Abstract
The ways our physicality matters as we move through the world in our own bodies of research is often veiled in the body of qualitative research. In this article, we lift the veil, striving to flesh out the body of research on reflexivity by examining how our own researcher bodies have figured into our work. Specifically, we narrate and reflect on ways we have experienced our bodies as (presumed) impetus for, instrument of, and impediment to qualitative research concerning birthing, breastfeeding, and transgender identities. We explore how our insider/outsider bodies made for particularized yet parallel experiences, which together illustrate the complexity of the relationships between researcher, participant, and the creation of knowledge. From this, we suggest that qualitative researchers examine how their bodies/selves might muddy traditional research roles and rules. Finally, we propose Mixed bodies triangulation, as a way to bring together different ways of knowing in embodied, reflexive research.
Qualitative, interpretive inquiry stands counter to the disembodied, objective, scientific research tradition that guides quantitative, foundationalist research. The former tradition has embraced the concept of researcher-as-instrument (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Eisner, 1991) wherein the researcher is data collector and interpreter, neither an objective role (Sharma, Reimer-Kirkham, & Cochrane, 2009). As interpretive researchers, achieving distance between ourselves and participants is not a goal; rather we strive for voices, experiences, life-worlds, and meanings as constructed by and between ourselves and our participants. In this we understand and often note the fact that who we are is consequential to these meanings. Within the body of research on qualitative inquiry this is known as reflexivity. Jorgenson (2011) says, “For those of us who rely on interviews, participatory ethnography, or other kinds of person-to-person encounters in conducting our research, it is difficult to ignore the influence of our feelings and identities on the research process” (p. 115).
In writing reflexively, we articulate our identities as gendered, raced, classed, and as insider/outsider when we analyze the narratives of others. When we write autoethnographically, we place our identities at the center of our narratives. These are appropriate and commendable practices and yet, as Sandelowski (2002) and Ellingson (2006) argue, the selves presented by qualitative researchers in these ways are often still disembodied. The reader learns something about the researcher and his or her social position but does not get a sense of how these characteristics, as part of the researcher’s embodied self, factored into the research process. When we engage in reflexivity regarding positionalities, we tend to keep off the page the embodied experience of research—the feel, sight, and sound of it. We repress the racing of our hearts as we experience anxiety, elation, confusion, and humility. We leave out how our bodies were questioned or unquestioned by ourselves and our participants. In short, the ways our physicality matters as we move through the world in our own bodies of research are often veiled in the body of qualitative research literature.
In this article, we lift the veil, demonstrating how our embodied identities figured into our research on issues of the body, functioning as (presumed) impetus for, instrument of, and impediment to our endeavors. We present our narratives as an insider researching women’s experiences with birth and breastfeeding and as an outsider researching families’ experiences with transgender identity as a means for reflecting on the particulars of how our embodied selves mattered in moments where they were noted to be similar to and different from those of our participants. We then reflect more broadly on how the body’s constant presence in qualitative research influences the relationship between the researcher and the researched and the knowledge and identities we produce together. Bringing embodiment to the forefront of reflexivity, we propose qualitative researchers examine the construction of their status as expert, expert-by-proxy and expert-by-body through Mixed Bodies Triangulation. Different from a means of validity, in this type of triangulation insider and outsider bodies of research collaborate to produce different ways of knowing that together can add to the literature on the topic and to the literature on embodied reflexivity.
The Body of Literature
To a large extent, the researcher and his or her body is an “absent presence” (Davis, 1997, p. 3) in qualitative research. When we do attend to the body, we often focus on only the embodiment of the other, our research participant, and disregard our own. Not only does this omission result in a different understanding of what and who is being studied but it also places the researcher in a position of power over participants (Ellingson, 2006; Sharma et al., 2009). Participants’ bodies are vulnerable, subject to interpretation, while the researcher’s body is positioned as a neutral, cognitive instrument that is somewhat removed from the situation. Through our own experiences we have come to realize that the role of the embodied researcher is perhaps more significant or at least more multifarious than has been revealed in the body of literature on qualitative inquiry. We, ourselves, are guilty of ignoring its importance. After comparing notes on our experiences, we recognized that although our own bodies had played a major role in our research projects from conception to completion, neither of us had fully reflected on this fact nor articulated the multitude of ways our bodies matter to our research—research which itself deals with matters of the body.
