In doing ethnographic research in primary schools in Austria, South Tyrol and England since 2004 different ways of ‘being out there’ were possible and were a chance of experimenting with the own role as an ethnographer. It clearly showed that my being in the different fields related very much to my understanding as an ethnographer. Acting more like a teaching assistant in my first research project showed for example that the former primary teacher was searching for a proper role (Raggl, 2015). But also the field always shaped my ‘being out there’. Being positioned as assisting the fight for securing the existence of small rural schools for example. The paper will discuss different ways of positioning oneself and being positioned and how the ethnographers’ self can be seen as an ongoing process of re-inventing oneself in the field (Raggl, 2018).

Raggl, A. (2018). Fieldnote issues, collegial support and collaborative analysis. In B. Jeffrey & L. Russell (Eds.). Ethnographic Writing (p. 191-199) Essex: E&E. Raggl, A. (2015). The international researcher has to ‘Make the familiar strange and the strange familiar’. In B. Fritzsche & C. Huf (Eds.). The Benefits, Problems and Issues of Comparative and Cross-Cultural research: Ethnographic Perspectives. Comparative Perspectives in Educational Ethnography. (pp. 53-67). Stroud: E&E.