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Researcher Positionality

We acknowledge that while researching the science and research OSS space, that we bring our own individual and organisational positionality to the research and work.

Who you are and what you’ve been through influences how you see the world, your decisions, actions. It is important for you to situate yourself within your research so that the reader knows about the researcher (i.e., the research instrument).

‘Reflexivity is an attitude of attending systematically to the context of knowledge construction, especially to the effect of the researcher, at every step of the research process (Cohen & Crabtree, 2006).’

“A researcher’s background and position will affect what they choose to investigate, the angle of investigation, the methods judged most adequate for this purpose, the findings considered most appropriate, and the framing and communication of conclusions” (Malterud, 2001, p. 483–484).

Questions we considered as we wrote positionality statements:

  • How do you understand the research process and knowledge?

  • What are your beliefs about this topic?

  • Any history or personal interaction with this topic?

  • What are your understandings of systems of oppression and their influence on your research?

  • What is your connection to your participants? Do you share any commonalities, identities, or experiences with your participants?

  • What do you think you will find in this study?

  • What are your hopes for this study?

  • Anything else that is important for the reader to know about you?

Researcher E

How do you understand the research process and knowledge?

I understand the research process and knowledge from a position of ‘practitioner’ who ‘completes the design work cycle’ through to ‘product’. My personal approach to processes and knowledge has been informed by both commercial, proprietary organisations and well-funded, single or few OSS tool maintaining organisations. Even so, in these organisations the overarching approach to process and knowledge has been what serves our ‘bottom-line’ which either is profit/sustaining funds (often through delivering a criteria of work) or rarely about supporting the use cases of the tools we build/maintain where it pertains to profit/funds. Processes and knowledge in these organisations often are ‘cherry picked’ based on what works given budget, time, resources and from my designer perspective, what is most likely to communicate clearly to a team that has limited design knowledge/trust and allows for the best method to channel results into a ‘good usable tool’.

What are your beliefs about this topic?

My beliefs about design and usability in OSS generally are that it is rare, if ever practiced and if it is it is practiced by limited individuals with the bare minimum of resources and time to implement. I also believe, from my own experiences that design and usability, while more desirable in current OSS spaces is not understood as a full process. The views that designers can ‘just do some UX/Usability’ on the tool post development. I assume that attitudes towards design and usability from science and research would be either non-existent or ambivalent due to design, as seen in the general public sphere, doesn’t interact with implicit ‘scientific’ and ‘research’ values.

Any history or personal interaction with this topic?

My personal interaction with the topic of design and usability in OSS is stronger than design and usability specifically in science and research OSS. I’ve been an advocate for designers being involved in OSS projects for approximately 5 years and improving the user experience design and usability of OSS for the same amounts of years. I have been paid staff on 5+ complex OSS tools/projects and volunteer contributed for around 8 tools/projects as well as mentoring other designers contributing and working for OSS tools/projects. My personal interaction are therefore both professional and volunteer personal.

What are your understandings of systems of oppression and their influence on your research?

My understanding of the systems of oppression in the science and research open source space are limited, though I have experience and understanding of the oppressions that exist in the OSS space and in the design and usability space. In OSS there are fewer people that identify as women and femme presenting people actively contributing to OSS. OSS is a white, cis-gender male space and is often comprised of people with spare-time privileges to contribute and participate. The other system of devalue (not necessarily oppression) is that design is hard (if not impossible) to see or value in the same terms as code. The mechanisms to contribute design are different and underserved in the infrastructure of OSS and therefore not valued as highly as code contributions. Design is often ignored or if received it can be ‘overwritten’ and ‘rolled back’ so that it is largely undone.

What is your connection to your participants? Do you share any commonalities, identities, or experiences with your participants?

Some participants self-identify as designers and I have had previous conversations and events with a number of the participants invited to interview. A recruitment strategy for us was building a connection at hosted conference events, giving a short explanation of the research and then inviting the participants into the research.

What do you think you will find in this study?

I think that we’ll find many similarities between non-science and research OSS projects with some specific details that pertain to science and research specific OSS.

What are your hopes for this study?

I hope that we discover the nuances and specific details about science and research OSS tools and how they view and value design. I hope that what we discover will be largely beneficial and applicable to OSS at large and improve how design and usability is viewed, valued and practiced in OSS.

Anything else that is important for the reader to know about you?

