Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality. Methodological Reflections on Ethnography and Interviewing in Dis: ability Performance Research Elena Backhausen, Mirjam Kreuser, Benjamin Wihstutz (Mainz) This article explores methodological approaches to addressing situatedness, positioning, and relationality in research. It raises questions about the implications of a temporal, relational and process-based understanding of positioning for theatre and performance studies, particularly when conducting interviews on dis: ability 1 performance. Composed of distinct processes of textualization, representing our different perspectives and voices, the article discusses the diverse ways positioning comes into play and how to make these positions transparent. In her much-cited article on “ Situated Knowledges ” (1988), Donna Haraway makes an argument against both a naïve concept of objectivity in science and a radical social constructivism in the humanities. She states that the former is flawed because scientific knowledge cannot be seen as ahistorical and universal but is always rooted in social and historical contexts and depends on specific research methods and technologies that change and develop over time. 2 But the latter also tends to completely overlook the materiality, locatedness, and embodiment of research. According to Haraway, both perspectives cling to a conception of knowledge from an unmarked position instead of considering the situatedness of knowledge. Thus, taking this situatedness seriously means making one ’ s partial and locatable position in research transparent. This raises the question of how and in what way practices of positioning come into play in research and academic writing. Positioning oneself in research with regard to the researcher ’ s identity has become a guideline for many approaches in the critical studies. 3 Be it gender and queer studies, critical race studies, or disability and Mad studies, there is a common feeling in academia, that once research is concerned with the perspective of minorities, making one ’ s own position and identity transparent becomes somehow necessary, even if it is only an explanatory footnote. On the other hand, and this applies especially to ethnographic research and qualitative interviewing, positioning cannot be reduced to a fixed or once-and-for-all statement, since both identity and the position in the field are not simply stable or set in stone but alter and develop over time. We are fully aware that positions are never stable; rather, our contention is that the processes of writing and the fixation of identity in academic discourse tend to presuppose such stability. While the concept of positionality does not, in principle, preclude the understanding that researchers are in motion, the dynamic relationalities this implies - marked by openness, uncertainty, risk, and transformation - are rarely given due recognition or rendered visible within scholarly writing. David Simpson calls these self-interpellations that precede most academic statements either in speaking or in writing ‘ azza sentences ’ ( “ I as a . . . ” ), whose inherent problem does not lie in trying to describe one ’ s identity but rather in trying to Forum Modernes Theater, 36/ 1-2, 75 - 94. Gunter Narr Verlag Tübingen DOI 10.24053/ FMTh-36-0007 beat others to the draw of assuming one ’ s positionality and therefore its limits. 4 As Simpson reflects in his book Situatedness, or, Why We Keep Saying Where We ’ re Coming From, situating oneself might temporarily provide an answer to the question of whether our identity is imposed on us by our environment or can be shaped and performed by autonomous subjects. Yet, “ the habit of invoking situatedness as an affirmative or explanatory principle rather than as an unignorable but imprecise field of forces that raises more questions than it answers ” 5 has to be taken seriously in the context of dis: ability performance research. From a Disability Studies perspective, recent debates on access like Margaret Price ’ s concept of “ crip spacetime ” 6 that highlight the situational and temporal conditions of dis: ability, stress the importance of a relational and temporal understanding of positioning and identity without denying fundamental differences in certain embodied experiences. The identity positions we deal with in research are neither binary nor simply black and white. There are usually complex relations involved between the researcher and the field that change gradually during fieldwork or conducting a series of interviews. Thus, considering situated knowledge in ethnographic and interview research involves more than just asserting and textualizing an identity (in an academic paper) or emphasizing historical and social contexts. It also shapes the relationships within the field - between the researcher and participants, among researchers themselves, and with the environment in which the research or interviews are conducted. In this article, we address methodological questions of material situatedness of knowledge production within the field of (auto-) ethnographic research; positioning as a central challenge of the ethnographic loop of submergence and emergence in the field; and relationality as the researcher ’ s adaptability and flexibility throughout the project using the diverse research perspectives within our project on various aspects of dis: ability performance. Overall, our research project within the CRC 1482 Humandifferenzierung consists of three subprojects ranging from side show performances around 1900 (Benjamin ’ s project) to contemporary artists incorporating autobiographical psychiatric experiences into their work (Mirjam ’ s project) to the role of trust and interdependence among visually impaired athletes and their guides in Paralympic sports (Elena ’ s project). Since we are neither ‘ situated ’ in the same way regarding dis: ability research nor do we intend to speak from an abstract or objective point of view, writing this article together demands transparency about our different perspectives. Even if we share a common perspective on dis: ability, dissonant voices would still emerge concerning our own positioning within Dis: ability and/ or Disability Studies. Although the written outcome of a collaborative writing process may suggest otherwise, our thoughts and approaches expanded and mutually influenced each another in the course of writing. Through the process of composing the text, we became aware of convergences and divergences not only between us, but also within our own voices. To narrow the scope of this article, we have decided to focus primarily on interview research, largely excluding the historical aspect of Benjamin ’ s subproject. However, it is important to note that incorporating elements of dis: ability history could introduce equally important, yet different, questions regarding situatedness and positioning in research. In a 2020 article, disability scholar Mai- Anh Boger describes her contested positioning towards Disability Studies as a triangle between empowerment, deconstruction, and normalization. This triangle represents a process of positioning that can never be 76 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz fixed - where “ fixed ” means both repaired and set in a permanent position. 7 For instance, whether you identify as disabled or not can depend on the context or situation. In some academic contexts, a strategic essentialism to identify as crip, disabled, or Mad may be politically important (empowerment) or helpful to counter normative perspectives. In other contexts, deconstructing dis: ability as an identity might be equally important to distance oneself from an activist approach. A normalizing approach can highlight the relational aspects of dis: ability, showing that anyone can be disabled by barriers or certain conditions and situations. Positioning as a method and writing praxis, therefore, means taking these dissonant voices and their affective sides - both within oneself and externally - seriously, reflecting on them, and bringing them to the fore. Boger writes: “ The art lies (. . .) in allowing these dissonant voices to affect you and in locating yourself as well. Each of us has resistant forms with which we can easily identify, but also those that we find quite jarring. Therefore, it is part of the scientific method of mapping to invite this affective work, insofar as these affects signal to you in the most effortless way where you are positioned in this conflict. ” 8 Beyond the contradictions and diverse voices, a temporal dimension of the positioning process also needs to be considered. In this context, there are at least three distinct phases of positioning that may play a role in research. The first phase refers to aspects of identity related to the fundamental experience and orientation of Being-in-the-World ( ‘ Dasein ’ ). Here, what Heidegger or Sartre once called “ Geworfenheit ” 9 must be supplemented with new perspectives from critical phenomenology. Critical phenomenology, then, as Murphy, Salamon, and Weiss state, “ disrupts sedimented patterns of thinking and perceiving, ” 10 