In conceptualizing how we might formalize this knowledge, we turned to the body of research on qualitative inquiry to help contextualize our experiences. We traced two interwoven ways reflexivity is commonly practiced or addressed in qualitative research reports: (a) the impact of researcher subjectivity on data interpretation and, as a subtheme, (b) the impact of the researcher’s identity as insider/outsider to the topic/population under study. Both are theoretically and methodologically significant, and yet are dominated by a representation of researcher identity as a cognitive construct rather than a corporeal one. When the body does enter into qualitative reports, it is often by way of explanation of demographic characteristics that might influence analysis and the richness of embodied experience is obscured.
Researcher Subjectivity
The literature in interpretive, qualitative research maintains that because the process of research is not objective, researchers should be reflexive in their production of knowledge (e.g., Denzin, 1997; Denzin & Lincoln, 2000; Macbeth, 2001; Parameswaran, 2001; Turner, 2002, 2011).
Reflexivity means thinking through what one is doing to encourage insights about the nature of social science and, especially, the role that language, power/knowledge connections, social interests and ideologies, rhetorical moves and maneuvering in the socio-political field play in producing particular account. (Alvesson, Hardy, & Harley, 2008, p. 497)
Central to the practice of reflexivity is the recognition of the researcher’s subjectivity as contributing to research goals, findings, and conclusions. The acknowledgment of the researcher’s identity is an important part of recognizing that there are multiple social realities and truths, each partial and situated in time, space, and circumstance (Lincoln & Guba, 1985). “Reflexivity ‘unsettles’ representation by acknowledging that a researcher is not a neutral presenter of knowledge, but is a participant in its creation” (Cunliffe, 2003, p. 985).
Answering the call for reflexivity, many researchers conscientiously acknowledge their roles in the production of knowledge by profiling personal demographic information and their social positions (Turner, 2002). In other words, many of us confess our positionalities, which include “given attributes such as race, nationality, and gender which are fixed or culturally ascribed” as well as “subjective-contextual factors such as personal life history and experiences” (Chiseri-Strater, 1996, p. 116). Often, self-reflexive accounts focus on how demographics and life histories position a researcher as a biased insider or outsider, or both, in relation to a particular population.
Researcher Identity: Insider (Body)/Outsider (Body)
The implications of native and nonnative researcher perspectives constitute an ongoing and important conversation in qualitative research across disciplines. While an outsider or etic perspective is assumed to be more detached, impartial, and rational, an insider or emic perspective is assumed to offer a more personal, knowledgeable, and persuasive take on a topic or group (Kanuha, 2000). Kanuha (2000) explains how such a perspective influences the pursuit and product of research, saying . . . the native researcher chooses not only a project in which she is deeply situated, whether by geography, tradition, or simply ‘inside’ experience, but also one in which she is invested in those factors and others as they inform the ‘act’ of research.(p. 441)
This description suggests the insider researcher is better suited for qualitative research. An insider can more aptly represent a community or population (Charlton, 1998). The insider has greater access to and perhaps acceptance into groups with whom he or she shares identities and experiences. Furthermore, an insider’s subjectivity and connection to the topic can lead to the experience of countertransference, or to a personal, emotional responsiveness by the researcher brought about by participants’ stories (Gemignani, 2011). Thus, the insider is thought by some to have significant advantage over the outsider researcher who cannot fully assume the perspective of a community or population of which she or he is not a part (Brayboy & Deyhle, 2000). This may lead to the outsider being unaware of and insensitive to important issues, concerns, practices, desires, needs, and experiences of individuals or a group.
