On the politics of discomfort

2021 ◽  
pp. 146470012098737
Author(s):  
Rachelle Chadwick
Keyword(s):  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
Research Strategies ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Gut Feelings ◽  
Research Praxis ◽  
Affective Intensity ◽  
Postcolonial Feminist ◽  
Opening Up

This article engages the politics of discomfort as a critical but neglected dimension of feminist methodologies and research praxis. Discomfort is explored as a ‘sweaty concept’ that opens space for transformative praxis and the emergence of feminist forms of knowing, being and resisting. I theorise discomfort as an epistemic and interpretive resource and a lively actant in research encounters, fieldwork and analytic and theory-praxis spaces. Building on the work of Clare Hemmings and Sara Ahmed, I trace discomfort as an affective intensity that matters for opening up resistant and anti-colonial feminist research practices and modes of knowledge production. Starting, and staying, with discomfortis theorised as a form of resistance to the reiteration of comfortable and normative truths and ‘wilful ignorances’. Weaving together the work of postqualitative and postcolonial feminist theorists, the sticky praxis of discomfort is conceptualised as involving a number of research strategies, including: (1) engaging with ‘gut feelings’ and (2) embracing interpretive hesitancy. In moving beyond an idealisation of empathy as the central affective principle underlying feminist research praxis, this article explores the epistemic and political salience of discomfort as affective intensity, ‘sweaty concept’ and potentially transformative interpretive resource.

scholarly journals Writing and exhibiting a ‘live’ and convivial sociology: Portraiture and women’s lived experiences of a French suburb

2021 ◽  
pp. 003802612110097
Author(s):  
Magali Peyrefitte
Keyword(s):  
Research Design ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Sociological Imagination ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Sociological Analysis ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Personal Project ◽  
Academic Communication ◽  
Opening Up

Embracing the manifesto for a ‘live’ sociology, I included portraiture into the research design of an ethnographic study into women’s lived experiences of French suburbia and organised an exhibition entitled Habitantes d’Hier and d’Aujourd’hui: exposition sociologique et photographique. This was a personal project in the neighbourhood of my youth and was motivated by the intention to shine some light on the invisible stories of women living in lower-middle and middle-income suburbs in France. In this article, I reflect on the use of portraiture for the possibility it offers in capturing the ethnographic encounter as well as in giving saliency and offering a visual representation of the sociological analysis. I also discuss the exhibition of these portraits as a moment of conviviality grounded in the endeavour of writing differently from hegemonic modes of academic communication and dissemination allowing for a sharing and sharpening of the sociological imagination. It represents an opportunity to think beyond some of the more neoliberal imperatives that govern academia today and shape our sociological craft. I argue for the value of creating a moment of conviviality, that is a space challenging modes of dissemination, engagement and even impact to some extent, as well as modes of knowledge production: broadly opening up more possibilities for a truly public sociology to continue to exist.

Geographies of transport III

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 463-472 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Schwanen
Keyword(s):  
Latin America ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Classification Scheme ◽  
Global South ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Heuristic Classification

This third report in the series reviews recent research on the geographies of transport in Africa, Asia and Latin America to reflect on the spatialities of knowledge production and the question as to whether a post/decolonial turn is occurring in geographical scholarship on transport. A simple and heuristic classification scheme is developed and deployed to demonstrate that predominantly western worldviews, theories, concepts, methods and research practices continue to prevail in geographical scholarship on transport in the Global South. It is also shown that this hegemony is being reworked and resisted in various ways, and the report concludes with suggestions about how geographical scholarship on transport can be worlded and ultimately decolonized further.

scholarly journals Putting open science into practice: A social dilemma?

First Monday ◽  
2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kaja Scheliga ◽  
Sascha Friesike
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Community ◽  
Social Dilemma ◽  
Digital Technologies ◽  
Research Process ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Best Interest ◽  
Research Practices ◽  
Individual Scientist ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Opening Up

Digital technologies carry the promise of transforming science and opening up the research process. We interviewed researchers from a variety of backgrounds about their attitudes towards and experiences with openness in their research practices. We observe a considerable discrepancy between the concept of open science and scholarly reality. While many researchers support open science in theory, the individual researcher is confronted with various difficulties when putting open science into practice. We analyse the major obstacles to open science and group them into two main categories: individual obstacles and systemic obstacles. We argue that the phenomenon of open science can be seen through the prism of a social dilemma: what is in the collective best interest of the scientific community is not necessarily in the best interest of the individual scientist. We discuss the possibilities of transferring theoretical solutions to social dilemma problems to the realm of open science.

