Participant observer roles. When I set out the fieldwork, I explicitly explained to everyone in the school (and in fact, thought) that I was just a researcher focussing on a group of young people of Turkish/Kurdish descent. However, I soon realised that ethnographic participant observation brings a variety of unexpected roles along with the process. Besides my main role as a researcher, I adopted, as well as was ascribed, several other roles at the fieldsite. The ethnographer takes the participant observer role as either an in-group or out- group member during an ethnographic inquiry. In the former scenario, there is a potential danger of neglecting ‘what is strange about the familiar’ (Xxxxxx, 2006:15), 38As the headscarf has become a symbolic representation of the Sunni sect of Islam in recent years, a strong link between the AKP (Justice and Development Party) and this symbol of Sunni Islam has been constructed. In the first few months in particular, the youngsters’ assumptions about my political affiliations seemed to have emanated from this in fact religious, but recently politicised, emblem. however in the latter, the researcher might be subjected to accusations of ‘inauthenticity and of fundamentally misunderstanding, patronising, or misrepresenting the group under study’ (ibid.). In the research field, I had no particular pre-determined position apart from being a researcher, which placed me as an out-group member. At the same time, my background as a Turkish speaker from Turkey made me an in-group member. However, Xxxxxxx (2012) points out that an ethnographer’s position as a participant observer is beyond the in- and out-group boundaries and might mean s/he needs to take several simultaneous roles in the field. In her research process, although she initially identified her role as an ethnographer unattached to teaching or counselling duties in the school setting where she was researching, some students perceived her as a representative of the school working for the school board, and thus were concerned that she might report their unacceptable behaviour to the head. In addition, some students were also treating her as a teacher, which she deduced from the linguistic code they chose to speak to her. During my ethnographic inquiry, I also experienced that there were multiple layers to my role as an ethnographer, ranging from being regarded as an unwanted adult, a young female researcher, a stranger in the classroom to a teaching assistant. Particularly during the first few w...