creating the conditions of possibility for new and unpredictable futures. To be situated as Being-in-the-World, therefore, can contrast with certain normative patterns that must be reflected upon and made transparent. The second aspect of positioning refers to the research process itself, particularly to the changes in one ’ s situatedness that may occur when one deliberately introduces such methods into theatre and performance research. Doing fieldwork, a method rooted in social sciences, is traditionally seen as a process between “ going native ” 11 and “ coming home ” , but these phases are neither distinct nor does the researcher necessarily stay the same during the research process, whether it is months of fieldwork or a series of interviews. To position oneself towards the field means to align oneself with the specific logic of that field. Does the researcher see themselves as an ally of the people in the field - implying “ speaking nearby ” , as Trinh Minh-Ha puts it 12 - or rather as a distant observer? Positioning here is intrinsically linked to the process of conducting research itself. Thirdly, there is the writing perspective. In writing, or rather by writing, a position is taken within a larger context. Whenever an article or book is published, it will be read as a position within that context - a historical and disciplinary context, written at a certain time and place in the humanities. Writing about situatedness, positioning, and relationality, therefore, must address and reflect all three of these levels. The main concern here is that, in academic contexts, positioning is often reduced to a means to an end, rather than being addressed as an ongoing concern throughout the text. Thus, our aim is to write this article in three different voices, yet share certain methodological questions, and to reflect positioning while conducting research and writing simultaneously. Much like Boger ’ s dissonant voices, 77 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality we will write this article in three distinct voices: Benjamin, as the principal investigator, has primarily contributed to the introduction and conclusion, which makes his voice less prominent as a distinct position, as he writes in the collective ‘ we ’ on behalf of the entire project. Mirjam will discuss situatedness and differences in identity stances, while Elena will explore a rethinking of positionality with relational processes as an alternative within our dis: ability research. I Mirjam ’ s Voice: Situatedness and the Recognition of Positional Identity Differences in Cross-Disability Research Autobiographical performances by artists with mental illness, psychosocial disability or psychiatric experiences, which are the subject of my research, are fuelled by the artists ’ embodiment of their own vulnerability. Working with and around these artists, my own situatedness within the social complex of illness and psychiatry became central to my positionality as a researcher. Being a patient with a set of psychiatric diagnoses is a specification of personhood which can be two things: first, an objectifying/ pathologizing third-party description through a professionalized psychiatric gaze or second, a self-description employed in two of Mai-Anh Boger ’ s triangular strategies, empowerment, and normalization. Haraway ’ s concept of situated knowledge proposes itself as an attempt to solve the conflicting processes of objectification and subjectivation in research - Haraway turns away from a somewhat situationless claim of objectivity towards an epistemology of point of view. 13 With this in mind, it comes as no surprise that the focal point of my research was and is situated in my personal, phenomenological experience as both an academic expert and a consumer/ survivor/ ex-patient (c/ s/ x) of psychiatry and psychology. 14 This personal situatedness in this complex shaped my process of positioning as a researcher in the field and was a vital door-opener for my contact with performers with mental illness, psychosocial disability or psychiatric experiences, as I could claim a part in a shared set of experiences. Writer and trainer for transformative action and disability justice Mia Mingus writes that the coming together of dis: abled people can be the basis for “ access intimacy ” to blossom: Access intimacy is also the intimacy I feel with many other disabled and sick people who have an automatic understanding of access needs out of our shared similar lived experience of the many different ways ableism manifests in our lives. Together, we share a kind of access intimacy that is ground-level, with no need for explanations. Instantly, we can hold the weight, emotion, logistics, isolation, trauma, fear, anxiety and pain of access. I don ’ t have to justify and we are able to start from a place of steel vulnerability. 15 Nevertheless, as disability activist, educator and performance artist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha explains in their work in both activist and performance collectives, the simple claim of one ’ s positionality as disabled as an act of community-building is put to the test in cross-disability work contexts. 16 While Piepzna-Samarasinha acknowledges Mingus ’ s sensual description of crip-solidarity - “ Wherever you are is where I want to be ” - they also point out that such moments may be disturbed by the acceleration of vulnerability if access needs turn out to be non-complementary. The assumption that there is such a thing as a ‘ same ’ situatedness when it comes to identifying as something is challenged, an overtone that you will hear resonating in Elena ’ s part of this paper too: rigidity rather than flexibility can lead to tension and the feeling of betrayal 78 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz by the assumed ‘ sameness ’ . Negotiating different dis: abilities and access needs requires recognizing that there are differences within dis: abled identity that have to be worked around rather than projected onto each other. As Piepzna-Samarasinha notes, cross-disability action, performance, and research require not just identifying as something similar but also navigating potential collisions in a tight space of selfnegotiation. This navigation is reflexive, emotional, consensual, and reciprocal work - Care Work, to be precise, as the title of their book and call to action for disability justice published in 2018 states. 17 The following section aims to point out the importance of vulnerability and care work in ethnographic research and qualitative interviewing when working with dis: abled theatre performers as a critical researcher, whether the researcher identifies as disabled or non-disabled. Qualitative Interviewing in Research on and with Dis: ability In theatre, the visibly dis: abled body is under scrutiny on stage and in the broader institutional context. Not only do visibly dis: abled actors have a harder time being accepted and maintaining their position in acting curricula, but if they make it onto the stage, their dis: ability is always considered as a deviation from what is to be expected of the actor ’ s body, thus rendering them hyper-visible. 18 Theatre and disability scholar Carrie Sandahl calls this “ the tyranny of neutral ” 19 in theatre. Following Sandahl ’ s reasoning, the neutral also tyrannizes the non-visibly dis: abled body, since it upholds standards of a normative idea of how a body should perform, both physically and mentally, to be recognized as professional in the realm of theatre. Such are the consequences of ableism. And to counteract these, dis: abled performers tend to autonomously address their disability on stage, creating a variety of dis: ability performances in disability culture, many of which are a mixture of humorous irony, critical iterations on society, and autobiographical snippets. They assemble the dis: abled bodies and minds inside the ableist culture that shapes them as well as through the critical force which is provided by disability culture and knowledge. So, dis: ability performances are intertwined aesthetically and in terms of production with normativity inand outside of theatre, alongside the numerous attempts to escape it and create safe spaces. 20 To adequately grasp these fine and frail connections of sociality and aesthetics, it is important that the researcher of dis: ability performances looks behind the aesthetic product on stage - regardless of whether they consider themselves dis: abled, since there can be no congruent ‘ sameness ’ or sometimes even continuity in identifying as dis: abled, as I will explain later in introducing my research practice. Experiences can still be shaped differently by inter-categorial differences and intersectional configurations. Research needs to acquire knowledge from the artists and their production team to understand how production circumstances, finances and the performer ’ s own access needs shape the final product. 