When Genevieve Wojcik’s co-authors suggested she include details about her race and family background in a May Nature Genetics commentary, she was skeptical. As a genetic epidemiologist, she had always been taught “to take yourself out of the equation completely,” says Wojcik, who is at Johns Hopkins University. But Wojcik’s colleagues argued that their paper, about the need for multiracial participants in genetics studies, should include a “positionality statement” from each author describing how their identity might influence their work. The practice is becoming increasingly common in scientific papers, to applause from some researchers and chagrin from others.
The statements, which can encompass anything an author deems relevant—for example, race, ethnicity, geographic location, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability status, and career level—are already established practice in many social sciences, such as sociology and anthropology. Now, they are making inroads into other fields, such as biology, global health, and medicine, as well as STEM education, with more journals encouraging or even requiring them.
“It’s an invitation to think more broadly about what your role as a researcher is in the work that you’re trying to understand,” says Alejandra Núñez-de la Mora, a biological anthropologist at the University of Veracruz. She published a 2021 paper in the American Journal of Human Biology arguing that reflecting on one’s positionality can pay off in future work, helping researchers address inequities such as “parachute research,” unchecked power dynamics, and gaps in inclusivity. If you’re an astronomer, for example, think about where your telescope is, she says. “Are you part of that community? Is that telescope put there with knowledge of the people who call that place their land?”
But others question the statements’ value. “I find it amazing that [publishing positionality statements] is becoming so widespread without any evidence that it actually achieves what it sets out to achieve,” says Patricia Nayna Schwerdtle, who studies global public health at Heidelberg University and coauthored a February critique of the practice in Perspectives on Psychological Science.
These statements—which can take a variety of formats, depending on the journal’s guidelines and researchers’ preferences—allow researchers to describe their identity as they see it. For Wojcik, a biracial Asian American woman, this process still felt a bit uncomfortable, as she’d previously only considered how aspects of her identity could be used against her. But despite the risk, especially for people from marginalized communities, she felt the exercise helped put her work in context.
Positionality statements also benefit readers, supporters say, peeling back the curtain on researchers’ decisions that would otherwise remain invisible—from what questions they pursue to how they interpret their data. “It’s not just that we want to know about people’s socially constructed identities. That’s not the point,” says Julie Martin, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Women and Minorities in Science and Engineering, which has required positionality statements since July 2020. “The point is how do those and your worldview affect the decisions you make in the research?”
But some researchers think airing this information in the literature violates a central tenet of science: that a researcher’s work should be judged independently of who they are. Spotlighting a scientist’s identity represents a “bizarre turn back to [the] Dark Ages,” says Anna Krylov, a chemist at the University of Southern California who wrote an April critique alongside 28 co-authors in the Journal of Controversial Ideas. “It was not a good time when people were treated by their attributes and not by their achievements, not by their merit,” Krylov adds.
Another concern is that positionality statements serve only as virtue signaling and gloss over deeper issues, such as the reproducibility crisis in science. They seem like a “last ditch effort before you publish your paper,” Nayna Schwerdtle says. Instead, researchers should strengthen upstream solutions, such as open science and participatory research, she argues.
At least one team of researchers is studying whether these statements have their intended effect. Rose Oronje, a researcher at the African Institute for Development Policy, and her colleagues at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine are evaluating the results of publishing reflexivity statements—a similar practice that encourages researchers engaged in global collaborations to consider how their work acknowledges the communities involved.
The team is reviewing published statements in global health journals and interviewing authors and journal editors to gauge whether this measure at the time of publication has the power to shift researchers’ mindsets and lead to more equitable practices. Publication guidelines can provide powerful incentives for scientists to effect systemic change, Oronje says. “When you start there, it becomes very easy for us to want to do it, because we want to publish.”
For true cultural change, proponents emphasize, these statements have to stem from ongoing self-reflection rather than a rote checklist of attributes. “I would hate for it to become a formulaic part of the writing or research process,” says Núñez-de la Mora, who is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Biosocial Science. She and the journal’s other editors are considering inviting authors to take the lead in acknowledging their identities, but not requiring it or specifying the format. The practice is catching on in her field at large, she says, especially among younger scholars.
As for Wojcik, she says reflecting on her positionality has helped her realize her identity is inextricably linked with her work, enriching it and shaping the directions it takes—including, for example, her work to design genetics studies to be more inclusive of multiracial individuals. “I’ve sort of come into the notion that who I am can actually make my work better and lead me to question things that hadn’t been questioned before.”
