Search results

This paper aims to revisit the debate on the insider-outsider positionality of the researcher in conducting qualitative research by highlighting the challenges of researching sexual harassment and harassment among stigmatized or hidden groups of individuals in a culturally value-laden backdrop in South Asia.

The authors drew on a bricolage of methods to analyze and write this paper. First, the authors borrowed from the case study approach to select three research projects that would shed light on the argument raised in the study. Then, narratives, together with self and critical reflexivity were used to write reflective narratives, which served as data for this paper. Next, the authors used the thematic analysis method to analyze the reflective narratives. Finally, the authors drew from literature and the experiences to provide recommendations for the challenges thus identified.

The critical reflections highlight three overarching challenges the authors encountered as insider-outsiders in researching a sensitive topic among stigmatized/hidden groups in a value-laden cultural backdrop: 1) difficulty in recruitment, 2) internalized gender norms and 3) unconscious biases. Based on these challenges, the authors posit that what is pertinent is not whether a researcher is an insider, outsider or in-betweener per se, but how to maximize benefits and minimize pitfalls of being an insider or outsider and employing other means of overcoming the drawbacks. The authors also claim that being more sensitive to the culture, reflexive, flexible and experienced would help overcome challenges faced when conducting research of this nature as insiders-outsiders.

There appears to be little empirically derived inquiry on the insider-outsider positionality of the researchers at the intersection of sensitive topics, stigmatized participants and culture. Our reflections and suggestions address this lacuna while revisiting the simplistic use of insider-outsider dichotomy and proposing other means to overcome the drawbacks brought on by the researcher positionality.

This paper aims to explore how sexual harassment is experienced and understood by heterosexual working men in their day-to-day work lives in an Asian patriarchal culture, underpinned by rigid sex-role norms and gender role stereotypes, which promote heterosexual hegemonic masculinity

Using qualitative research approach, 19 in-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with self-identified heterosexual men.

The findings indicate common, yet unique, ways heterosexual men experience sexual harassment at workplaces, perpetrated by women and men, holding different organizational positions. Unwanted sexual attention, gender harassment, sexploitation and sexual hubris are, thus, identified as the main manifestations of sexual harassment for men. The nature of the experiences, how they were understood and perceived by heterosexual men, who the harassers were, how men have responded to their experiences and the existing theories point toward numerous explanations for the heterosexual men’s experiences of sexual harassment. Among these reasons, hegemonic masculinity, power and sexual attraction were found to be predominant.

The themes and explanations of different and sometimes unique sexual harassment experiences expand and add to the understudied area of sexual harassment of heterosexual men in general, and in a cultural context, rarely explored, more specifically.