Feminist Reflexivity in Practice: Addressing Positionality and Building Sisterhood through Fieldwork with Black Migrant Sex Workers in Istanbul

This article addresses feminist reflexivity and researcher positionality in ethnographic fieldwork with undocumented Ugandan women sex workers in Istanbul’s Tarlabaşı and Aksaray neighborhoods. Drawing on fourteen months of immersive research, including participant observation, semi-structured interviews, and reflexive journaling, the study examines how both the researcher and participants engaged in strategic forms of resistance within racialized and gendered urban spaces. The analysis is grounded in a feminist epistemological framework that draws on Kandiyoti’s notion of patriarchal bargaining and Scott’s theory of hidden transcripts. Findings reveal how participants and the researcher used subtle forms of resistance, such as strategic silence or performative deference, to evade surveillance, navigate cultural norms, and negotiate patriarchal and state exclusion of marginalized migrant women. The article contributes to feminist ethnography by proposing a context-sensitive methodology grounded in ethical reflexivity and transnational feminist solidarity. It argues that feminist research in diasporic contexts must embrace epistemic humility, relational ethics, and the productive tensions created by partial perspective.