Researcher Identity Statements
Now that you’ve had some time to reflect on your past experiences and identities, it’s time to write a researcher identity statement. This statement can be as formal or informal as you like. For the purpose of this exercise, this is simply a draft, as you’re just beginning to explore your researcher identity. Keep in mind that you will have many opportunities to edit and build upon this later in the course, so don’t worry about having a perfect version right away! You can start more generally and get more specific as your research priorities begin to take shape.
A researcher identity statement is a short summary that demonstrates your interests, values, and positionality The identity of us as a researcher as it relates to the social and political context of a research study. Our positionality is based on our past experiences and shapes how you approach the research process. as a researcher. Writing this statement is a helpful exercise that enables you to understand how your research objectives relate to who you are as a researcher and why your work matters. This activity will encourage you to reflect on your individual knowledge and experiences, how your different identities influence who you are as a researcher, and what influences your research interests. Once you’ve determined your positionality and researcher identity, you’ll be able to identify the philosophical foundations of your approach in Course 2: The LIS Research Process and Methodologies.
Activity
Complete the following reflective activity. You will answer a series of questions, and you can choose to write down your answers in your LPOL Workbook or elsewhere.
You can format your researcher identity statement however you want, as a narrative, a bulleted list, an illustration, or any other style of your choosing. Use the 1.1.3: Researcher Identity Statements activity in your LPOL Workbook to answer the following prompts as you craft your statement:
A) How has your background or lived experiences influenced who you are as a researcher and how you’d like to pursue your research?
B) Are there individual values or beliefs that influence what kind of research you’d like to pursue?
C) Are there personal, social, educational, and professional experiences that have shaped a particular research interest? How, and what are the research interests that are starting to take shape for you?
D) What skills and prior knowledge do you have that you think will contribute to your research?
E) Are there directions in your research you hope to pursue in the future and how might you approach them?
Your answers to these questions can then be used as a formula for crafting your statement. Here are two examples:
Example 1: As I have often been the only brown woman in predominantly white educational and professional spaces, my research seeks to promote and support the knowledge and lived experiences of students and librarians from communities with a history of being underrepresented in higher education. (A) I refer to anti-racist, feminist, and Indigenous pedagogies to research and teach students about knowledge production, organization, and exploration. (B) My research interests center around retention of students and librarians of color in higher education through the support of diverse lived experiences and ways of knowing in classrooms and libraries. (C, D) It is my hope that my scholarship will support the classroom and the library to be, as bell hooks asserted, a “radical site of possibility in the academy.” (E)
Example 2: As a neurodivergent and queer white woman, I am deeply familiar with what it is like to slip in and out of various levels of privilege in educational and professional spaces, and I aim to use my research to showcase the strengths and lived experiences of students from communities that have been historically marginalized within higher education. (A) I aim to embody anti-deficit, anti-racist, feminist, and Indigenous approaches to research and community building. (B) My research interests include critical pedagogy A theoretical framework that posits learners should examine and challenge power structures and patterns of inequity. By understanding an individual’s critical consciousness, they can begin to combat oppression. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is considered a foundational text in thinking about critical pedagogy. This book pushes back against the “banking” model of education and encourages a “problem-posing” educational model., the affective nature of research, and dismantling deficit approaches to students. I am also interested in the relationship librarians have to their own research and how we can better support LIS An interdisciplinary field that examines how physical and digital information is organized, accessed, collected, managed, disseminated and used, particularly in library settings. research-practitioners in the field. (C, D) It is my deepest hope as an educator to empower students to challenge their assumptions about the world and develop a genuine passion for seeking and gaining knowledge in order to improve their lives and communities. (E)
If you’re still not sure where to go, check out the additional example researcher identity statements linked below. Some of these statements are included within in the text of an article and others appear on a personal website or in a research statement. Choose a format and length that works for you!
Once you initially draft research identity statement, set it aside for a bit. Then, come back to it with fresh eyes and see what edits you might want to make. If you feel comfortable, consider sharing this with a trusted peer or mentor. Your statement will help guide you through the following courses. You may also be in a place right now where you’re not sure how to answer these questions, and that’s okay! Take some time to do some reflection and inner exploration as you work through this exercise or set it aside for now and continue to think about it. All of the activities in this lesson are meant to be iterative, which means you shouldn’t feel pressured to create a perfect, final version.
It’s worth revisiting this lesson as you move along your research journey and experience different stages in your life. Your answers may change, your interests may refocus, and you may have new philosophies that guide you to a new research interest. It’s an ever-evolving practice, and we hope that the curriculum helps guide you through the different phases of your journey as a researcher!
Topic 3 References
Powell, Charrisa. “Research interests: Finding my way.” The Librarian Parlor. October 4, 2017. https://libparlor.com/2017/10/04/research-interests-finding-my-way/.
