Home Is Where My Heart Is: Reflections on Doing Research in My Native Country

This article is a reflexive account of my geographical, intellectual, and emotional journeys as I studied the telenovela genre in my native Venezuela. As such, it focuses on the process as opposed to the findings of my research. I trace the personal and academic reasons for my interest in telenovelas, and how this important genre provides an entrance to study the inextricable links of culture, media, and society in a social formation I know well. As I wrestle with the strengths, weaknesses, and implications of my two identities-Venezuelan woman, U.S.-educated feminist scholar-I flesh out the paradoxes, struggles, contradictions, predicaments, and pleasures that are part and parcel of my research experience, trying to understand how these inform my scholarship.