Embodiment In Qualitative Research

Practices for Inscribing Bodies in Data -- Chapter 7: Analyzing Bodies: Embodying Analysis across the Qualitative Continuum -- Doing Legwork: On Thinking through Data with Mind-Altering Medications -- Data Analysis as Material Practice -- Analysis as Always Already Embodied -- Head, Heart, and Gut Analysis -- Practices for Embodied Analysis -- Chapter 8: Speaking of/for Bodies: Embodying Representation -- Doing Legwork: Where Social Science Meets Art -- What's In and What Lurks Outside -- (De)Composing Bodies -- Subjugated Knowledges/Knowledge of Subjugation -- Radical Specificity -- Refracting Bodies through Crystallization -- Practices for Embodying Representation -- Postscript: Common Threads -- Doing Legwork: A Calling -- Pulling Threads -- Materializing Social Change -- Knot -- References -- Index.

Embodied inquiry is the process of using embodied approaches in order to study, explore or investigate a topic. But what does it actually mean to be 'embodied'? This book explores why and how we use our bodies in order to research, what an embodied approach brings to a research project, and the kinds of considerations that need to be taken into account to research in this way. We all have bodies, feelings, emotions and experiences that affect the questions we are interested in, the ways in which we choose to approach finding out the answers to those questions, and the patterns we see in the data we gather as a result. Embodied Inquiry foregrounds these questions of positionality and reflexivity in research. It considers how a project or study may be designed to take these into account and why multimodal and creative approaches to research may be used to capture embodied experiences. The book offers insights into how to analyse the types of data emerging from embodied inquiries, and the ethical considerations that are important to consider. Accounting for the interdisciplinary nature of the field, this book has been written to be a concise primer into Embodied Inquiry for research students, scholars and practitioners alike.

This volume is dedicated to exploring and exposing the challenges, the possibilities, and the processes of empirical work in embodiment. Grounded in qualitative inquiry in the humanities and social sciences, the chapters describe perspectives and contexts of embodied research, but focus on the methodologies, methods, and analytic frames taken up to grapple with this ever-more theorised aspect of qualitative inquiry. The authors drawn together in this volume share an investment in the ways in which the body inscribes and is inscribed within research that foregrounds the cultural, social, affective, and political discourses that are at the core of how bodies act and are acted upon.

Evocative Qualitative Inquiry explores academic research that evokes vitality and life. It provides a road map into integrating the personal with professional to engage in intrinsically meaningful forms of inquiry. The book centers on the key considerations of engaging in evocative forms of writing in the academy. It depicts academic inquiry as an embodied process that is captured and understood through rhythm and resonance. It relays how pleasurable, sensory, and rhythmic forms of inquiry can engender a sense of timelessness, expansiveness, growth, and generativity. Evocative Qualitative Inquiry relates the challenges that may arise from following this less trodden academic inquiry path. It conveys the importance of faith and courage in forging one’s own unique and authentic writing voice. The book concludes with an analogy of a poker game to illustrate how all academic writers possess the embodied capacity to write vibrant words that evoke. Finally, each chapter ends with reflection questions and activities to help readers practice the skills of writing evocatively. This book will be a valuable guide for those seeking evocative writing techniques to engage in vibrant forms of academic research. It is primarily written for academics who desire to learn more about creative, poetic, and embodied writing methodologies.

The definition of data in qualitative research is expanding. This book highlights the value of embodiment as a qualitative research tool and outlines what it means to do embodied research at various points of the research process. It shows how using this non-invasive approach with vulnerable research participants, such as migrant, refugee and asylum seeking women can help service users or research participants to be involved in the co- production of services and in participatory research. Drawing on both feminist and post-colonial theory, the author uses her own research with migrant women in London, focusing specifically on collage making and digital storytelling, whilst also considering other potential tools for practicing embodied research such as yoga, personal diaries, dance and mindfulness. Situating the concept of ‘embodiment’ on the map of research methodologies, the book combines theoretical groundwork with actual examples of application to think pragmatically about intersectionality through embodiment.

Disembodied research erects false dichotomies between flesh and reason, and between the corporeal and the social. By contrast, Torkild Thanem and David Knights engage with approaches and practices that exploit the body’s capacity to generate knowledge, craft lively accounts, and create fleshy concepts. These approaches enrich our understanding of how people live, work, and interact with their bodies within the social world. Thanem and Knights discuss methods, practices, and personal experiences which involve bodies in the research process – in generating and analysing empirical material, reflecting on the work they do as researchers, and turning research into written text. Embodied Research Methods is an important and practical resource for undergraduate and postgraduate students across the social sciences, and a thought-provoking read for researchers in these areas.

Creative Spaces for Qualitative Researching: Living Research. This book looks inward at researchers who are seeking to live their research – to embody the principles, methodologies and ethical conduct that comprises their research strategies. And, it looks outward at the living world as the focus of qualitative research. From both perspectives the editors and authors of this book have created spaces for qualitative research that provide critical and creative frameworks for conducting and living their research. A rich variety of research voices and lives are illuminated, liberated and revealed in the book. There are five sections in the book: Researching Living Practices Doing Creative Research Being a Creative Researcher Co-Creating Qualitative Research in Creative Spaces Becoming Transformed Through Creative Research.

Drawing on a particular emphasis within the phenomenological tradition as exemplified by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Eugene Gendlin, this book considers the role of the lived body as a way of knowing and being. The author, a psychologist, psychotherapist and qualitative researcher pursues this theme within three practical contexts that illustrate some of the nuances of embodied enquiry: qualitative research, psychotherapy, spirituality. The three sections of the book also provide examples of how embodied enquiry is not just a philosophical perspective but also a practice with very tangible implications for research, psychotherapy and spirituality.