Academic jargon operates a strange attraction onto those being introduced to it; this results in a use of language predicated on the longer word being the most academic, leading to student work, even at graduate level, and articles in less reputable journals using, say, 'methodology' when 'method' is appropriate. The four words in the title of this section are all relevant concepts in qualitative research and its validity; they deserve explicit definition: - **Reflection**: a critical process in qualitative research, whereby the researcher investigates and critiques his own position, in diaries, analytical memos, and field notes, logging self-conscious awareness of their influences, interpretations. *Reflexive critique* mandates becoming aware of one's own perceptual biases (Sibbald _et al._, 2025) - **Reflexivity:** the mutual inter-dependence between accounts of social settings and the social settings themselves. A core concept of ethnomethodology (interpretative, qualitative research concerned with individuals' sense-making), it recognises that the researcher is part of the social world investigated, and that this investigation is social act, that deserves the same scrutiny as those investigated. *“Reflexivity suggests that researchers should consciously and deliberately acknowledge, interrogate and disclose their own selves in the research, seeking to understand their part in, and influence on, the research”* (Cohen et al., 2018, p. 303). - **Position**: the *social role* of an individual, or institution, within a specific social context - this is the sense in which Bourdieu uses the word (Bourdieu and Wacquant, 1992). Positions are relative to each other, in a 'field': *“a structured network of relationships between different positions”* (Uekusa *et al.*, 2024, p. 4). This technical meaning conflicts with the intuitive definition, a stance, perspective, on a particular matter, which can be expressed as a set of logically connected propositional claims: ethical position, theoretical position, etc... Qualitative researchers need to consider their position in *both* senses, so other words have emerged, specific to ethnomethodology, to capture the vernacular meaning of 'position', and reserve the word for its sociological meaning. - **Positionality:** this is one such word, although I would have preferred "**positioning**", used by Haraway, writing in *Feminist Studies* (1988). In addition to referring to the researcher's intellectual, epistemological, ethical, etc... *positioning* , the elevation to a higher order concept implicit in the suffix, hints at a relationship between positionality and position similar to that between criticality and critique, or reflexivity and reflection: a systematic inclination to consider one's position(ing), its origins, unproblematised assumptions, and manifestation in research practice (Bourke, 2014). It is important to note that position is relative: much like placing an object is about its location, and positioning an object its location relative to other objects. Both position (social role) and positionality (perspective on and interpretation of social phenomena) of the researcher, emerge in part in relation to others, in the social context studied, and broader society (Cohen *et al.*, 2018, p. 306).