Positionality Statement

Michael Brandt, M.A., Coast Mountain College

Positionality refers to the belief our individual experiences in the world, our privileges and disadvantages, and our social locations (e.g., gender, social class, ethnicity) influence how we perceive, interpret, and understand the world. Making a “positionality statement” is an opportunity for me to introduce myself to you, the reader, and make visible factors that have influenced how I perceive, interpret and understand the world. This chapter challenges the dominant narrative that crime is predominantly a problem of young males from the lowest socioeconomic strata. My own personal “challenge” to a dominant narrative began quite young. I was born in Canada at a time (early 1960s) when heterosexism was the norm, engaging in same-sex behaviour was a criminal offence, and when members of the LGBTQ community were labelled deviants. This kept me “in the closet,” fearful that revealing my own sexual orientation would result in rejection by my friends and family, and in a diagnosis of mentally disordered. I have benefitted from (or not been penalised for) being a White, middle class, and cisgender male. I have never been subject to racial profiling by police or been denied a job because of my skin colour. I have never had to worry about being able to pay my bills or worried about where my next meal would come from. I have never been the object of sexual discrimination or been paid less because of my gender. However, my sexuality made me an outsider, a member of a marginalised and stigmatised community. It also made me question the prevailing norms of society, and why they existed. I have brought that questioning of prevailing norms and applied it to the official definition of crime and current operation of the criminal justice system.