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…
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