03 · What You Need to Know
The Need for a Positionality Statement Depends on Methodological Relevance
Having Positionality and Reporting Positionality Are Different Questions
Researchers always occupy positions in relation to their research. They have disciplinary backgrounds, institutional affiliations, professional roles, experiences, values, and social locations.
That does not mean every characteristic needs to be disclosed in every research report.
The distinction resembles the broader difference between having philosophical assumptions and explicitly reporting them. A researcher may have many characteristics and relationships, but reporting becomes methodologically useful when particular aspects of that position help readers understand how the study was conducted or how its findings should be evaluated.
Researcher positionality
The researcher’s position and relationship to the topic, participants, setting, institutions, and knowledge production.
Positionality statement
An explicit account of aspects of that position that are relevant to understanding the research and its methodological implications.
Some Methodologies Make Positionality Particularly Important
Positionality is especially visible in qualitative, interpretive, feminist, critical, participatory, decolonial, ethnographic, and related traditions where researcher-participant relationships, interpretation, power, or situated knowledge may be central to the methodology.
In such research, readers may need to know whether the researcher belongs to the community being studied, holds authority over participants, has prior experience of the phenomenon, or occupies another position that influences access and interpretation.
Reporting those relationships can therefore be part of methodological transparency rather than optional autobiography.
Even here, however, the exact form varies. Some studies include a clearly labeled positionality subsection. Others integrate relevant information into discussions of reflexivity, methods, ethics, field relationships, or analysis.
Reporting Guidelines May Require Researcher Characteristics or Relationships
The need for disclosure is not determined only by personal preference. Reporting guidelines and journal requirements can make particular researcher characteristics or relationships relevant.
The Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research, commonly known as COREQ, includes items concerning interviewer or facilitator characteristics, credentials, occupation, gender, experience and training, relationships established with participants, participant knowledge of the interviewer, and interviewer characteristics that may influence the research.
These requirements illustrate an important point. Transparency about the researcher is not necessarily requested as a philosophical exercise. It can be needed because researcher characteristics and relationships help readers evaluate how qualitative data were generated.
Other reporting standards, disciplines, and journals may emphasize different information. Researchers should verify the requirements applicable to their methodology and intended publication venue rather than assuming COREQ applies universally.
A Separate Statement Is Different From Relevant Disclosure
A study may need to disclose researcher relationships without needing a standalone positionality section.
Suppose a researcher evaluates a program they developed. That relationship may be important regardless of whether the study is qualitative or quantitative. It could create a conflict of interest, influence interpretation, or affect how participants respond.
The appropriate disclosure might appear in the methods, conflict-of-interest declaration, reflexivity discussion, or another location required by the journal.
The important issue is that readers receive relevant information, not that every article uses the same heading.
Positionality Reporting Should Be Proportional to Its Methodological Importance
Imagine two studies.
The first is an ethnographic study in which the researcher spends a year embedded in a community, develops relationships with participants, conducts observations and interviews, and interprets culturally situated practices. The researcher’s role and relationships are central to understanding how the evidence was produced.
The second is a secondary analysis of an openly available dataset collected by another organization, where the researcher has no interaction with participants and uses a prespecified statistical analysis. Researcher decisions still matter, but a lengthy account of personal identity may contribute little unless particular characteristics or commitments affect the question, analysis, or interpretation.
The difference is not that the second researcher has no positionality. It is that the relevance of personal and relational disclosure to evaluating the study may be different.
Positionality Reporting Is Not Limited to Qualitative Research
Although positionality statements are most strongly associated with qualitative traditions, researchers should avoid converting that association into the rule “qualitative needs positionality; quantitative does not.”
Imagine a physician evaluating a medical intervention they invented, an educational researcher studying a program they administer, or a data scientist evaluating an algorithm developed by their own company. Researcher relationships and interests may matter even when the primary evidence is quantitative.
What changes is the form of the methodological issue. A quantitative study may require conflict-of-interest disclosure, separation of roles, independent analysis, preregistration, blinded procedures, or other safeguards rather than an extended first-person positionality narrative.
The specific question of how positionality can matter in quantitative research therefore deserves more nuanced treatment than simply importing qualitative conventions.
Do Not Disclose Personal Information Merely Because You Can
Calls for positionality can sometimes encourage researchers to disclose highly personal information without a clear methodological reason.
Transparency is not synonymous with unlimited self-disclosure.
Researchers should consider whether a characteristic materially affects the inquiry, whether readers need the information to evaluate the study, and whether disclosure creates privacy, safety, professional, or ethical concerns for the researcher or others.
A useful positionality statement is selective and purposeful. It explains relevant relationships rather than attempting to provide a complete identity profile.
Watch Out
Do not assume that methodological transparency requires disclosing every aspect of your identity or personal history. Report what is relevant to understanding the research, while considering privacy, safety, ethics, and the expectations of the methodological and publication context.
A Positionality Statement Should Explain Consequences, Not Merely Characteristics
Compare two possible disclosures:
“I am a faculty member at the university where the study was conducted.”
That may be relevant, but it leaves the reader to work out why.
A stronger methodological account explains whether the researcher taught any participants, held authority over them, had access to the setting through their role, shared institutional knowledge with participants, or faced particular assumptions during interpretation.
The statement should then explain what was done about consequential issues.
This is why tracing how background and position influence the research should come before deciding what belongs in a positionality statement.
Positionality Statements Do Not Replace Reflexive Practice
A researcher can write an eloquent positionality statement and still fail to examine how their assumptions shaped the research.
Reflexivity is an ongoing process rather than a disclosure paragraph. It can involve examining researcher-participant relationships, methodological decisions, interpretations, theoretical assumptions, and changes that occur during the study.
The positionality statement reports relevant aspects of the researcher’s position. Reflexive practice helps investigate how those positions and the research process actually matter.
A Statement Can Become Performative Rather Than Informative
Positionality reporting loses value when it becomes a ritual in which researchers list identities because they believe contemporary scholarship expects them to do so.
A long statement can still tell readers almost nothing about how the research was conducted. Conversely, a concise disclosure may be methodologically valuable if it identifies a consequential relationship and explains how that relationship was handled.
The test is not length. It is usefulness.
Journal and Institutional Requirements Should Be Checked Directly
There is no universal publication rule requiring every article to contain a positionality statement. Requirements can differ by journal, discipline, article type, and reporting guideline.
Researchers should therefore check the current author instructions for the intended journal and any reporting standard relevant to the methodology. A supervisor, thesis handbook, ethics committee, or graduate program may also impose expectations that differ from journal practice.
When an explicit statement is required, follow the applicable instructions. When it is not, decide what researcher information is methodologically necessary rather than assuming either complete disclosure or complete silence is the default.