Writing Ourselves into Existence

2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 4-27
Author(s):  
Shardé M. Davis ◽  
Frances Ashun ◽  
Alleyha Dannett ◽  
Kayla Edwards ◽  
Victoria Nwaohuocha
Keyword(s):  
Women Students ◽  
Black Women ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Black Feminist Thought ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
Hostile Environment ◽  
Black Feminist ◽  
New Knowledge ◽  
Critical Autoethnography ◽  
Research Praxis

Academia can be a hostile environment for Black women. Our research team leveraged Black feminist research praxis to produce new knowledge countering conceptions of Black women students and faculty as people who are unintelligent, produce superfluous work, and worthy of being ignored. In order to locate spaces for healing, mentorship, and validation, we engaged in a collaborative autoethnography to co-narrate our experiences while conducting a study for, by, and about Black women. Re-purposing tools from Black feminist thought, critical autoethnography, and collaborative autoethnography enabled us to write ourselves into existence, countering damaging narratives and subverting the harm inflicted by the institution.

scholarly journals Apophatic Inquiry: Living the Questions Themselves

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 ◽  
pp. 160940692095897
Author(s):  
Merel Visse ◽  
Finn Thorbjørn Hansen ◽  
Carlo J. W. Leget
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Real Time ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
The Body ◽  
Life Itself ◽  
Research Praxis ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
Life Phenomena ◽  
Significant Attention ◽  
Connected Spaces

In qualitative research, the importance of knowledge production is illustrated by the confidence in logos, that still flags. Although there is significant attention for approaches that are inclusive to the body, affect and non-rational dimensions, these approaches still aim to generate understandings by the appropriation of knowledge. This paper critiques that view and proposes another view of inquiry that centers the praxis of living the questions instead. Here, research is seen as a gradual unfolding of a process. The quest that belongs with this view of research is concerned with how to make space for life phenomena to emerge. We frame this as apophatic inquiry, a non-methodology, as it is not a matter of applying activities in a set of steps. For apophatic inquiry, a process of unknowing and wonder is imperative. The paper discusses how to foster a triadic inter-beingness in a research praxis that fosters the calling forth of and reflection on phenomena. For that, the researcher nurtures awareness and reflection on a triadic sphere of three closely connected spaces: the Inner Space, the Aesthetic Space, and the Wondrous Space. By being receptive to the impressions that unfold within and between these spaces, the research becomes part of a process of living a question in real-time. Thus, living and life itself become the heart of the research.

scholarly journals Activist ESD Pedagogies and the End of Critique: An Edu/Poetic Attempt to Bring in the Missing Child—Becoming Child

2020 ◽  
pp. 107780042097874
Author(s):  
Anne Beate Reinertsen
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Life Sciences ◽  
Collective Responsibility ◽  
Pedagogical Practices ◽  
Assessment Practices ◽  
Knowledge Practices ◽  
Affective Processes ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Zero Points

The idea of this article is to interrogate what I conceive of as an onto-epistemic acceleration and knowledge production spoken by life. Immanent knowledge practices for Education for Sustainable Development (ESD). Love, care, learning, and collective responsibility transmigrating throughout the aeons of time. It is an attempt to write planetary differential Activist Pedagogies and Life Sciences: experimentations and explorations of putting parts of components together, reaching into the future, playing toward an interest. It is a nonlinear, mannerist, and poetic approach to education, learning and play, research, and pedagogical practices of critique. An approach and style possibilizing and opening up for affective becomings in which ongoing processes are vitalist parts of ontological change. I work with thinkable categories as they disappear, collaboratively linked to a natural web of human and more-than-human agents. It implies a de-facto end of critique or a normalizing of judgment and/or our assessment practices: a Deleuzian clinical practice. Counting myself in and staying accountable to my immanent situatedness, to the child. Processes seen as zero points in action only graspable in hindsight, hence always unpredictable. Affective processes bring concepts into play and seek to continue keeping them in play. Concepts are thus always performative and methodological, inherently experimental, and open to yet-unknown territories of thought. I speak of happenings in language. Thinking with, through, and beyond concepts involves developing conceptual foci while also, and at the same time, designing for debate. I ask, how to continue not knowing what is right or wrong even in times of crisis?

Critical Participatory Action Research: A Feminist Project for Validity and Solidarity

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 433-444 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Fine ◽  
María Elena Torre
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Feminist Research ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Research Project ◽  
Research Praxis ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Critical Participatory Action Research ◽  
Trans Youth

We present critical participatory action research as an enactment of feminist research praxis in psychology. We discuss the key elements of critical participatory action research through the story of a single, national participatory project. The project was designed by and for LGBTQIA+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, plus) and gender-expansive youth; it was called What’s Your Issue? We provide details of the research project, the dreams, desires, experiences, and structural precarity of queer and trans youth. We write this article hoping readers will appreciate the complexities of identities, attend to the relentless commitment to recognition and solidarities, learn the ethical and epistemological principles of critical participatory action research as a feminist and intersectional praxis, and appreciate the provocative blend of research and action toward social justice. Online slides for instructors who want to use this article for teaching are available on PWQ's website at http://journals.sagepub.com/page/pwq/suppl/index

Art-based methods for Participatory Action Research (PAR)

2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 87-96
Author(s):  
Zeynep Kunt
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Knowledge Production ◽  
Communication Studies ◽  
Multiple Perspectives ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
Art Forms ◽  
Research Praxis ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

By reflecting on alternative forms of knowledge co-production through art-based methods, the article discusses the potential of Participatory Action Research (PAR) as a responsive research praxis. Art-based methods have widely been used in research engaging communities through giving access to the worlds of participants. At the intersections of disciplines, benefiting from a range of art forms from photography to theatre, this approach provides the space and tools for the exploration of multiple perspectives about shared problems or questions. In this respect, PAR is a significant methodology for communication studies with its alternative ways of knowledge production by positioning ‘dialogue’ and ‘participation’ at the centre.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document