I am fairly new to the academic world and was the first person in my family since the 1970’s to attend higher education. I am studying for a PhD in computer science at the university of Newcastle funded by the northern bridge consortium. I’m researching how design is practiced in humanitarian and human rights focussed OSS tools.

Researcher J

How do you understand the research process and knowledge?

This is difficult for me to answer because partly we work on it together, so it is unclear how the paradigm brings forward results. For me personally, I mainly think with paradigms focussing on processes, creativity and creation of mutually recognized meaning, that is symbolic interactionism, pragmatism and ethnomethodology.

What are your beliefs about this topic?

Creation of software and creation of research are two fields with a lot of power; they shape what many people assume to be real and they also get a lot of money. If there is power, there is probably exclusion, so I assume there will be mechanisms that keep people out. I assume there will be a lot of small on-the-ground, enacted things that do not obviously match the large statements that people make about their work (”freedom”, “transparency”…) yet can be explained to be coherent with them by participants. I assume that there are some differences between academia, development, design

Any history or personal interaction with this topic?

I am involved in open source communities since about 15 years and have been working with research software occasionally since 10 years. I actively designed in open source communities occasionally since 15 years

What are your understandings of systems of oppression and their influence on your research?

We as researchers and I in particularly, are privileged – similar to most of our participants. I fit well into both open source and academic research spaces in that no one would doubt my skill *because of* my class habitus, gender, ethnicity or age. As said earlier, research and software are very powerful influences and need a lot of money; so rich countries can pour money in and maintain their power. Also computational approaches are often used to “scale” and thus also impose the standards build into them on other, local approaches of doing things in favor for their scaleable standards

What is your connection to your participants? Do you share any commonalities, identities, or experiences with your participants?

Demographically, I am probably similar to many participants. I share some interests with them (research, software)… I am, however, in my professional as well as academic identity in a non-dominant position at least in the field of research: Designers are less powerful than developers; anthropologists are almost not represented in research software and their disciplines values might contradict those of software developers and quantitative research.

Anything else that is important for the reader to know about you?

I am reading and partly working in studies of technology and sciences so both software and sciences are their topics of study; However, these are academic interests and their understanding and frameworks (Acteur-Network-Theory, Trading Zones, Boundary Objects…) that are not very helpful for material produced for non STS researchers.

Researcher S

How do you understand the research process and knowledge?

I think the way I understand research processes and knowledge is represented largely by my instinctual response to this question - we have processes and knowledge(s). We take different approaches in analyzing pre-set data collection points (interviews, surveys). We discuss, iterate, adapt, and build together through multiple methods. I see knowledge more as a continuous process rather than an achievable ‘thing,’ and anything we produce is by nature just a piece of a puzzle that can grow in context, practice, and understanding.

What are your beliefs about this topic?

I would say biases. Academia is competitive and isolated. In general, open source maintainers can be quite exclusive. In general, open source maintainers disrespect the practice of design and usability - at best as ‘not their domain/not a priority’ and at worst ‘frivolous’.

Any history or personal interaction with this topic?

I have secondary interactions for the most part, meaning I’ve learned from colleagues about their experiences and opinions with regard to open source design. I have used some research software, but not open source software. I’ve managed projects where designers on the team perform design and usability activities for open source tools, although not specifically research or science related software.

What are your understandings of systems of oppression and their influence on your research?

I’m white, cis-gendered, have a master’s degree, own a house, have a cis-gendered male partner, am employed, among other privileges. These attributes make me tacitly ‘accepted’ in most American, capitalist, and/or academic settings. Thus, I am able to navigate research largely focused on American academic communities with relative ease, which many others from systemically oppressed identities are not. I have experienced some subtle discrimination in academic spaces as a woman and a neurodivergent person. These identities influence my research in that I’m concerned about being profiled as ‘soft’ or ‘unintelligent’ or ‘distracted’ or ‘emotional’ or ‘manic.’ At times I may overcorrect.

What is your connection to your participants? Do you share any commonalities, identities, or experiences with your participants?

Most of the participants I engaged with presented as American white men. In that way, we have two things in common (American, White) as well as a relatively high status of educational attainment. Nearly all participants were researchers of some kind, as I am. We all had stable internet connections and the digital literacy to navigate video conferencing software and/or online surveys.

Anything else that is important for the reader to know about you?

I consider my personal research practice as a flexible, iterative style of participatory action research.

