Desiring more: complicating understandings of sexuality in research processes

Abstract

Reflexively considering one's position when undertaking research has become commonplace in geographic research and writing. This phenomenon is linked to the increasingly prevalent view that research is a co-constituted process that involves the participant and researcher both constructing meaning. Yet, curiously, there has been relatively limited discussion around the role that sexual experiences play in the research process. In this article we draw on three experiences to illustrate the complex ways in which unwanted sexual encounters with research participants can affect the research process. Through these stories we show how sexual encounters shaped the research process, unsettled the way we understood and performed our own gendered sexuality, and challenged our understandings of what it means to be 'good researchers' . We aim to initiate a wider discussion around how we can best prepare emerging researchers for, and support in the wake of, unexpected encounters of desire in the field.

Flirting in the field: shifting positionalities and power relations in innocuous sexualisations of research encounters

“…Within the rich body of literature on positionalities in the field, we note a peculiar reluctance to include sexuality (see also Cupples 2002;Diprose, Thomas, and Rushton 2013), which, as a result, does not feature as prominently in the methodological literature as other subject positions such as race, gender or class. We think this underrepresentation of sexuality in reflexive accounts is striking, given the recent 'flourishing of studies on sexuality' (Wright 2010, 56) in geography as well as other disciplines.…”

“…England 1994;McCorkel and Myers 2003). While some methodological reflections show that the relational dynamics of positioning oneself and others in the research interaction can include sexual desires (Kulick and Willson 1995;Cupples 2002;Diprose, Thomas, and Rushton 2013), in geography, sexuality remains a dimension that is seldom mentioned in written reflections on fieldwork (Diprose, Thomas, and Rushton 2013;though see Valentine 2002;Bain and Nash 2006 as exceptions).…”

“…These studies view sexuality as an inherent part of fieldwork. Valentine (2002) and Diprose, Thomas, and Rushton (2013), for example, reflect on how desire and repulsion are part of situating each other in research relations, and Newton (1996) and Hawkins (2010) offer an approach that welcomes sexuality and uses it as an instrument for data collection.…”

“…The ever-changing positionalities in research encounters may arouse some uncertainty as to how to place each other (Valentine 2002;Hawkins 2010), and researchers are not always willing or confident to take up the positions they are offered through sexualised research encounters (Diprose, Thomas, and Rushton 2013). What is more, researchers are often surprised by the sexualisation of the research encounter and the positions it engenders.…”

“…What is more, researchers are often surprised by the sexualisation of the research encounter and the positions it engenders. Such unexpected moments in research interactions are seen by some scholars as a fruitful opportunity to decentring one's own research assumptions (Diprose, Thomas, and Rushton 2013;Valentine 2002). Furthermore, reflections on positionalities in sexualised research encounters can give in-depth insights into the part ambivalent feelings may play in fieldwork.…”