An insider's perspective

I've read, among others, four books about participant observation (just for fun, nothing to do with the 5500-word research proposal that's due in three days). One essay in Anthropologists in the Field, titled "Doing Ethnography in one's own Ethnic Community: The Experience of an Awkward Insider," by Val Colic-Peisker, was very interesting to me personally. It is noteworthy the researcher, who is of Croatian origin, was not simply studying other Croatians, but Croatian immigrants in Australia, where she had immigrated to escape political persecution in her own country.
A truly touching section of her essay detailed her shock upon viewing a map from 1993 in a university library, and finding "a blank dark blue area" where her home country should have been. For the first time, she felt like a second-class citizen.
I identified very closely with her experiences as she described straddling two worlds, her simultaneous role as an outsider and insider, the tension between her role as an active participant and detached observer. It is an excellent case study of "auto-ethnography," defined as the moment the writer analyzes his or her personal experiences to be directly involved in “larger social formations and historical processes” (Stockl 2006, p.1). Once the object of research is or becomes an intrinsic component of the researcher's identity, it becomes difficult to differentiate the subjective and the objective. I have long rejected the stereotype of the scientist or researcher as some sort of observing robot, and as I will attempt to argue in my research proposal, what may be mistakenly perceived as hurdles to overcome when performing ethnographic research are actually assets. Yes, granted an outsider studying a foreign community can assume a detached role more easily than a member. Yet I would argue an insider/outsider like Colic-Peisker offers a balance of detachment and empathy necessary for a successful ethnographic study.