Returning To Palestine
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This work explores the question of reflexivity in social science in the context of my PhD research in Palestine. It looks first at the tensions between the requirements of “objectivity” and the researcher’s unavoidable position as a social being and, second, at the implications of doing research in an occupied/colonized territory, which introduces a second subjective dimension into the research. In the first part, I make visible my relationship with Palestinians and Palestine, and explain how I wrote my PhD in open political solidarity with their plight. I elaborate on why I do not consider this admission a flaw in my research, but rather a liberating act of theoretical and methodological honesty. Finally, I explain how my Chilean past manifestly influenced and shaped the present of my research in Palestine, while, in turn, my Palestinian present re-signified my Chilean past. The second part looks at the implications of doing research in an occupied/colonized territory, that is, in a territorially fragmented, politically divided and besieged place such as Palestine, ruled by an authoritarian elite and with a weak administrative memory. I explain how these facts reinforce the importance of reflexivity by introducing new subjective dimensions into the research. Finally, I describe how I developed methodological strategies in order to overcome the restrictions that the Palestinian political context imposed on my fieldwork.
DOI: 10.4000/16u6r
Author: Emilio Dabed
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7214224070
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