The Permeable Boundaries of Research Subjectivity in the Religious Field

The article addresses the problem of delineating the boundaries of research subjectivity in the course of ethnographic work. Separating the roles of the researcher-as-fieldworker and the researcher-as-theorist is proposed as a methodological experiment that enables a deeper analysis of empirical material. As an empirical case, the authors draw on observation diaries collected during fieldwork in a neo-Pentecostal congregation in St. Petersburg. Based on theoretical analysis within a phenomenological approach, and through self-reflection on the positions of the researcher-as-fieldworker and the researcher-as-theorist, the study identifies the specificities of analyzing empirical data and of overlaying the lifeworld of everyday life (A. Schutz) onto the worlds of science and religion. It shows how the boundaries of research subjectivity are reassembled—how the researcher’s stance leads to the understanding and conceptualization of the community’s lifeworld through mental processes of rapprochement, conflict, or divergence with the lifeworld and position of respondents (neo-Pentecostals).The article addresses the problem of delineating the boundaries of research subjectivity in the course of ethnographic work. Separating the roles of the researcher-as-fieldworker and the researcher-as-theorist is proposed as a methodological experiment that enables a deeper analysis of empirical material. As an empirical case, the authors draw on observation diaries collected during fieldwork in a neo-Pentecostal congregation in St. Petersburg. Based on theoretical analysis within a phenomenological approach, and through self-reflection on the positions of the researcher-as-fieldworker and the researcher-as-theorist, the study identifies the specificities of analyzing empirical data and of overlaying the lifeworld of everyday life (A. Schutz) onto the worlds of science and religion. It shows how the boundaries of research subjectivity are reassembled—how the researcher’s stance leads to the understanding and conceptualization of the community’s lifeworld through mental processes of rapprochement, conflict, or divergence with the lifeworld and position of respondents (neo-Pentecostals). An important outcome of the study is the testing of a general framework for working with ethnographic field data, which is pertinent in the context of project-based science and interdisciplinary research.

ethnography, researcher subjectivity, phenomenological approach, life-worlds