Conversely, the insider position comes with limitations (Robbins & Bamford, 1997). Even if a researcher is an insider to some group or phenomenon, he or she is still an outsider to some extent by virtue of being a researcher (and all that comes with that, including potential differences in education and social class; Bhopal, 2001; Few, Stephens, & Rouse-Arnett, 2003; Wagle & Cantaffa, 2008). Furthermore, Hammersley and Atkinson (1996) point out that insiders may overlook certain aspects of a topic or community due to “over-rapport” (p. 110), or taking things for granted because they are already personally known. They also argue that insider researchers’ analyses may be distorted by an inability to distance themselves from participants’ stories. The insider researcher, therefore, may not see noteworthy aspects of an identity or experience because these things are too close. As part of their everyday landscape, certain relevant themes may not stand out as they would to a researcher unfamiliar with the topic, community, or experience (Asselin, 2003).
Similarly, there are benefits and limitations for an outsider researcher. Some have argued that for disempowered or marginalized groups, the work of an outsider is inherently damaging because: (a) an outsider is incapable of understanding or accurately representing experiences of groups to which they do not belong, and especially groups that are socially disempowered; (b) outsider researchers bring to bear frameworks of understanding that are damaging to oppressed groups (e.g., homophobic or sexist frameworks); and (c) when outsiders speak for marginalized groups it reinforces the group’s subordinate social position (Bridges, 2001). Bridges, however, argues that outsider researchers should not be excluded from researching such groups as doing so can increase the researcher’s understanding of the community, the wider public’s understanding of the community, and even the community’s understandings of itself. Furthermore, there is value in not having shared experiences with participants as this may lead researchers to ask naïve questions, which can produce important knowledge. Finally, Bridges believes that restricting research to groups to which we belong leaves us in a state of “social solipsism.”: There is a real danger that if we become persuaded that we cannot understand the experience of others and that “we have no right to speak for anyone but ourselves,” then we will all too easily find ourselves epistemologically and morally isolated, furnished with a comfortable legitimation for ignoring the condition of anyone but ourselves. (p. 381)
A prominent strand of the insider–outsider conversation is the critique of a fixed or dualistic view of these positions. A researcher’s insider/outsiderness is not necessarily a fact of demographics or experiences, but rather is constructed in the moment and therefore is not predetermined or static. Furthermore, insider/outsider identities are not usually clean and simple, as parts of our identities may overlap with participants and others may not (Sherif, 2001). Tinker and Armstrong (2008) point out, “A key problem with ideas of insiders and outsiders is that they essentialise categories, overlooking the significant differences within as well as between groups, and failing to take account of the flexible and multifaceted nature of identity” (p. 53).
Moreover, a researcher’s insider/outsiderness can shift over the course of the research process depending on what characteristics are emphasized at the time or how one’s particular insiderness is constructed in relation to and by participants or fellow academics (Best, 2003; Fine, 1994; Kusow, 2003; Naples, 1996; Wagle & Cantaffa, 2008; Weiner-Levy, 2009). For example, Cantaffa explores how his identity as a gay man was centered and then marginalized during the research process (Wagle & Cantaffa, 2008). As he negotiated the Institutional Review Board’s review process, he felt that his gay identity was of utmost significance, whereas once he gained access to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) youth center where he conducted his research, he felt as if he were “less gay” than many of those involved with the center due to his “straight” appearance and the fact that he once had a meaningful romantic relationship with a woman (pp. 140-142).
While we may accept the fluidity of insider/outsider based on partial overlap in demographics or relative emphasis on certain characteristics of the researchers, there is perhaps limited fluidity when addressing corporal issues. Certainly, insider/outsiderness is a negotiated state, but there are material realities that ground our statuses as part of a group to ourselves and others. Sometimes our bodies are like or unlike those of our participants in ways that cannot be denied and those similarities and differences matter in our research. For example, if a researcher has never had breast cancer and has never had a relative with breast cancer, surely this person could not be considered an insider in interviewing families who have dealt with the disease. Perhaps, if the researcher were at least a woman, she could potentially be considered to have a slice of insiderness, as she would have breasts and a higher risk for breast cancer than a man. The fact remains, though, that she is an outsider to the experience of breast cancer because it has never been written on her body. Such difference (and, conversely, similarity) of bodily experience or physicality between the researcher and participants are indubitably significant throughout the research process.
