A porous, morphing, and circulatory mode of self-other: decolonizing identity politics by engaging transnational reflexivity

As im/migrant researchers of color working and living in the USA, we begin this article by discussing how our own transnational selves and research have created tensions with the normalized use of socially constructed and theorized categories and differences in US qualitative research practices. We theorize an alternative reflexive mode of conceptualizing a researcher self that can illuminate more contextually engaging understanding and relationships between researcher and researched within our transnational research contexts. We argue that our reflexive approach to researcher self as non-unitary I, circulatory mode of porous and shifting entities simultaneously fracturing and morphing into each other in relation to its changing webs of relationships and history, can bring different ways of understanding and working with the ever changing and interconnected globallocal cultural, social, and political conditions and contexts of education and research.