Researcher G

How do you understand the research process and knowledge?

I have consistently oscillated between two modes of thought when it comes to research and knowledge: Align the efforts for greater impact and let 1000 flowers bloom. I’ve struggled historically when I hear about lots of people attempting to solve/research the same or similar problems, but who aren’t connected.

Researcher A

How do you understand the research process and knowledge?

I understand the research process a lot more theoretically than operationally. Research process for me has been driven by projects and their capacity to allocate resources and time towards it. My history with research process and knowledge comes from working on proprietary and digital public softwares. According to me, there can be distinct point of views researchers can bring to light depending on their association and lived experiences in a particular domain.

What are your beliefs about this topic?

While design and usability are being popularly recognized as important means to build effective softwares, i believe it is yet to be doomed as essential as code itself. I am entering this research with an experience of seeing design excluded from resource constrained situations/projects but also becoming crucial with sufficient funds. I’ve also been at the advocating side of design, pitching for and helping projects realise the benefits of design in their projects.

Any history or personal interaction with this topic?

I have been a design professional with 8 years of experience. I have contributed to open source, humanitarian and digital public softwares as a paid staff. I have tried to volunteer but with less success. I have no experience with Science and Research softwares.

What are your understandings of systems of oppression and their influence on your research?

I’m not much aware of the systems of oppression in Science and Research OS. I’m still learning a lot more about the workings of Open Source ecosystem from institutional perspective.

What is your connection to your participants? Do you share any commonalities, identities, or experiences with your participants?

I have no personal or professional connection with the participants. For all I know, i share quite an opposite thought process from the participants, coming form a mix of for-profit and open source world.

What do you think you will find in this study?

I think i’ll learn the paradigm of designs in S&R OS. It could open up a different world of software development processes driven by community, volunteerism, sustainability etc…

What are your hopes for this study?

I hope to leverage my background, understanding of research process and knowledge to discover insights that will help the S&R OS community. I hope to synthesise what I learn from the participants and present back the findings in a way that makes visible the general practices, approaches and trends in the community. Hopefully, it can help the community find gaps and opportunities for the areas they would prefer to develop for their own projects as areas of work. I hope to bring an unbiased, non-judgemental point of view to the study.

Anything else that is important for the reader to know about you?

Although I come from a different background, I’m empathetic to how things work in different settings. I try to understand the contexts before arriving at conclusions. I have developed an understanding of listening more than offering solutions. I hope to use that in the research process to product relevant outputs for design and S&R communities.

Researcher K

How do you understand the research process and knowledge?

My approach to knowledge production is to center the experience and knowledge of those closest to a community or problem, highlighting their lived experience as expertise. I contextualize those findings within historical and sociological context and phenomena; I have a bias in my interests towards how systems and institutions affect the dynamics and possibilities within groups of people – and especially how communities adapt and rise above different systemic challenges / biases / violence.

Within this team it was an iterative and collaborative process to determine exactly how to methodologically approach this project.

What are your beliefs about this topic?

I entered this research project with little experience with either Open Source maintenance or scientific academic processes. I bring an outsider’s perspective, and believe that perceptions of practices like design and usability affect the processes and workflows of these projects. I also believe that constructs within academia — both conceptual paradigms and financial and institutional limitations –– affect how projects work together and create their products, and especially how they think about their users.

Any history or personal interaction with this topic?

Not really!

What are your understandings of systems of oppression and their influence on your research?

I’m a white woman, a native english speaker, American, and have a college education + class privilege — all of these things made it easier for me to conduct this research with little friction or challenge from participants or institutions. My interest in research bends towards understanding how systems affect the individual behaviors, attitudes, and actions of individuals and groups of people — especially systems of oppression. I believe in applying a systems of oppression framework to participatory research even – perhaps especially – when the topic was not brought up organically, which was the case in this project. Bringing decoloniality into the conversation is especially important when dealing with topics so intertwined with western knowledge production, like this project.

What is your connection to your participants? Do you share any commonalities, identities, or experiences with your participants?

Similar educational contexts, perhaps (elite US educational institutions), but I do not have a graduate degree which is a very different institutional context. Many of our participants were white, American, and college educated, which I am as well.

What do you think you will find in this study?

I wasn’t sure! I did have hopes it would expose some things about how academia operates in opposition to principles of free and accessible knowledge.