De-linking text from fieldwork: Exploring power imbalances in the narrative

In the construction of an academic thesis, the lived and multi-voiced experiences of fieldwork have to be condensed and distilled into a single, coherent narrative thread. This article discusses the problematic and delicate situation of attempting to select (and thereby exclude) materials and stories, and of representing faithfully but through analytical lenses, while juggling the intricacies of the author’s own positionalities and multiple levels of interpretation. In its discussion, this article makes explicit the complications of translating and transposing lived encounters and experiences into text and the written word, and unpacks the inexorable exercise of power involved in this process.