The Embodied Countryside: Methodological Reflections in Place

Abstract

This article contributes to conceptualisations of the countryside as an embodied space through a reflective engagement with the use of participatory methods with the campesinas (peasant women) of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain range in Colombia. The key aim of the article is to explore how the embodied everyday experiences of the field and the methodologies associated to these are marked by place. To do so, I focus on two empirical aspects of my research. Firstly, I examine how engaging with place is pivotal to understanding the countryside as a relational and embodied space. Secondly, I demonstrate how the participatory methods I engaged with can provide place‐based insights to understanding the rural as embodied. Overall, this article contributes to the literature on how researchers perform and enact rural research, while aiming to de(s)colonise knowledge production.

Extractivism and Territorial Dispossession in Rural Colombia: A Decolonial Commitment to Campesinas’ Politics of Place

“…Here, it is also important to make my positionality visible as a middle-class white- mestiza who grew up in Bogotá and accessed higher education, which I have addressed broadly in other work (Rodriguez Castro, 2018a, 2018b). As I spent time with Colombian Campesinas in Toca and the Sierra, and listened to women’s accounts of resistance and sovereignty from their own cosmovisions, I questioned my positionality and privileges.…”

Researching Rural Housing: With an Artist in Residence

“…Of course, embodied methodologies have been explored in rural studies, particularly amongst feminist scholars involving interviews, ethnographies and focus groups using also sometimes visual and creative approaches (see an example and associated literature in Rodriguez Castro ). However, the embeddedness of artistic practice as a method of doing research with social science described in this article, has not been given much attention outside art studies.…”