faced by immigrants. For example, access or confusion towards the use of health care. Personally, my position as a student allows me to have access to health care. Although, initially I experienced confusion over the way in which the health care works for immigrants.

Overall, my position as a student in a developing country allows me to bring back personal experiences and knowledge to my home country in order to challenge ongoing conservative ideas that affect women in Mexico. Also, my position as an immigrant allows me to relate to possible difficulties faced by immigrants.