A Reflective Planner: Using Research Diaries as a Reflexive Method in the Field

This paper examines the gendered challenges faced by planning researchers at the outset of fieldwork, offering a reflexive and holistic analysis of researcher identity, conflicting positionalities, and the politics of representation. Drawing on my fieldwork diary, I critically revisit the research process to disrupt structural gender‑based silences embedded within state‑led planning regimes shaped by socio‑cultural norms and developmental‑state legacies in Taiwan. Through feminist reflexivity, the paper demonstrates how moments of internal tension, ethical dilemma, and embodied discomfort can evolve into sites of critical awareness and methodological growth. In doing so, it highlights reflexivity not only as a methodological tool but also as an ethical practice for challenging hierarchical and gendered power relations within planning research and practice.