The aim of this paper is to discuss some methodological complexities involved when we, as two rather differently positioned researchers, are entering the same local community to do a collaborative research project on everyday practices of migrant integration.
The idea of border-crossing is an inherent part of the research project. Firstly, some of our research subjects have crossed geographical borders to get to Norway. Others are crossing societal and personal borders when they interact with the newcomers. Also, as it is commonly described in migration and diaspora studies, migrants challenge borders between social groups, between “we” and “you” (Eriksen 1995, Stolcke 1995). Secondly, as researchers we were also crossing borders when we were in field. Whereas one of us, a German migrant herself, was entering a new territory and hence being positioned as a newcomer and a stranger, the other was already familiar with the place, but still new to it as a researcher. And for both of us, complex power dynamics, privileges and ambiguities made us outsiders in some contexts and insiders in others.
Looking at the notion of the insider-researcher and taking Sandra Harding’s standpoint epistemology as a vantage point, we use these experiences to reflect critically on our own positionalities and methodological choices during data collection and analysis and the ways in which they are privileging certain kinds of knowledges and findings over others.
Altogether this raises attention to more general questions concerning the potentials and limits of feminist epistemologies and methodologies, including the question whether everyday practices of migrant integration can be a “proper object” (Butler 1994) for feminist studies.

Angelina is a PhD candidate at the Department for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at NTNU, Trondheim (Norway). She studied social anthropology and sociology at Heidelberg University, Germany (B.A.) and Anthropology of Development at the University in Bergen, Norway (M.Phil.). Her research interests include gender studies, discourse analysis, critical studies and Pacific studies.
Her PhD Project “Becoming Part of Society: Migrant Integration through Everyday Practices in Rural Norway” is a qualitative, anthropological study about the practices and biographical narratives of everyday integration in rural communities in Norway. It is part of the project called “Living Integration” (short title), financed by the Research Council of Norway.
Guro Korsnes Kristensen is a professor at the Department for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture at NTNU. She holds an MA in social anthropology and a PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, with a specific focus on gender. The project
„Living Integration. At the crossroads between official policies, public discourses and everyday practices“ is only one of three projects she is currently working on.

Guro Korsnes Kristensen , Professor
Department for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, NTNU
Trondheim, Norway
guro.kristensen@ntnu.no