"You know what I mean:" the ethical and methodological dilemmas and challenges for black researchers interviewing black families

In this article the author provides a reflexive account of my research experiences with families of African descent. She examines the ways in which, as a researcher of African descent, she became part of the research process. Using data from an ethnographic study that explored the healthy lifestyle experiences and attitudes of families and adolescents of African descent in the northwest of England, she presents a detailed discussion of the identity alteration, researcher–researched relationships, and insider–outsider tensions and dilemmas that arose while she collected data. The author argues that researchers working with participants with whom they share similar ethnicity and historical experiences are likely to find that their professional self and personal life experiences overlap, and there can be difficulties in keeping them separate.