Re-Embodying Reflexivity
In reviewing the body of literature on reflexivity, we found a predominate practice to be epistemological reflexivity (Barge, 2004)—researchers often allow for the fact that who they are and what they know and believe creates cognitive biases in interpreting and formulating conclusions from the data. This, while laudable and important, does not account for the researcher’s body as a material reality that inserts itself into ways of knowing. What is held back is ontological reflexivity—how being who we are in the flesh contributes not only to our knowledge structures (Johnson, 1991), but to our experiences of the research and to our participants’ experiences of us and the research process (Cunliffe, 2003). More than presenting ourselves as filters, we can present ourselves as figures, which figure into, the process of research. Bringing embodiment to the forefront of reflexivity positions us to consider the process of knowing as well as the product of knowledge (Johnson, 1989).
When we approach knowledge from a Western epistemological vantage, knowledge is constructed as a fixed relation between either a mental state (= representation) or a described statement and a corresponding fixed state of affairs in the world. Such a static view of knowledge leads one to focus exclusively on questions of epistemic justification—that is questions of the conditions under which a person is justified in asserting certain propositional statements. (Johnson, 1991, p. 7)
While interpretive research rejects the separation of the knower from the known and therefore a “fixed state of affairs in the world,” the conceptualization of the body as only instrument directs us toward (a) justifying the conditions under which an individual can assert a certain propositional claim, and (b) the production of knowledge (e.g., “I can make this claim because it includes my demographics and cognitive processes for creating a knowledge claim”). Even if the claim is not grounded in some external, existential reality but in our own knowing, the focus remains on epistemic reflexivity and the right to make a knowledge claim—a claim that exists as a declaration of a state or product. If we are to fully embrace knowledge as subjective or intersubjective, the process of knowing must also be part of our research, and this is an embodied process. “We are what we are at this instant, and our world is what it is at this instant, only because of our embodied interactions” (Johnson, 1991, p. 8).
As reflexive researchers, we might consider moving from a one-dimensional, static account of knowledge production to a multidimensional and embodied account of the process of knowing. “Bringing the body back in means taking risks to be accountable to how one’s bodily self can impact qualitative inquiry” (Sharma et al., 2009, p. 1643). Ellingson (2006) provides suggestions for ways we might accomplish this. First, we can use autoethnographic writing to bring ourselves into our reports, interjecting short narratives reflecting on experiences in the field using a layered organization (alternating between personal and participant perspectives). For those who choose not to write autoethnographically, Ellingson provides three other ways researchers can reinsert their bodies into their work. One is that we can pay more attention to our senses as we conduct research and include these details as part of our description of data and findings. Ellingson gives an example of how she wrote about the ways she conducted her body at a research cite to illustrate a point about power and hierarchy in a clinic. Recounting how she gave up her seat to clinic personnel in observation of her provisional access to the clinic she explains, “Whose tired bodies get to sit and whose must stand is important information about the daily enactment teamwork in the clinic. My physical complicity with the unstated rules demonstrates their power” (p. 305). Besides attending to their senses, Ellingson suggests researchers can ask themselves how their bodily inscriptions played into the research process and, in effect, the ways in which participants related to them in fieldwork, the willingness of strangers to complete a written survey, the ease with which one obtained access to a private corporation to conduct research interviews with employees, the assumptions made about how a research report should be composed, and so on. These factors will influence directly the methods used and the data compiled. (p. 305)
Finally, Ellingson suggests that we can bring the body into our writing by finding ways to write about our bodies that do not perpetuate fixed, dualistic conceptualizations of mind and body, in other words, “framing the body as self rather than as property of the mind-self and portraying the body as fluid and changeable” (p. 306).