21 Besides creating an analysis that intertwines aesthetics and the circumstances of the production, doing ethnographic research or conducting qualitative interviews also addresses inherent power imbalances in research. Interviewing practices also help to balance out the dominance of academic knowledge over emic field knowledge, which to this day has persevered in Theatre Studies ’ analyses of contemporary art. Jay Dolmage ’ s conceptualization of dis: ability through rhetoric describes the rhetorical power of academia circulating through the body which is then shaped by this institutional rhetoric. Con- 79 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality cerning dis: ability, it has shaped disabled people as the object of study, not the conveyors of knowledge. This rendering into objecthood is, according to Dolmage, a prime example of what he calls academic ableism, the negation of the disabled as knowledge carriers due to a prematurely assumed inability. 22 Physical and psychosocial disabilities are also historically intertwined with theatrical showings, primarily for the amusement of a voyeuristic, non-disabled gaze, both in freak shows 23 and in public mad house exhibitions. 24 To avoid the vulnerability that is historically embedded in any kind of dis: ability performance, it is important to acknowledge dis: abled artists as research subjects not objects. Migration researcher Sarah Nimführ suggests empowering research subjects by addressing the power imbalance of the researched subject and instead promoting them to research partners. For Nimführ this means taking them seriously as advocates for themselves and as experts in their own biography and experiences. This is especially important, since, due to the public nature of their performances, artists usually cannot be anonymized in academic work about their art. Nimführ also points out that pre-assumptions of vulnerability can also stabilize the top-down relation of researcher and researched. 25 To transform this kind of vulnerability into the “ steel vulnerability ” Mia Mingus refers to as the basis of equal social relations and the dismantling of ableism in everyday life, takes a reflection on the researcher ’ s situatedness and their subsequent positioning, both in recognizing the relational constitution of their identity and in making oneself vulnerable in the role of the careful conductor who may fail but recognizes their failure as a place for learning experiences. 26 Taking on responsibility as a researcher requires care work, just like Piepzna-Samarasinha suggests for disability activism and art. Care Work as Academic Practice: A Sketch for Empathetic Interviewing When German anthropologist Francis Seeck started their research on care practices in the German trans community, they were conducting so-called ‘ close to home ’ research. Identifying as queer and non-binary, they shared a close relation in identity with their research partners. Yet they had to realize that while they were considered part of the queer community, there was no such thing as a ‘ same experience ’ due to differences within seemingly same identities as well as differing intersectional experiences, for example the significant differences between being queer in a big city and being queer in a rural area. 27 My experiences in the field provided me with similar experiences. Profound experiences like being (involuntarily) sectioned have a massive influence on critically situating oneself in the field of mental illness and psychiatric care, a position I could not claim to speak from or about during early critical conversations in the field, since I personally was seeking empowerment and normalization at that point in time, rather than deconstruction and/ or abolitionism. Seeck found answers to address these issues in the feminist stance on ethnography. The latter, as suggested above, addresses the power imbalances due to the inherent structures in research and focuses on marginalizing structures. Starting from there, Seeck reformulated their ethnographic work as one of care: An ethnography of care directs attention to care work and care relationships, both of which are often invisible components of ethnographic practice; this means care relationships in the field and the self-care and care for others that make the research activity possible in the first place. An ethnography of care looks critically at power dynamics and power imbalances in the research process, also with regard to the question of who 80 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz benefits from the research and for whom it is accessible. 28 Seeck combines ethnographic practices with the sensibility for research with and around people whose lives might be vulnerable or even precarious due to discrimination, lack of medical care, and societal and governmental paternalism, which also applies to many dis: abled people and those in psychiatric care. Seeck also suggests reflecting on their own agency as a researcher and the question of benefit for the research partners. Adapting Seeck ’ s thoughts from ethnography to qualitative interviewing, the first obvious imbalance that usually goes unrecognized is that the research partners ’ labour - unlike that of the researchers - often goes unnoticed and, even more importantly, unpaid. Since it is unusual in the financial structures of university research to pay your subjects, the researcher must ask themselves in what non-financial way the researched subject or community can otherwise profit from their participation in a study. Care work and disability and mental illness have a complex relationship, as the first care that comes to mind is medicalized and psychiatric care. So when the term ‘ care work ’ is employed here, it refers directly to Piepzna-Samarasinha ’ s vision “ of the ways we [the BIPoC and queer dis: abled friends they accredit for pioneering of this care] are attempting to dream ways to access care deeply, in a way we are in control, joyful, building community, loving, giving and receiving, that doesn ’ t burn anyone out or abuse or underpay anyone in the process. ” 29 Adapting these principles into qualitative interview research initially proves to be a challenge, since, as already mentioned, there is seldom adequate financial compensation for the interviewees. Another grounding principle of care working in a framing of disability justice, however, was accessibility as care which I implemented in my research by writing an interview rider which I will quote below. This text was modelled on the concept of the disability access rider, which is a form of document created and established within the dis: abled artists ’ community. Its purpose is to provide employing institutions with the dis: abled artist ’ s access needs in order to work towards access intimacy. At its core it collects (non-)negotiable prerequisites and shared responsibilities for access in both preparation and performance. 30 It provides a framework restructured towards care and accessibility for the artist in a field of performance where they are increasingly present despite being dis: abled by their environment. The interview practice described in the following is set out to make access the basis of the interview, striving towards vulnerability on both sides - interviewer and interviewee - and measuring out the dimension of the researcher ’ s caring practices as an offer and invitation to the artists to share their needs. My idea treats access and care as means of relaxing an interview space inspired by another format taken from Disability Arts, the so-called relaxed performance. Relaxed performances aim to free a space from its norms and notions on how to behave adequately and move towards a comforting co-inhabitation. 31 Providing as much information as the research partner needed to feel both comfortable and not overwhelmed was key to the development of this interview practice. Before meeting up, an overview of the practice was provided as a written document, divided into the following sections: Address, description of ‘ Setting ’ , explanation of ‘ Conduct ’ and narrative prompts, thoughts on the re-attribution of ‘ Agency ’ and ‘ Accessibility ’ . The document was provided in a long and a short version for the interviewee to choose from so they could prepare based on their own informational needs. Laying down the information in writing demonstrates quite clearly that 81 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality although interviewing may first and foremost be seen as a verbal, conversational activity, writing is a vital part of it. While I am focusing here on writing in preparation, taking notes is also methodologically recommended and has been a central part of my and most other researchers ’ practice too. The sections on ‘ Setting ’ and ‘ Access ’ both address accessibility: The ‘ Setting ’ section provides information on social conventions which are to be established in the interview, informing the interviewee about possible communication channels and behavioural recommendations (like dressing to feel comfortable) or invitations (like stimming, ticks, eating, and inviting assistance). The section on ‘ Access ’ acknowledges the inherently restrictive structure of academic settings and invites pre-interview agreements on access needs - these are basic methods of evaluating and navigating access needs