How does shared identity between researcher and the researched influence trust-building for data generation and knowledge production? We reflect on this question based on two separate studies conducted by African-based researchers in sociology and political science in Nigeria. We advanced two interrelated positions. The first underscores the limits of national belonging as shorthand for insiderness, while the second argues that when shared national/group identity is tensioned other intersecting positions and relations take prominence. We also show that the researched challenge and resist unequal power relations through interview refusal or by evading issues that the researcher considers important, but the participant perceives as intrusive. We shed light on the vagaries, overlaps, and similarities in the dynamics of belonging and positionality in researching Africans in and outside Africa as home-based researchers. Our contribution advances the understanding of field dynamics in the production of local and cross-border knowledge on Africa/Africans.

研究人员和被研究人员之间的共享身份如何影响数据生成和知识生产的信任建立？我们根据非洲社会学和政治学研究人员在尼日利亚进行的两项独立研究来思考这个问题。我们提出了两个相互关联的职位。第一个强调了国家归属感作为内部性的简写的局限性，而第二个则认为，当共享的国家/群体身份紧张时，其他交叉的立场和关系就会变得突出。我们还表明，研究通过拒绝采访或回避研究人员认为重要但参与者认为具有侵入性的问题来挑战和抵制不平等的权力关系。我们阐明了变幻莫测，重叠，作为家庭研究人员，在研究非洲内外的非洲人时，归属感和位置动态的相似性。我们的贡献促进了对非洲/非洲人本地和跨境知识生产领域动态的理解。