Reflexive Accounts of a Postcolonial Ethnographer: Understanding Insider-Outsider Status

In studies within the sport for development (SFD) field, critical researchers often recognize that they are an intimate part of the production of knowledge. In particular. researchers adopting a postcolonial lens, and acting as an ethnographer, must consider the multiple "screens" they bring to a research setting, such as gender. sexuality, race, and class (Berger, 2015). In this paper, I discuss my own role as an intern-researcher, insider-outsider within a SFD organization during ethnographic fieldwork in Swaziland. Three detailed vignettes of my experience are offered to highlight the reflexive practices utilized in my research to navigate my role as both an intern and ethnographer. To conclude, the importance of reflexivity and further anthropological examinations in sociological studies of sport and SFD is discussed and emphasized.