Some scholars have engaged in one or more of these practices in their work and/or have issued calls for others to do the same. Implicating her own body as the impetus for her research on fitness instructors and gym culture, Engelsrud (2005) reflects on how her lived body “constitutes a basis for, provides access to and selects what will be the research material” (p. 268, italics in original). She recounts uncomfortable and even confrontational experiences with one participant concluding that bodily experience has potential to function critically and innovatively as a source of understanding for how the researcher’s own lived body is both a condition for gaining the material in the first place, as well as being an active contributor regarding the direction the material can take. (p. 281)
Encouraging us to more fully utilize our bodies as instruments, Sandelowski (2002) argues that as qualitative researchers we should develop and use sensory skills like sight and touch in data collection, and should “ . . . remind ourselves that a key guide to phenomenological reflection is the lifeworld existential of corporeality” (p. 111). In other words, we can and should include in our research information that we experience through our bodies other than what we hear in the words spoken by our participants. Sharma et al. (2009) did this in reflecting on their embodied experiences of studying religious and spiritual plurality in health care. They show how through their own emotional experiences of interviews and observations, they gained a deeper insight into the participants’ lives. Finally, Turner (2011) illustrates how our bodies can be an impediment to research when she explains that we can only understand others’ experiences through our own, explaining, “it becomes difficult to recognize that others’ experiences may differ without challenging or negating what we know to be our own” (p. 763).
Joining these scholars, we hope to similarly re-embody reflexivity—not in hopes of solving the problem of representing others (Pillow, 2003), but in hopes of fleshing it out. We do this through narrating and analyzing how our bodies/selves have led us to particular research interests and positioned us as strangers to others, granted or blocked our access to participants, determined how we experienced others’ narratives, and influenced our data collection. Like the researchers mentioned above, for us, the body/self has served as impetus, instrument, and impediment for, in, and to qualitative research. To illustrate this, we present in-the-moment narratives of experiences in research as well as retrospective synopses of the ways our selves (and that includes/is our bodies) were involved in our research. In addition, we highlight points of commonality and departure in our experiences, and most importantly, reflect on what have learned from this exercise in embodiment. In articulating these lessons learned, we do not seek to reach a point of clarity nor catharsis, but instead hope to demonstrate the complexity of qualitative research endeavors. “The qualitative arena would benefit from more ‘messy’ examples, examples that may not always be successful . . . but leave us in the uncomfortable realities of doing engaged qualitative research” (Pillow, 2003, p. 193).
We chose to write about our experiences together because we felt that the comparison and contrast between us and the issues we have faced provides a richer account of how the body functions in qualitative research. We are at different stages in our research careers; one of us has a few years of experience, while the other has many. One of us drifts between interpretive and more critical approaches, while the other is firmly situated in a critical, postmodern research tradition. We study topics/identities/communities to which the body and gender are of utmost importance. We also study communities and experiences that can be described as marginalized or at least controversial.
Finally, one of us is an outsider with regard to her central topic and population of research, while the other has been an insider in the bulk of her research, having shared with her participants the type of body, experience, and identity under examination. It is this distinction that first motivated us to write together, as this was the most salient contrast in our experiences. In our conversations about doing research it became apparent that for the outsider among us the body was centered (in mostly uncomfortable ways) in tales from the field, but for the insider the body was all but taken-for-granted because it was unquestioned and allowed for easy access and understanding. As Johnson (1989) notes, “Our bodies and our experience are so thoroughly cyclical that we are hardly ever aware of those cycles, unless they are disrupted” (p. 368). And yet, even in the absence of disruption, the body certainly matters to the research process. Given this, we reflect on our embodiment with an eye toward the construction of insider or outsider, positions that are unequivocally connected to the researcher’s body.
Bodies, Both Inside and Out
To fully appreciate my embodied experiences, you should know something about my body/self. I am not trans-identified, nor am I the partner or family member of someone who is. My appearance is nothing if not “normal,” meaning average and normative. I am white, young, and able-bodied. I am a (biological) woman who performs traditional femininity. I have long brown hair and I wear makeup, fitted clothing, jewelry, and sometimes high heels. My gender identity is consistent with my sex. I am currently at a healthy weight for my height, which is a bit above average for a (biological) woman. I wear glasses. I have one piercing in each ear. I have a tattoo, but it is very small and hidden by clothing. I am heterosexual and married. I wear an engagement ring and wedding band. I am from the south, a fact that can still be heard in my articulation at times. My students sometimes ask me to which sorority I belonged in college. I was not in a sorority, but the point is that I appear to some people to be the kind of woman who would have been. Before I began my dissertation, which focused on how families adjust to trans-identities and transitions of sex/gender, I had little idea of how my body would matter to the process. I expected it would be challenging to find participants and to get them to talk about their experiences, as the topic is sensitive and stigmatized, and I figured I would have a harder time than a researcher who was an insider. However, I did not fully comprehend that when I chose to study a topic that implicated the (stigmatized) bodies of others, that my body would be necessarily implicated. It was and is in many ways.
