Border crossing subjectivities and research: through the prism of feminists of color

Abstract

Drawing on my research experiences as a Filipino American historian, this article explores what Michel Foucault calls ‘subjectification’, the dialectial process of self‐making and being‐made, within the context of ethnic identities and transnational projects. Engaging the work of feminists of color in particular, it outlines three types of subject formations – compartmental, intersectional and constitutive – that foreground the tensions between how I identified myself and how others perceived me. It also explores the dilemma of belonging as an insider/outsider researcher in communities that one affiliates with as well as my emerging recognition of homelessness as a liminal and productive space for self‐construction. Ultimately it links and gives voice to three issues that are often treated separately: first, the ways in which subjectivities are shaped by self and others; second, the ways in which race and ethnicity are linked to other axes of difference; and, third, the analytical and methodological insights of undertaking research in communities that one calls home.