Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines the tensions and contradictions of developing ethnographic research with social movements while being an activist as well as an academic researcher. It examines the complexities and potentialities of this double role when navigating knowledge hierarchies, extractivism and the constrictions of academia

Paper Abstract:

Ethnographic research with social movements has for long been questioning how researchers relate to the field and to the fights they are studying. However, debates around the positionality of researchers when they are also activists have been scarcer (Álvarez et al, 2020; Gandarias, 2014), leaving ethographers with this profile with a lack of guidelines on how to navigate the tensions and contradictions that arise from this double role and its often contradictory demands. This paper aims to critically examine some of the tensions I have faced while trying to articulate this position in the research field in two different research projects, both in Madrid (Spain) and focusing on violence and repression of social movements.

These tensions, which will be further explored in the paper, can be categorised in three dimensions: knowledge hierarchies, epistemic extractivism and the constrictions of academia when trying to develop engaged science. In particular, they include the decentering of the position of epistemic power that arises from occupying the role of the "scholar" within the activist collective; the overlap between academic and activist contexts, which may facilitate field access but also extractivist practices; and the challenge of reconciling activist and academic agendas, with often contradictory demands. Rethinking the double role of researcher-activist and the contradictions it arises is not only relevant to develop reflexive notions on how to inhabit this positionality, but also conforms an important lens through which to reflect on the relationship between academia and activism in an engaged, solidary and non-extractive way.