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Call for papers / panellists Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, 7-11 March, 2006, Chicago, USA THE EMOTIONAL GEOGRAPHIES OF ‘DOING ETHNOGRAPHY’: BODIES, MOBILITIES, REPRESENTATIONS Session organisers: Katie Walsh, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK Rebecca Sheehan, Louisiana State University, USA This group of 3 sessions will build on a series of panel and paper sessions on doing ethnography held in previous years and will be sponsored by the Qualitative Methods Speciality Group. We would like to invite those who are currently active in ethnographic research or involved in theoretical debate about the use of ethnography in geographical analysis to contribute to these sessions either as a panellist or by offering a paper. We envision these sessions as relatively informal and open discussions that will provide a safe space for geographers to reflexively discuss ethnographic research. An emphasis will be placed on using personal experiences, dilemmas, and feelings in the field. We welcome those doing ethnography for a graduate thesis as well as more experienced researchers. There will be the opportunity to begin informal conversations by email before meeting at the conference. We hope that the sessions will help to move us beyond ‘shoulds’ in the geographies of ethnographic research by stimulating provocative debate and pushing ethnographic research out of any comfort zone! Instead, we’d like to see an increasing diversity in ideas about how ethnography could be done, what ethnographers can ‘admit’ to feeling, and ways in which ethnographic research is represented. Below is a provisional guide to the sessions as we currently anticipate their content. Contributors should not feel restricted to these guidelines, but papers / panellists / discussants who wish to address the following themes are especially welcome. Participating on one or more panels does not prohibit you from participating in a paper session. The emotional geographies of ‘doing ethnography’ 1: BODIES This session will consider how focussing on emotional geographies of fieldwork challenge us to reconsider the role of the senses in collecting ethnographic material that is felt in corporeal ways and how highlighting emotions in ethnography makes it a potentially more sensitive research method. It will also raise questions about when it might be appropriate to integrate accounts of position and location, as felt through a diversity of bodies, within ethnography more generally, rather than treating reflexivity as a separate part of research. The emotional geographies of ‘doing ethnography’ 2: MOBILITIES This session will consider the emotional experiences of ‘doing ethnography’ in terms of the corporeal and discursive journeying / movement / travelling /spatiality it involves. It hopes to open the way for more honest and fluid accounts of ethnographic research that challenge traditional preoccupations with distance and distinctions between field / academy, here / there, researchers / participants (etc.) that are proving remarkably persistent. In an attempt to explore the more personal side of physical relocation and movement, special attention will be given to the negotiation of home(s) and intimacy during the research process in (trans) national and domestic ethnographic work. The emotional geographies of ‘doing ethnography’ 3. REPRESENTATIONS This session will ask how more flexible and creative geographical ethnography might present a challenge to conventional forms, medium, content, and styles of ethnographic representation. It will identify and explore some alternative representational spaces currently being used by geographers, including video, poetry, art, photography, and the internet (and others?). Particular attention will be given to exploring the way that using such alternative methods might help geographers to respond to, include, and perhaps evoke, emotion through their research. If you wish to discuss a potential contribution to any of the sessions please contact Katie Walsh ([log in to unmask]) and Rebecca Sheehan ([log in to unmask]) by 30th September at the latest, stating which session you are interested in. Please include an abstract in this communication if you wish to contribute a paper, otherwise please give a brief explanation. in a sentence or two, of how your research experience has raised questions that relate to a particular session. Any questions are welcome…