in dis: ability community-based projects. Positionality is a prevalent theme of this interview rider. The address already points to both the personal relation to dis: ability and the academic stance on the dis: abled body. In this example, it was especially vital since the subjects ’ identity, artists with socalled ‘ mental illness ’ , is often subject to medical sovereignty. I understand my research as ethnographical: My approach to research is an embodied one. For me this means that I employ the notions and ideas of my discipline Theatre Studies while also considering myself a psychosocially disabled person as well. In my approach, I neither will neglect my personal interference with my topic, nor do I wish to come to ‘ cold objective ’ results. I am not a psychiatrist/ psychologist. I will be no judge of diagnosis or the authenticity of symptoms or experiences. There is no need to disclose personal or family medical history to validate your experiences if you do not wish to do so. This stance acknowledges both the personal identification of the researcher as well as positionality inside a specific academic discourse. Positionality here is a means of making the researcher vulnerable themselves, either by acknowledging that their experience is shaped and limited by ablebodiedness or by ‘ coming out ’ as disabled oneself 32 and therefore making oneself vulnerable to the principles of academic ableism. 33 Critically reflecting upon it, one, however, has to acknowledge that positionality remains slippery. It is noticeable that the assumed key distinctions for the interviewer are the academic and the dis: abled - whether these really were the ‘ roles ’ performed, differed drastically in the interview. It mostly played out heavily in favour of one or the other, usually depending on which function was primarily reflected and addressed by the artist. Additionally, it is important to point out that positionality in interview situations cannot only shift in relation to the topic of dis: ability and researcher, but also between the role of professional and private individual, an opportunity that was actively provided under ‘ Agency ’ : First, as already mentioned, you can request breaks or stop during the entire interview. Second, you can refuse to answer questions you do not feel comfortable with. I will not pressure you into sharing information you ’ re not willing to. Third, I want to invite you to ask questions back if you are interested in taking over the interviewer position for a short time. I am willing to equally provide personal and academic information about myself. As Francis Seeck suggests, changing between the roles of interviewed and interviewee can provide additional knowledge if one is willing to become vulnerable in the process of an ethnography of care. This invitation to engage and share agency in the creation of knowledge can be considered as a process 82 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz of writing together, as Nimführ suggests doing, to attribute agency back to our research partners. 34 Even though they might not have the resources to actively participate in writing processes, I actively engaged them in a feedback loop: After the interview is finished and transcribed, I will send you the script to go through as a second instance. You will have the opportunity to reformulate or cut parts you don ’ t feel comfortable with being shared in my PhD. This feels like an important process in sharing responsibility since I will be present as both a researcher and as a private person with lived experience with mental illness so different relations between us might be at stake. The active address of interviewees as research partners is embedded in the idea of care work and disability justice. This involves recognizing the power and financial imbalances, accepting the capacities of one ’ s research partners, taking into account longer periods for feedback, and embracing the possibility that they might cut passages the researcher would have preferred to include. Caring in research also means accepting the vulnerability of one ’ s own work and working position - destabilizing this position and embracing shifting between different roles and identities can help to make the position as an academic more fluid, to hopefully move towards a more empathetic encounter. When practising what I have just laid out, another function of the interview rider also became apparent: In conversation with a colleague about and during my research for an article, they interpreted the rider not only as an access measure for others but as an anticipatory care practice for my own psycho-social impairment. David Simpson argues that addressing where one is coming from is a confession of one ’ s own limitations, and yet “ become[s] a covert affirmation whereby the subject secures itself precisely in confessing its insecurity. ” 35 Simpson deems this a possibility of exculpation in what he calls the “ azza ” sentences - “ I as a . . . [azza] ” , which I partially agree with. However, he addresses these “ comforts of situatedness ” 36 mostly as a side product in a legitimation bypass in (academic) discourse, rather than as a fundamental affective requirement for any social participation for most, even though he does acknowledge that they might increase the pressure in conversation with strangers. 37 Especially coming from a perspective of care work in terms of disability justice, one might however ask if security and comfort are truly inherently problematic, as they are closely related to access for psychosocial dis: abilities. In this case, the security was deeply necessary for me to enter the socially unpredictable situation of the research interview, since, at first, I found my position as the ‘ designer ’ intimidating bordering on debilitating due to my psychosocial impairment. This care measure providing security, and calm had written itself into my interview rider subconsciously. Learning to be Patient: The Possibility and Potential of Failure Putting care work at the foundation of academic research, which is usually driven by the researcher ’ s autonomous progress and performance, is a radical notion, which can, much as Piepzna-Samarasinha pointed out, fail. Disability culture as well as crip theory have a strong connection to failure, which is not always deemed negative. 38 Failure provides learning opportunities and offers space for transformative practices. The rendition of the access rider offered here is not without flaws, as interviewees and other researchers pointed out. Addressing people as ‘ psychosocially disabled ’ or ‘ mentally ill ’ might clash with the self-identification of anti-psychiatrists and the Mad community as non-pathological. So far, there is 83 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality no unified self-description of people in distress who are subjected to psychiatrization. 39 Therefore, the access rider will transform over the research process, the address and its inclusion of a fixed stance positionality being the first to be scrutinized in order to be more inclusive with regard to different understandings of their own bodies and minds and intra-identification differences - even to my own, as my preference has currently shifted from psychosocially dis: abled to Mad which would, much as my methodological affiliation with ethnography, probably be worth explaining to an uninformed outsider. This interview practice also demands a will to be more flexible and lenient in the time frames in which academic work is carried out. Feedback loops and collective work on the transcript usually take longer, depending on your research partner ’ s temporal and energetic resources. It is important to embrace the notion of crip space time - the acceptance that we might be in the same spatial and temporal surroundings but experience it radically differently. Crip spacetime is Margaret Price ’ s counter-concept to the notion of kairos and kairotic time, 40 will be implemented further in Elena ’ s voice, and is utterly important to transform the researcher ’ s work into care work. Ultimately, in practice this concept has always been appreciated as demonstrating the will to empathize with and be considerate towards the artist ’ s vulnerability and the researcher ’ s unstable situatedness. II Elena ’ s Voice: Questioning Positionality Towards a Relational Understanding of Research Like Mirjam ’ s research, my research also includes interviews, but the approach and reflections on positionality are somewhat different, as the categories of dis: ability are clearly predetermined by the structure of my researched field, Paralympic sport. My research involves conducting interviews with visually impaired athletes in competitive sport, focusing on their relationships with their guides in terms of trust, synchronicity, and communication. 