Researcher as Insider: Bringing together Narrative Therapy Practices and Feminist Lived Experience Methodologies in the Context of Suicide Research

This paper contains a demonstration of the value of feminist insider research. Through bringing together principles of feminist insider research, narrative therapy theory and practice, and my positionality as a researcher, a narrative therapist, and a woman who lost her husband to suicide, I developed a research methodology that was sensitive and effective in exploring the lived experiences and insider knowledge of women who have lost a male partner to suicide. Careful utilisation of my insider positionality benefited the research in multiple ways, from recruitment and care of participants to data analysis and knowledge production, to the generation of research outcomes that were meaningful to participants and practitioners as well as academics. In this paper, I reflect critically on my positionality and how it was brought to bear on this research, noting the power relations involved as well as the access that my status granted me, and the (tacit) knowledges that I could draw from during the research process. This paper is filled with the benefits to research conducted from an insider position, particularly for topics associated with shame and stigma, as well as offers of possible responses to the complexities involved.