ABSTRACT
My sociological perspective is very much informed by my personal biography, as a stranger within the broader social context. This problematic weaving of the personal and the social is very much due to ethnic, class, and cultural contradictions that have crossed my family history for generations, because of my father’s European ancestry. However, as a family in the Mexican context, we have been unable to name, or explain, how these issues have contributed to or hindered our understanding of who we are. This has not only allowed me to navigate within and across sociocultural settings, but it has given me an unnamed strangeness that has shaped my sociological perspective. The purpose of this chapter is to elaborate on this relationship between biography and profession. This will be done by narrating key ‘small epiphanies’ that, through introspection, will show how my invisibleness has shaped my inquiry.
One day I learnt A secret art, Invisible-Ness, it was called. I think it worked As even now, you look But never see meThis invisibleness, as Meiling Jin so beautifully puts it, has allowed me to navigate within and across sociocultural settings, but has also shaped my sociological perspective (Jin, n.d. cited by DeCaires Narain, 2003, p. 224). The purpose of this chapter is to elaborate on this idea.
