Gender-Body-Sexuality in Spatializing: Producing Bodies-in-the-Field in Research

Abstract

This article aims to examine spatiality in research work based on the body, gender and sexuality relations established between research subjects and the researcher in an ethnographic theoretical-empirical study. Taking as our starting point theories about spatiality and materiality, we have developed conceptually the notion of bodies-in-the-field as a possible way to produce knowledge not about, but with specific individual lives. This approach also allows us to understand the body based on organizational practices and to break with processes that silence and hierarchically situate specific bodies and produce theoretical and empirical gaps in research, insofar as it aims to give visibility to and problematize the researcher body in the production of space. In Organizational Studies, this approach is relevant to an ethical and political research agenda concerned with fostering dialogue with and recognition of different bodies, genders, and sexualities, thus expanding the possibilities of organizational practice.