When I decided to embark on this PhD journey, like all my PARTICIPATE PhD colleagues, I had to leave my homeland, Sicily, and move to another country—Denmark, in my case. While designing my research project titled “Young People and Parents Negotiating and Policing Gender Through Online Bullying,” I planned to engage not only Danish school communities but also Sicilian ones in my empirical data collection. But going back home as a researcher was not easy; rather, it brought up several dilemmas.

The aim of this article is to share the reflections I made before and during my fieldwork, hoping it could offer insights to other researchers who want to conduct research in their home countries.

Navigating Research in My Homeland

Before my PhD, I was working with several schools in Palermo within European social projects. This allowed me to gain a deep understanding of the local educational system and school communities, as well as their challenges and needs. I had the chance to meet young people, learn about their lives at school, and understand how living in Sicily, in Palermo—in a specific neighborhood, in a specific school—affects their growth. Sicily is a place where people often find pride and a strong sense of belonging in their traditions, spiritual beliefs, and cultural practices.

The Sicilian author G. Bufalino (1993) expressed the unique sense of belonging that brings Sicilian people together. Understanding Sicily for a Sicilian means understanding oneself—absolving oneself, or perhaps condemning oneself.

Embracing Situated Knowledge in My Research Experience

I thought it would be fascinating to conduct research in this unique environment, where cultural forces are deeply woven into the social fabric. Specifically, I wanted to investigate how gender norms are negotiated and policed online in a land with a long history of patriarchal society coexisting with a matriarchal family system. My PhD took on an additional layer of depth as I realized that my cultural background was part of my personal baggage that would inevitably influence my research experience.

Initially, I tried to detach myself from these contexts and the critical ideas I had developed over the years. I began questioning whether I could really detach myself from environments I am so entangled with. Could I remain emotionally unaffected by my encounters? Could I clear my biases and be as objective as possible?

Cultural Baggage and Personal Biases in Fieldwork

These questions turned into real challenges during my research experience, forcing me to constantly reflect on my positionality and biases. I came to understand that pursuing a PhD is a learning process, where you not only gain knowledge but also unlearn and reconfigure your perceptions. This was especially true for me, researching in a familiar context.

During my fieldwork in Sicily, Donna Haraway’s concept of “situated knowledge” became a guiding principle. Haraway (1988, 1990) argues that researchers and their work are deeply embedded in social, cultural, and historical contexts, which inevitably shape their understanding and interpretations. Growing up in Sicily resonated in everything I did as a researcher, influencing how I conducted my fieldwork and how I was perceived by others.

 

Research Experience in my homeland as a Journey of Self-Discovery

Everything that was part of my personal baggage—my accent, dialect, age, race, clothes, family history, and even the neighborhood I lived in—played a role in this process. When I gained access to the middle school I attended nearly 20 years ago, I realized that this fieldwork was more than just an academic commitment; it was a profound journey of self-discovery.

Karen Barad’s idea that “the researcher is an iteratively becoming and entangled part of the world being explored” (2007) deeply resonated with my experience. My emotions and personal history became inseparable from the research process. I left Sicily filled with emotions and new knowledge, fully aware that I could not detach myself from my personal baggage.

Reflecting on My Research Experience in Sicily, my homeland

Engaging with the dilemmas of being an “insider” researcher opened me up to a more transparent and layered approach. I recognized that both my personal baggage and the research context impacted my fieldwork. Simultaneously, I realized how much the fieldwork impacted me, both personally and professionally.

I felt privileged to have this transformative research experience in a familiar context. Sicily, a land often underrepresented in social research, became a space where I could amplify the voices of those who chose to participate in my study. I hope that my thoughtful and conscious perspective can contribute meaningfully to the field, benefiting school communities across Europe as part of the PARTICIPATE project.