41 Ascriptions of identity to others and self-categorization of dis: abled athletes are therefore not the subject of my research or up for debate, making the question of positioning in the sense of asserting one ’ s own identity less relevant in my research. In contrast to a pre-existing position, the question of constant repositioning in the field as an alignment of myself with others has become more relevant for me. Since the early 2000s, the need for reflections on one ’ s own influences on research has received long overdue attention in social sciences and the humanities, referred to as the “ reflexive turn ” in anthropology. 42 Reflexivity, as defined by Kirsti Malterud, means “ attending systematically to the context of knowledge construction, especially to the effect of the researcher, at every step of the research process ” 43 . This turn has not only prompted considerations of one ’ s own knowledge constructions, but also increasingly demands the assertion of identity categories by attempting to capture and make transparent the subject of the researcher at an early stage, which always and inevitably influences the research and writing process. While the notion of positionality is, as mentioned above, conceptually associated with Heidegger ’ s notion of “ Geworfensein ” 44 , which focuses primarily on an isolated and stable idea of the subject, it is precisely during ethnographic research that seemingly fixed identity categories are destabilized, which should be taken into account when reflecting on positionality. 45 Thus, research should scrutinize the concrete actions, effects, and influences on the 84 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz environment of others - visually translatable as a real position in a field. Despite good intentions and the undoubtedly urgent need to actively incorporate reflections on one ’ s own identity and biographical, social, and biological prerequisites, as already echoed in Mirjam ’ s thoughts, I claim that the term ‘ positionality ’ is misleading simply by its very associations and thus requires revision. While Haraway has conceptually shaped the notion of situatedness, the practice of positioning - semantically conveying fixation - that has, among other things, been derived from it, appears to already narrow her understanding. In academic contexts, this often remains limited to a one-time declaration - frequently placed in the introduction - consisting of various forms of self-description. Haraway herself, however, emphasizes that the aim of situated knowledge is never a purely solipsistic introspection, but rather the joining of partial views and halting voices into a collective subject position that promises a vision of the means of ongoing finite embodiment, of living within limits and contradictions — of views from somewhere. 46 Positionality suggests the establishment and definition of a fixed position through which the researching subject uniquely locates themselves in their environment which is decisively shaped by fellow human beings. Furthermore, this concept reinforces the assumption of an unambiguous and stable reference to the self, thereby losing sight of the unsteady conditions of the environment. Accordingly, the term does not do justice to the conviction that identity is constructed and therefore changeable. My aim is to critically question the normativity of methods in line with a critical approach to dis: ability theory in general, and to encourage a rethinking of concepts such as positionality in ethnographic research. Three approaches are proposed that ethnographic research in the context of people with dis: abilities should consider: firstly, questioning normative methods and reviewing accessibility; secondly, transferring emic concepts into methodological reflections and adapting concrete research and interview situations; thirdly, challenging the concept of positionality and moving towards an understanding of relationality. Ethnographic methods such as participant observation and interview research are an essential part of data collection as the basis of my research which follows the “ nothing about us without us ” principle. 47 While in theatre studies a subjective orientation is at work in performance analysis and phenomenology sui generis, theatre studies-based ethnographic work requires a critical examination of one ’ s own relationality through the contact with the people to be researched. 48 Checking for Accessibility in Normative Approaches First, interview research on people with dis: abilities requires questioning common, normative, and ableist expectations of methods in general, because, as Margaret Price and Stephanie Kerschbaum state in their article “ Centering Disability in Qualitative Interviewing ” , centering disability is about much more than simply compensating for or including disabled researchers and participants. Rather, it means posing the question: If we assume that disability is part of the qualitative-interview situation, how does that unsettle commonplace assumptions about qualitative interviewing? 49 When “ [t]he task of critical disability theory is to analyse disability as a cultural, historical, relative, social, and political phenomenon ” 50 , it also needs to be understood as a 85 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality methodology, not a “ subject-oriented area of study ” , philosopher Melinda Hall writes, citing gender and disability theorist Sami Schalk. 51 In concrete terms, there is a need to interrogate the interview as a method itself. How should data be collected if people feel insecure when speaking, have difficulty understanding questions, and generally do not bow to normative temporalities, but instead live according to the understanding of crip time? 52 The methods used must avoid creating kairotic spaces for the interviewees, i. e., spaces and situations that demand physical presence, spontaneous communication, and high cognitive demands that require the right moment - kairos - to present themselves in the right way, 53 which could lead to inaccessibility for the interviewees. Emic Concepts in Methodological Reflections Having reviewed one ’ s methodological approaches prior to fieldwork, it seems essential to revisit them on the go. Listening to interviews and gathering knowledge from the field over time should not only reveal emic concepts as research findings and analytical categories for the writing process, but also identify them as tools for revising the first step. In short, emic concepts should be transferred into one ’ s own methodological reflection and change attitudes and settings when necessary. In my specific case, I identified trust as a central need of the interviewees in sport and in everyday life. So, it has become an analytical category for my methodological reflections, making it necessary to transfer the relevance of trust for people with visual impairments, which was conveyed in the interviews, as well as possible in the implementation of interview situations to come. How can we create a trusting relationship in a short amount of time? How can we adapt the interview situation to the access needs of the people we are interviewing? Do they want to talk to me alone or would they prefer to be accompanied by a trusted person? Does it make sense to allow for time for informal introductions and talks before the actual interview? Does it help people if I describe myself visually, reveal something about myself and make myself available to answer their questions before I start asking questions myself? While these questions only provide initial examples and can be extended, they all raise the issue of relationality within the interviews. Adaptation, the flexibility to change, which is realized in movement, as well as creating a framework that is accessible to the interviewee are crucial. These factors highlight the relevance of situational conditions compared to isolated identity categories, which only become significant in specific contexts and primarily refer to the individual as an ostensibly isolated entity. Challenging Positionality Towards an Understanding of Relationality Having said all this, theorizing the previous points in a final step, it seems effective to question the idea of self-positioning as a researcher in favour of an understanding of relationality. By immersing myself in the field and dealing with virulent questions of self-positioning, I have come across a contradiction to my understanding of dis: ability as a relational phenomenon, which I find confirmed in the field itself. 