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Innovative Qualitative Methodologies in Multilingual Literacy Development Research: Amplifying voices from immigrant, transnational, and refugee communities
Edited by Amanda K. Kibler and Fares J. Karam
[Research Methods in Applied Linguistics 11] 2025
► pp. 184–205

Chapter 10
Embodied reflexivity and researching the literacy practices of an adolescent multilingual refugee who is d/Deaf/Hard-of-Hearing

 | University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
In this chapter I extend recent scholarship on researcher subjectivities in Applied Linguistics by considering affective, spatial, and corporeal dimensions of reflexivity and positionality. I draw from ethnographic research on the multisemiotic language and literacy practices of Madou (a pseudonym), an adolescent refugee student from the eastern region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) who was diagnosed as having a severe hearing impairment upon his arrival to the United States as a middle schooler. I conclude by presenting implications for how considering positionality as embodied can yield novel analyses and foster relational ethics in research on the literacy development of multilingual learners from immigrant, transnational, and refugee backgrounds, including those who are d/Deaf and hard of hearing (DML).
Keywords: embodied reflexivity, positionality, multilingual, d/Deaf and hard of hearing
Article outline
  • Introduction
  • Overview of the study and its findings
    • Background and theoretical framings
    • Research context and participants
    • Research design
    • Classroom observations
    • Mediated and unmediated interviews
    • Analysis of writing
    • Example of findings: Madou the scribe
  • Methodological discussion: Rethinking positionality for more equitable research
    • Embodied reflexivity
    • Positioning in the field: What is seen and not seen
    • Writing as witnessing
    • The research design and the role of intermediaries
  • Implications for qualitative research on multilingual literacy development
    • Considerations for incorporating embodied reflexivity in research on multilingual literacy
  • Notes
  • References
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
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