Protocol of Application and Phenomenological Exploration of Body Mapping in Transgender Population: An Art-Based Research Method

Abstract

This article is a methodological proposal for Body Mapping application in transgender population framed by a phenomenological approach and aimed at exploring the implicit and pre-reflective embodied cues of the experience of discordance between the felt body (the body I am) and the objective body (‘the body I have’) that opens a space in which words do not have easy access to. In order to describe our protocol of phenomenological exploration and application of Body Mapping, we detail the complete process in a single case. It corresponds to a female-to-male participant of 18 years old undergoing hormonal treatment with testosterone for 12 months before engaging in our study. Reflections about the potential of using art-based research methods for accounting of pre-reflective bodily experience of discordance in transgender population are detailed. The combination of the Body Mapping art-based research tool with a phenomenological approach for the study of experience seems promising for studies aimed at exploring experience from an embodied approach. It represents a radical first-person research method in which the images talk by themselves. Furthermore, including the researchers as beholders of the resulting artwork, assuming the role of inter-corporality of the aesthetic bodily resonance as part of the data collection procedure seems innovative but loyal and honest with what an Art-based research paradigm is.