54 The theoretical concept of dis: ability as a relational phenomenon according to Jan Tøssebro states that dis: ability is socially created and significantly dependent on the environment. Positionality, however, is semantically ignorant of movement and of the reciprocal impact of people on one ’ s own constantly changing position. Positionality as a term solidifies “ an always present es- 86 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz sence of a person ” and disregards how the environment influences one ’ s positions in terms of un/ doing positionality. This semantically mediated rigidity contradicts the understanding of relationality that was and still is a guiding theoretical and practice-based concept, especially when moving in research contexts of and with people with dis: abilities according to the relational model of dis: ability. In this model, dis: ability is considered a relationship, and it is relative to the environment. It is also situational rather than an always present essence of the person: A blind person is not disabled when speaking on the telephone and is exceptionally able when the lights have gone out. 55 In her article “ Reflexivity Redux: A Pity Polemic on ‘ Positionality ’” , whose very title betrays the rejection of the concept of positionality, anthropologist Jennifer Robertson criticizes rigid positionalities that make selfreflexivity an end in itself and use categories as “ ready to wear products of identity politics. ” 56 Robertson ’ s criticism is primarily directed at the fact that the announcement of a positionality has increasingly degenerated into a symbol of mindfulness and reflexivity that names one ’ s own privileges, discriminations, socialization, and personal habits, but does not include them in a more far-reaching way. Thus, it even tends to stand in the way of real reflexivity that carries the potential for change. According to this apprehension of self-purpose, sociologist Nicole Brown recognizes positionality as a statement that “ is very much a public summary of who a researcher is and how their stance has shaped their work ” 57 and that is written primarily for outside perception in academia. Once again, the values of reflexivity and positionality seem to be closely interwoven here and yet pursue different intentions. Robertson states that “ reflexivity [. . .] is used as a corrective of ethnographic writing, with which the author makes visible his or her own presence and situatedness in the research process. ” 58 Her concern is with the fact that reflexivity is treated as a process that can be completed, which runs the risk of becoming an end in itself. In the words of sociologist Sa š a Bosan č ic´, self-positioning instead means the more or less stubborn and creative examination of subject positions and discursive offers of self-interpretation and interpretation of the world, which can take place reflexively or out of reflex. It is assumed that self-positioning is always accompanied by re-significations, i. e. changes and deviations. 59 Bosan č ic´ bases this idea on the theoretical foundations of Judith Butler ’ s concept of performativity and marks the positions of the subject as reflexive. The concept of performativity is best described by Butler ’ s argument that it “ must be understood not as a singular or deliberate ‘ act ’ , but rather, as the reiterative and citational practice by which discourse produces the effects that it names. ” 60 Although it possesses reiterative powers, the subject can bring about changes in the world within performativity through resignification, insofar as it understands itself as changeable despite the performative citational act of identity. Butler says that [n]orms are not simply imprinted on us [. . .]. Rather, they inform the lived modes of embodiment we acquire over time, and those very modes of embodiment can prove to be ways of contesting those norms, even breaking with them. 61 The potential for change contained in Butler ’ s theories must also be transferred to the understanding of field research. Mirroring the relational model of dis: ability and the idea of interdependencies, Kerschbaum and 87 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality Price have also taken up the motif of movement and summarize that [t]o center disability is thus to develop new ways of moving [. . .] in and around research methodologies. Here, we take up Dolmage ’ s (2014) discussion of rhetoric as ‘ a way to move ’ [. . .] to emphasize how centering disability, itself a locational and mobile language, offers an embodied, multimodal set of affordances for qualitative interviewing. 62 Metaphors of movement increasingly appear in various critical discussions of qualitative research. Robertson points out, e. g. that [i]f we assume that researchers and participants represent diverse ways of moving which do not necessarily remain stable across situations or in the midst of an emergent situation, then choosing that angle becomes one of a series of ‘ inventive moments and abductive moves ’ which contribute to the meaning of the data collected. 63 With this observation, Robertson indicates that the overemphasized fixation on positioning tends to distract from the fact that it is precisely the different perspectives that can significantly influence the data. This realization must lead to structurally mirroring the notion of relationalities and incorporating the idea of integrating other points of view into the concept of self-positioning, which, despite the well-intentioned term, already ignores the idea of the other. Consistently integrating relational thinking and practically applying the principles of the relational model of dis: ability within the research context led to an embodied process of learning during ethnographic fieldwork. Through sustained, direct interaction with athletes with visual impairments, I came to understand how I could contribute to the situational mitigation of dis: ability. Dis: ability, in several instances, could be relationally brought about by my own specific behaviours, which I was able to adapt and change over time. In this way, I experienced how the relational model materializes dis: ability in interpersonal encounters, becoming tangible even in seemingly minor moments of shared environmental and social co-creation. Samuel, a visually impaired skier whom I accompanied during a training camp for Paralympic alpine skiing athletes, confided to me — after a necessary period of trustbuilding — that he would rather I refrain from offering to help load his equipment into the car. Such gestures, he explained, increasingly made him feel defined by his impairment and reinforced a sense of dependence he did not otherwise experience. Moreover, unsolicited offers of assistance sometimes gave him the impression that others were impatient or unwilling to wait for him to independently identify where to place his skis in the car. By articulating his preferences directly, Samuel and I were able to co-construct a shared environment in which he experienced a reduced sense of dis: ability, facilitated by my adapted behaviour. At other times, I was asked to speak more loudly, to describe objects or events with greater precision, or to guide a visually impaired person during a walk by allowing them to place a hand on my shoulder. During a visit to a café, which offered three types of cake, the waitress initially indicated the visible display when asked about the available options. Upon being informed about the visual impairments of some guests, she instead offered the cakes for olfactory identification — a further example of how barriers could be situationally reduced through context-aware and adaptive behaviour. Another such moment of relational attunement within the same training camp occurred with Lars, another visually impaired skier, who requested that I approach him from the left and remain on his left side 88 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz during conversations. He explained that he was blind in his right eye and had hemianopia in the left, meaning he could only see on the far-left periphery of his visual field. Approaches from the right could startle him, and when addressed frontally, he often had to tilt his head, resulting in frequent neck pain. My literal and figurative re-orientation towards him thus became a concrete act of embodied relationality, as I deliberately repositioned myself to stand and speak on his left side. Drawing on Theodore Schatzki, I adopt the notion of relationality as an alternative to positionality, grounding it in the assumption of intersubjective meaning-making. This perspective holds that the “ organization of an integrative practice ” is located “ out there in the practices themselves, ” rather than “ in here ‘ in the minds of the actors. ’” 64 Understanding, therefore, is not a purely individual phenomenon; it emerges through participation in shared, socially and collectively enacted practices: A person acquires this understanding through the exposure to and participation in the practice whose actions express it. Once acquired, moreover, she perpetuates the practice by performing actions that signify the same understanding. The understanding, consequently, was and continues to be ‘ out there ’ in the expanding manifold of behaviors. It is also, of course, ‘ in her ’ in a way that the wider organization of an integrative practice cannot be. But it lodges there through her introduction into and exposure to past components of the continuing practice whose present constituent behaviors continue to express it. 65 Accordingly, the practice of the relational model — of relationality itself and of re-positioning — becomes embedded in concrete interactions with others: from whom I learn, to whom I attune, and through whom I internalize and subsequently enact this knowledge. I thus conceive of my research as an ongoing process of re-positioning — initiated at the ethnographic outset, sustained throughout the fieldwork, and carried forward to its conclusion, including in the reflexive act of writing. In