Tey Meadow. 2013. “Studying Each Other: On Agency, Constraint and Positionality in the Field.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 42(4): 466-481.
In this article, I use examples from my ethnographic study of families with transgender and significantly gender nonconforming children to elaborate two features of the fieldwork dynamics endemic to most complex analyses of human life: the constant tension between agency and constraint, and how an individual’s identity and appearance structure every significant interpersonal relationship, including those in the field.