To fully appreciate my embodied experiences, you should know something about my body/self. I have been pregnant (three times), delivered (twice) and breastfed (two children). I underwent infertility treatments, conceived without treatments, birthed with a midwife; in a birth center and at home. I have never put my body/self in a hospital for birth. When I was pregnant I gained almost 60 pounds and because I always carried larger babies people would often comment that I was having twins. They also liked to tell me the sex(es). They were wrong about 50% of the time. My sister and I were pregnant with our last children together (her third, my second) which made sharing maternity clothes difficult that last time around. Of course by then we were both so tired of them it didn’t matter. I had what is known as easy pregnancies and deliveries. The first there was no episiotomy (only a small tear), it lasted about 12 hours, my daughter weighed 9 lbs and was 22 inches long. The second there was no tearing, went about 3 hours, and my son weighed 9.5 lbs and was about 22 inches long. Interestingly, people always ask about these four things, plus one. I did not have an epidural or any other bio-medical medication. My mother says that genetically we (my grandmother, her, my sister, and myself) all have good birthing bodies. I have breastfed exclusively and supplemented with formula. I have fed from the breast in both private and public settings, expressed milk at the office, and Federal Expressed milk home when traveling. My breasts have been sore from poor latch-on techniques as well as not being able to nurse when my body thought it should. I have never had milk run down my blouse at a meeting, but I certainly worried about it during a job interview. I am white and able-bodied. That is important when you are talking about birth and breastfeeding since you cannot do either without a body that supports or can be supported in those acts.
Body as Impetus
When I first got interested in trans-identities, a friend told me he knew someone who had transitioned from male to female who might be willing to talk to me. He set up a coffee date for us. What I knew about “Hattie” was that she was a trans-woman in her 40s. Walking into the coffee shop to meet her I suddenly realize that if I spot her right away, that could be offensive. I would essentially be saying, “I can easily tell you are transsexual.” I knew enough to know that passing is of utmost importance to many who have transitioned. So, I decide to stand at the front and scan the crowd so that Hattie might notice me instead. Anxious about starting off on the wrong foot, I avert my eyes when I see a very tall woman approaching. Softly, she asks “Are you Kristen?” I say, “Yes, are you Hattie?” even though I know she is. We exchange handshakes, mine more firm than hers. We order coffee and sit. We talk about the weather. Then, she asks “How did you get interested in this?” Nervously, because I am afraid I will sound like I am (or will be) objectifying her, I explain that it unites several of my interests in gender, identity, and relationships. (How can I tell her that she is the first trans person I’ve ever knowingly met? Or that my interest in transgender identity came from reading message boards after a Google search for “gender and identity” as I contemplated topics to write about for a course I was taking? Or that the extent of my own gender nonconformity was petitioning to play on the boys’ football team in middle school?) She says, with a smile, “So, then you’re not trans?” I feel surprise, embarrassment, and maybe even shame as I admit that I’m not. She confesses that she had assumed I would be trans because I was researching the topic and when she first saw me she thought, “Wow, that’s some good work! I wonder who her doctor is.” She assumed that my female appearance, like her own, was a result of hormone therapy and surgeries. We share a laugh, making a connection, but I feel a new physical vulnerability—like my own body is on display. I realize that the distinction between my body and hers is significant, and will follow me throughout my research.
When I first got interested in midwives, it was because my sister had given birth with a midwife. So when I became pregnant, I too looked into a midwifery birth (similarly, I also breastfed because my sister did). While I was pregnant with my second pregnancy, first child I began looking for a research topic. I wanted to study how individuals actively learn to be good organizational members. The midwives were not my primary area of interest, but rather presented an interesting population given that their occupational categories were highly contested. Also, I had access because my body had been in their hands (literally).