the above, I have reflected theoretically on normative assumptions in methods by challenging the concept of positionality. (Self-)positionality appears to be a restrictive term - associated with rigidity, immobility, immutability, and unambiguity, thus disregarding the central understanding of dis: ability as relational - and should be replaced by notions of movement, resignifications, and relationality. The idea of constant repositioning within relationships that influence each other through shared time and space should be taken seriously from a methodological perspective. Dis: ability as a construct dependent on the environment and the behaviour of others, embedded in a network of multiple actors creating un/ shared space and time, 66 requires a mobile researcher entering the field. Echoing Butler ’ s psychoanalytical considerations, one can say that identifications belong to the imaginary; they are phantasmatic efforts of alignment. [. . .] Identifications are never fully and finally made; they are incessantly reconstituted. Constantly marshalled, consolidated, retrenched, contested and, on occasion, forced to give way. 67 If I find myself in the same position at the end of my research as at the beginning - perhaps I am back at the same point despite moving - it means that I have neither made any progress nor recognized the needs of the people in my field or my own resignifications. 89 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality III Conclusion As we have written this article from three different perspectives in a publication on ‘ writing theatre ’ , we must acknowledge once again that writing itself is also linked to the aspects of situatedness, positionality, and relationality that we have focused on. It is still quite unusual, at least in the humanities, to write an article as a team, and it is even more unusual to write it in three distinct voices. By making our distinct voices transparent, we avoided generalizing our different viewpoints and positions regarding our research topic. It does, for example, make a difference how closely attached you are to a field of research, and this closeness or distance should not be ignored in writing about research. Self-positioning in the form of a situated identity claim can be a means to access your field, as is the case in Mirjam ’ s research. Yet, the researcher should be aware of the misconception of uniformity within identity and the sensitivity of cross-disability research. Appealing to intra-categorial differences as well as intersectional configurations in research figures into awareness of academia ’ s and theatre ’ s voyeuristic perspective on dis: ability and demands the transformation of academic work and qualitative research into a caring practice towards its subjects, researcher and researched, regardless of their dis: ability. We have tried to highlight these differences by making our own relationship to the field transparent, but we have also pointed out that the notion of positionality itself carries a number of misleading associations. Elena ’ s research emphasized the importance of relationality and flexibility, in which identity ascriptions can become situationally relevant or irrelevant through resignifications. Too often, to write about positionality ignores the temporality, processuality, and relationality of positioning and re-positioning oneself. Writing, itself a temporal practice, in this sense is no different than doing research in the first place. Our perspectives and positions may, at least to a certain degree, change during the writing process just as our positions depend on the circumstances and environments of conducting interviews in the field. On the one hand, the writing process captures a certain point of reflection, a certain position; on the other hand, writing should always reflect that the implicit positioning is only a snapshot and always remains in motion, in flux. Consequently, this article is also a situational inventory of three voices that will continue to develop, move forward and make no claim to timelessness. While developed through research in the context of dis: ability, this reorientation of methodology toward a relational understanding is relevant for all contexts in which individuals interact, assign names, produce categories, coin concepts, and construct truths. As we are constantly collaborating in our research project, our voices in research converse in dialogue and argument as well as in dissonance and harmony over the course of the research process. Notes 1 The colon in the spelling of the word “ dis: ability ” refers to the permeability of the two states and overrides a binary separation between ability and disability. The colon thus also marks dis: ability in the written language as a permeable, referential and relational construct. 2 Donna Haraway, “ Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective ” , in: Feminist Studies 14 (1988), pp. 575 - 599, here p. 576. 3 By critical studies, we mean all those theories and discourses that take a critical stance toward the norms, conventions, and traditions of a majority society, often explicitly with the word “ critical ” in their name: 90 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz Critical Disability Studies, Critical Whiteness Studies, Critical Race Theory, Critical Gender and Queer Studies, Critical Heritage Studies, Critical Media Studies, among others. 4 David Simpson, Situatedness, or Why We Keep Saying Where We ’ re Coming From, Durham; London 2002, p. 41. 5 Simpson, Situatedness, p. 204. 6 Margaret Price, Crip Spacetime. Access, Failure, and Accountability in Academic Life, Durham; London 2024, p. 6. 7 This understanding of “ fixed ” actually refers to Price, Crip Spacetime, p. 6. 8 Mai-Anh Boger, “ Mad Studies und/ in/ als Disability Studies. Eine Verhaltensbestimmung “ , in: David Brehme, Petra Fuchs, Swantje Köbsell and Carla Wesselmann (eds.), Disability Studies im deutschsprachigen Raum. Zwischen Emanzipation und Vereinnahmung, Weinheim 2020, pp. 41 - 55, here p. 42. Original quotation: “ Die Kunst besteht (. . .) darin, diese dissonanten Stimmen auf sich wirken zu lassen und auch sich selbst zu verorten. So gibt es für jede*n von uns widerständige Formen, mit denen man sich leicht identifizieren kann, aber eben auch solche, die einem regelrecht aufstoßen. Es ist daher Teil der wissenschaftlichen Methode der Kartographierung zu dieser Affektarbeit einzuladen, insofern diese Affekte einem auf leichtfüßigste Weise signalisieren, wo man selbst in diesem Widerstreit positioniert ist. ” 9 See Martin Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Tübingen 1967, p. 135, 175; and Jean-Paul Sartre, Das Sein und das Nichts, Berlin 2003, pp. 211 - 213. 10 Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon, “ Introduction: Transformative Descriptions ” , in: Gail Weiss, Ann V. Murphy and Gayle Salamon (eds.), 50 concepts for a Critical Phenomenology, Evanston 2020, pp. xiii - xiv, here xiv. 11 For the anthropological stance on “ going native ” , see Clifford Geertz, “‘ From the Native ’ s Point of View ’ : On the Nature of Anthropological Understanding ” , in: Bulletin of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 28 (1974), pp. 26 - 45; see also John Tresh, “ On Going Native. Thomas Kuhn and the Anthropological Method ” , in: Philosophy of the Social Science 31 (2001), pp. 302 - 322. 12 Nancy Chen, “‘ Speaking Nearby ’ : A Conversation with Trinh T. Minh-ha ” , in: Visual Anthropology Review 8 (1992), pp. 82 - 91. 13 Simpson, Situatedness, p. 24. 14 Nev Jones, Robyn Lewis Brown, “ The Absence of Psychiatric C/ S/ X Perspectives in Academic Discourse: Consequences and Implications ” , in: Disability Studies Quarterly, Vol. 33, No.1 (2013). 15 Mia Mingus, “ Access Intimacy. The Missing Link ” , https: / / leavingevidence.wordpress.co m/ 2011/ 05/ 05/ access-intimacy-the-missinglink/ [Accessed on 17.06.2024] 16 Leah Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work. Dreaming Disability Justice, Vancouver 2018, p. 57. 17 Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work, pp. 33, 58 f., 143. 18 Tobin Siebers, “ Un/ sichtbar. Observationen über Behinderung auf der Bühne ” , in: Immanuel Schipper (ed.), Ästhetik versus Authentizität? Reflexionen über die Darstellung von und mit Behinderung, Berlin 2012, pp. 16 - 32, here p. 19. 19 Carrie Sandahl, “ The Tyranny of Neutral. Disability and Actor Training ” , in: Philip Auslander and Carrie Sandahl (eds.), Bodies in Commotion. Disability and Performance., Ann Arbor 2005, pp. 255 - 267, here p. 255. 20 Carrie Sandahl, “ Queering the Crip or Cripping the Queer? : Intersections of Queer and Crip Identities in Solo Autobiographical Performance ” , in: GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 9 (2003), pp. 25 - 56, here p. 51. 