AO: The paper is co-authored and authors note the first author’s “insider” status and second and third authors’ “outsider” status (although they all reside in Switzerland?). Here, there appears to be an unarticulated assumption that the collaborative writing with members of “insider” and “outsider” status is beneficial (in order to get both insider and outsider insights). They do not discuss in detail the subject positions or epistemic cultures of the interlocutors.
“The first author, Halabi, is a PhD student who grew up in Syria and is currently in his late twenties. He has a profile similar to CTVC members, and benefits from this situation by being able to understand the community activities in detail. Most of the data presented in this paper was collected by him. At the beginning of the research project, he was also able to travel to Syria to meet with some CTVC members. The second and third authors, Courant and Zimmermann, are more experienced researchers who have Swiss backgrounds and did not travel to Syria recently. In a traditional social sciences perspective, they benefit from their cultural distance with the data to raise questions about aspects which may appear normal to community members.”