Researcher Identity Statements
Now that you’ve had some time to reflect on your past experiences and identities, it’s time to write a researcher identity statement. This statement can be as formal or informal as you like. For the purpose of this exercise, this is simply a draft, as you’re just beginning to explore your researcher identity. Keep in mind that you will have many opportunities to edit and build upon this later in the course, so don’t worry about having a perfect version right away! You can start more generally and get more specific as your research priorities begin to take shape.
A researcher identity statement is a short summary that demonstrates your interests, values, and positionalityPositionality The identity of us as a researcher as it relates to the social and political context of a research study. Our positionality is based on our past experiences and shapes how you approach the research process. as a researcher. Writing this statement is a helpful exercise that enables you to understand how your research objectives relate to who you are as a researcher and why your work matters. This activity will encourage you to reflect on your individual knowledge and experiences, how your different identities influence who you are as a researcher, and what influences your research interests. Once you’ve determined your positionality and researcher identity, you’ll be able to identify the philosophical foundations of your approach in Course 2: The LIS Research Process and Methodologies.
Activity
Complete the following reflective activity. You will answer a series of questions, and you can choose to write down your answers in your LPOL Workbook or elsewhere.
You can format your researcher identity statement however you want, as a narrative, a bulleted list, an illustration, or any other style of your choosing. Use the 1.1.3: Researcher Identity Statements activity in your LPOL Workbook to answer the following prompts as you craft your statement:
A) How has your background or lived experiences influenced who you are as a researcher and how you’d like to pursue your research?
B) Are there individual values or beliefs that influence what kind of research you’d like to pursue?
C) Are there personal, social, educational, and professional experiences that have shaped a particular research interest? How, and what are the research interests that are starting to take shape for you?
D) What skills and prior knowledge do you have that you think will contribute to your research?
E) Are there directions in your research you hope to pursue in the future and how might you approach them?
Your answers to these questions can then be used as a formula for crafting your statement. Here are two examples:
Example 1: As I have often been the only brown woman in predominantly white educational and professional spaces, my research seeks to promote and support the knowledge and lived experiences of students and librarians from communities with a history of being underrepresented in higher education. (A) I refer to anti-racist, feminist, and Indigenous pedagogies to research and teach students about knowledge production, organization, and exploration. (B) My research interests center around retention of students and librarians of color in higher education through the support of diverse lived experiences and ways of knowing in classrooms and libraries. (C, D) It is my hope that my scholarship will support the classroom and the library to be, as bell hooks asserted, a “radical site of possibility in the academy.” (E)
Example 2: As a neurodivergent and queer white woman, I am deeply familiar with what it is like to slip in and out of various levels of privilege in educational and professional spaces, and I aim to use my research to showcase the strengths and lived experiences of students from communities that have been historically marginalized within higher education. (A) I aim to embody anti-deficit, anti-racist, feminist, and Indigenous approaches to research and community building. (B) My research interests include critical pedagogyCritical pedagogy A theoretical framework that posits learners should examine and challenge power structures and patterns of inequity. By understanding an individual’s critical consciousness, they can begin to combat oppression. Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed is considered a foundational text in thinking about critical pedagogy. This book pushes back against the “banking” model of education and encourages a “problem-posing” educational model., the affective nature of research, and dismantling deficit approaches to students. I am also interested in the relationship librarians have to their own research and how we can better support LISLibrary and Information Science An interdisciplinary field that examines how physical and digital information is organized, accessed, collected, managed, disseminated and used, particularly in library settings. research-practitioners in the field. (C, D) It is my deepest hope as an educator to empower students to challenge their assumptions about the world and develop a genuine passion for seeking and gaining knowledge in order to improve their lives and communities. (E)
If you’re still not sure where to go, check out the additional example researcher identity statements linked below. Some of these statements are included within in the text of an article and others appear on a personal website or in a research statement. Choose a format and length that works for you!
Once you initially draft research identity statement, set it aside for a bit. Then, come back to it with fresh eyes and see what edits you might want to make. If you feel comfortable, consider sharing this with a trusted peer or mentor. Your statement will help guide you through the following courses. You may also be in a place right now where you’re not sure how to answer these questions, and that’s okay! Take some time to do some reflection and inner exploration as you work through this exercise or set it aside for now and continue to think about it. All of the activities in this lesson are meant to be iterative, which means you shouldn’t feel pressured to create a perfect, final version.
It’s worth revisiting this lesson as you move along your research journey and experience different stages in your life. Your answers may change, your interests may refocus, and you may have new philosophies that guide you to a new research interest. It’s an ever-evolving practice, and we hope that the curriculum helps guide you through the different phases of your journey as a researcher!
Topic 3 References
Powell, Charrisa. “Research interests: Finding my way.” The Librarian Parlor. October 4, 2017. https://libparlor.com/2017/10/04/research-interests-finding-my-way/.