African doctoral students studying abroad and returning to their home countries for fieldwork face multiple and complex challenges. This paper reflexively addresses the question of positionality from the experiences of conducting research on urban governance and the spatial politics of street traders in Harare, Zimbabwe. The paper discusses dilemmas associated with navigating insider and outsider identities, showcasing how these categories continually shift while conducting research on street traders within a distinct socio‐cultural and political context. Moreover, the author's background as a former street trader, now pursuing a PhD at the University of Western Ontario in Canada, adds a layer of complexity to the situation, offering valuable insights into how these ‘multiple’ positionalities can either facilitate or hinder data collection. The paper underscores the nuanced experiences of the researcher in the field, shedding light on the potential challenges, pitfalls and opportunities inherent in grappling with one's positionality. By foregrounding these complexities, the paper contributes to our understanding of the positionalities of researchers in the social sciences and adds to the growing body of literature on methodologies for conducting urban studies, particularly with vulnerable populations.

中文翻译：

---

解决城市研究中的内部与外部困境：一名研究生回国实地考察的经历

非洲博士生出国留学和回国实地考察面临着多重复杂的挑战。本文根据对津巴布韦哈拉雷的城市治理和街头商贩的空间政治进行研究的经验，反思性地解决了位置性问题。本文讨论了与内部人员和外部人员身份相关的困境，展示了在不同的社会文化和政治背景下对街头商贩进行研究时这些类别如何不断变化。此外，作者的背景是前街头商人，现在在加拿大西安大略大学攻读博士学位，这使情况变得更加复杂，为了解这些“多重”立场如何促进或阻碍数据收集提供了宝贵的见解。该论文强调了研究人员在该领域的细致入微的经验，揭示了与个人立场作斗争所固有的潜在挑战、陷阱和机遇。通过强调这些复杂性，本文有助于我们理解社会科学研究人员的立场，并丰富了越来越多的关于城市研究方法的文献，特别是针对弱势群体的城市研究。