21 The most prevalent example of this intertwining of artistic production, normativity, and access are the so-called aesthetics of access, first introduced by the British Graeae Theatre Company, merging accessibility tools into their creative process and recognizing them as aesthetic components to provide an artwork accessible to different modes of dis: abled perception. See Rafael Ugarte Chacón, Theater und Taubheit. Ästhetiken des Zugangs in der Inszenierungskunst, Bielefeld 2015; see Benjamin Wih- 91 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality stutz, “ The Future is Accessible ” , in: Friedemann Kreuder and Matthias Warstat (eds.), Die Zukunft der Aufführung. Festschrift für Erika Fischer-Lichte, Tübingen 2023, pp. 147 - 164. 22 Jay Dolmage, Academic Ableism. Disability and Higher Education, Ann Arbor 2017, p. 4. 23 Yvonne Schmidt, “ Perform to be a Freak. Ein Ausflug in heutige Freakshows ” , in: Schipper (ed.), Ästhetik versus Authentizität? , pp. 118 - 129, here p. 119. 24 John Venn, Madness in Contemporary British Theatre. Resistances and Representations, London 2021, p. 19. 25 Sarah Nimführ, “ Politiken und Ethiken der Namensgebung in kollaborativen Schreibprojekten. Anonymisierungs- und Pseudonymisierungsverfahren zwischen Schutz und Bevormundung ” , in: Martina Blank and Sarah Nimführ (eds.), Writing Together. Kollaboratives Schreiben mit Personen aus dem Feld, Bielefeld 2023. pp. 191 - 214, here p. 198. 26 Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work, p. 57. 27 Francis Seeck, Care trans_formieren. Eine ethnographische Studie zu trans und nichtbinärer Sorgearbeit, Bielefeld 2021, pp. 38 ff. 28 Seeck, Care trans_formieren, p. 69.[ion the] Original quotation: “ Eine Sorgende Ethnographie lenkt den Blick auf Sorgearbeit und Sorgebeziehungen, beides oft unsichtbare Bestandteile ethnographischer Praxis; gemeint sind Sorgebeziehungen im Feld und die Selbstsorge und Für_Sorge, die die forschende Tätigkeit überhaupt ermöglichen. Eine Sorgende Ethnographie nimmt Machtdynamiken und Machtungleichgewichte im Forschungsprozess kritisch in den Blick, auch in Bezug auf die Frage, wer von der Forschung profitiert und für wen sie zugänglich ist “ 29 Piepzna-Samarasinha, Care Work, p. 33. 30 Johanna Hevda, “ Hedva ’ s Disability Access Rider ” , https: / / sickwomantheory.tumblr.co m/ post/ 187188672521/ hedvas-disability-ac cess-rider [Accessed on 11.08.2025] 31 Ben Fletcher-Watson, “ Relaxed performance: audiences with autism in mainstream theatre ” , in: Scottish Journal of Performance 2 (2015), pp. 61 - 89, here p. 65 f. 32 Ellen Jean Samuels, “ My body, my closet. Invisible Disability and the Limits of Coming-Out Discourse ” , in: GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 9 (2003), p. 233 - 255, here pp. 235 ff. 33 Dolmage, Academic Ableism, p. 7. 34 Nimführ, Politiken und Ethiken der Namensgebung, p. 197. 35 Simpson, Situatedness, p. 28. 36 Ibid., p. 31. 37 Ibid., p. 45. 38 See Jack Halberstam, The Queer Art of Failure, Durham 2011; Mirjam Kreuser, Cripqueere Körper. Eine kritische Phänomenologie des Theaters, Bielefeld 2023. 39 Boger, “ Mad Studies und/ in/ als Disability Studies ” , pp. 41 - 43. 40 Margaret Price, “ Un/ shared space. The Dilemma of Inclusive Architecture ” , in: Jos Boys (ed.), Disability. Space. Architecture: A Reader. London, New York 2016. pp. 155 - 172, here pp. 161 ff. 41 In Paralympic sport, a guide is a sighted person who supports or accompanies an athlete with a visual impairment in carrying out the sport, in a variety of ways depending on the discipline. 42 Sociologist and director of Social Research and Practice Nicole Brown marks the differences between reflexivity and positionality and concludes that “ it is important to recognise that the two concepts are interdependent and flexible ” . Nevertheless, Brown is sceptical about the concept of positionality and recognizes the pressure that young scientists in particular face when writing research papers: “ They want to do their research and their participants justice, they want to ensure robustness and validity of their work, and they therefore struggle with balancing what should be shared publicly with what should be kept private. ” https: / / the-sra.org.uk/ SRA/ SRA/ Blog/ Reflexivi tyandPositionalityinSocial SciencesResearch. aspx [Accessed on 01.06.2024]. 43 Kirsti Malterud, “ Qualitative Research: Standards, Challenges, and Guidelines. ” , in: The Lancet 358 (2001), pp. 482 - 488, here p. 484. 92 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz 44 See Heidegger, Sein und Zeit. 45 Brown also sums up that “ [i]dentity theor ists tell us very clearly that identities are not fixed, not singular and not permanent. ” htt ps: / / the-sra.org.uk/ SRA/ SRA/ Blog/ Reflexivi tyandPositionalityinSocial SciencesResearch. aspx [Accessed on 01.06.2024]. 46 Haraway, “ Situated Knowledges ” , p. 590. 47 The “ Nothing About Us Without Us ” principle “ resonates with the philosophy and history of the disability rights movement (DRM), a movement that has embarked on a belated mission parallel to other liberation movements ” says James Charlton in his work Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment. He continues with the words of Ed Roberts, one of the leading figures of the international DRM, that “ [i]f we have learned one thing from the civil rights movement in the U. S., it ’ s that when others speak for you, you lose ” . James I. Charlton, Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London 1998, p. 3. 48 The expansion of methods in theatre studies and the associated pluralism of methods, as widely discussed in two anthologies in 2020 (Benjamin Hoesch and Benjamin Wihstutz (eds.), Neue Methoden der Theaterwissenschaft. Bielefeld 2020; and Christopher Balme and Berenika Szymanski-Düll, Methoden der Theaterwissenschaft, Tübingen 2020.) increasingly imply ethnographic approaches in theatre studies and the need for a general examination of the normative assumptions of methods. With her book Cripqueere Körper: Eine kritische Phänomenologie des Theaters Mirjam Kreuser has, e. g., countered the established normative orientations that are at home in traditional and phenomenological theories and obstruct the view of crip and queer bodies. See Kreuser, Crip-queere Körper. 49 Stephanie L. Kerschbaum and Margaret Price, “ Centering Disability in Qualitative Interviewing ” , in: Research in the Teaching of English; Urbana (52), pp. 98 - 107, here p. 98. 50 Melinda C. Hall, “ Critical Disability Theory ” , in: The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy 2019, https: / / plato.stanford.edu/ entries/ disability-critical/ . [Accessed on 01.06. 2024]. 51 Sami Schalk, “ Critical Disability Studies as Methodology ” , in: Lateral, Forum Critical Disability Studies, Emergent Critical Analytics for Alternative Humanities 6 (2017), p. 1. 52 For further details on both the theoretical concept and the practice-based phenomenon of crip time in dis: ability performance, see the international anthology: Elena Backhausen, Benjamin Wihstutz and Noa Winter, Out of Time? Temporalities in Disability Performance, London 2023. 53 Benjamin Wihstutz provides more detailed information on this phenomenon in his article “ Un/ geteilte Räume. Dramaturgies of Access im Theater und an der Universität ” that is published within the anthology: Friedemann Kreuder and Benjamin Wihstutz, Staging Differences. Orientierungen, Kategorisierungen und Identitätspolitiken in Theater und Performance, Tübingen 2024. Here, Wihstutz refers mainly to Margaret Price and her ideas of crip spacetime and un/ shared spaces. 54 Dis: ability is constructed by the environment. When visually impaired athletes are with a guide, they can realize their full potential. 55 Jan Tøssebro, “ Introduction to the Special Issue: Understanding Disability ” , in: Scandinavian Journal of Disability Research 6 (2004), pp. 3 - 7, here p. 4. 56 Jennifer Robertson, “ Reflexivity Redux: A Pithy Polemic on ‘ Positionality ’” , in: Anthropological Quarterly 75 (2002), pp. 785 - 792, here p. 788. 57 Brown, https: / / the-sra.org.uk/ SRA/ SRA/ Blo g/ ReflexivityandPositionalityinSocialScien cesResearch. aspx [Accessed on 01.06.2024] 58 Robertson, “ Reflexivity Redux ” , p. 788. 59 Sasa Bosan č ic´, “ Selbst-Positionierung zwischen Reflexivität, Eigen-Sinn und Transformation. Die Forschungsperspektive der Interpretativen Subjektivierungsanalyse ” , in: Stephan Lessenich (ed.), Geschlossene Gesellschaften. Verhandlungen des 38. Kon- 93 Situatedness, Positioning, and Relationality gresses der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie in Bamberg 2016. N/ a 2017, p. 5. Own tranlsation [original quotation: “ die mehr oder weniger eigensinnige und kreative Auseinandersetzung mit Subjektpositionen und diskursiven Selbst- und Weltdeutungsangeboten, die reflexiv oder reflexhaft erfolgen kann. Dabei wird davon ausgegangen, dass Selbst-Positionierungen stets mit Re-Signifikationen, das heißt mit Veränderungen und Abweichungen einhergehen. ” ] 60 Judith Butler, Bodies that matter. London 1993, p. 2. 61 Judith Butler, Notes toward a performative theory of assembly, Cambridge; London 2015, p. 63. 62 Kerschbaum and Price, “ Centering Disability ” , p. 100. 63 Ibid., p. 101. 64 Theodore Schatzki, Social practices. A Wittgensteinian approach to human activity and the social, Cambridge 1996, p. 105. 65 Ibid, p. 106. 66 cf. Price, “ Un/ shared space ” , p. 161 f. 67 Butler, Bodies that matter, p. 105. 94 Elena Backhausen / Mirjam Kreuser / Benjamin Wihstutz