One would think that as an insider I would stress my body as embedded/present/similar as a reason for the study. I didn’t because I didn’t believe it was. In fact, I would always introduce myself as a researcher interested in organizational socialization. If, however, organizational members were present they would almost immediately mention that I had conceived via infertility treatments but given birth with a midwife. I can recall multiple times sitting in the living room/waiting area of a birth center feeling like my body had just been put into the middle of a research project where it didn’t even belong. This wasn’t a study about birth. It was a study about organizational membership, so what the hell was my conception/birthing practices doing smack dab in the middle? Yet, I conducted the study because my body had brought me to an awareness of the challenges midwives faced as they negotiated their occupational identities. I had to decide if selecting a lay midwife/home birth vs. a certified-nurse midwife/birthing center birth was worth the risk of having my body transported to a hospital without the lay midwife because they were legally prohibited from attending a birth and therefore could not risk discovery during a transport. I experienced my midwife taking a phone call during the crowning of my daughter’s head and later was asked by her colleagues, “Did she violate the sterile field (surrounding your body)?” which left me wondering why midwives would care about a sterile field?
I can hardly remember an interview or interaction related to my dissertation in which I wasn’t asked “why” in some way. And, when someone learns about the research, whether the person is an acquaintance, friend, or colleague, my body/self is implicated as impetus—if they know I am not trans and/or when they find out that I have no personal connection to transgender identity almost without fail they ask: Then what brought you to this topic? I am unsure if the insinuation is that no one would or could be interested in something that does not concern them personally or if it is that no one would or could (should?) be interested in something so marginalized/stigmatized unless it concerns them personally. I have heard the saying, “research is me-search,” meaning that many of us are drawn to study things that we know, but until I began this research I did not understand the implications of my dis/embodiment.
Every time someone learned about my research, whether the person was an acquaintance, friend, or colleague, my body/self was implicated as impetus for my research. When I tried to shift it to my research agenda, another question follows, without fail: But you did have a midwife attend your birth, right? I am unsure if the insinuation here is that no one would or could be interested in something that does not concern them personally or that if your body has been involved it can never not be. You are always an insider . . . which made me both suspect (“Clearly, you support the practices of midwifery”) and ally (“Clearly, you support the practices of midwifery”) but never dis-embodied.
In addition to serving as impetus or assumed impetus for research, the body/self of the researcher always is instrument—we can never be outside our bodies/selves in collecting qualitative data. With this, comes opportunities and potential dilemmas, examples of which we narrate in the next section.
Body as Instrument
I walk up to the building where two people are standing. Awkwardly, because I’m nervous, I introduce myself. One of them is the person who, via email, invited me to the transgender support group meeting. He looks caught off guard by what I assume is my appearance. I suddenly feel uncomfortable, scrutinized. Others arrive. We wait for someone who can unlock the building. I stand by myself a little distance from small circles of folks who are talking. I timidly introduce myself to each person who arrives. I am becoming more aware of my outsiderness, as awkward introductions and subsequent silences continue. I fret about what I believe is a distance between myself and the group that grows with every minute we wait outside. I get the feeling my presence is keeping them from interacting in their normal ways. I must not be who they expected or wanted to see. Should I have dressed differently? Am I too young? Too straight looking? Too rigid seeming? Where is this palpable barrier coming from? A tap on my arm snaps me out of my thoughts. The group leader offers me a “dip”—a packet of chewing tobacco. I politely decline and sense his disappointment. He turns to talk to his friend. No one is speaking to me and I feel intrusive in trying to join conversations. A few minutes pass and the leader again offers me a dip. I laugh nervously and decline again. But as I do, I realize this might be more than politeness or a way to fill an awkward moment—this might be his way of including me, building a connection, or getting me to loosen up. My instinct tells me it is important to accept his offer, so I say, “I changed my mind.” He hands me a packet and I stuff it between my bottom lip and gums.
“Paaige, would you show Sara where and how to do her urine test?” “Ah, sure.” I was a little surprised to be asked since I was sitting in the living room of the birth center as a researcher and no longer a client.
Gesturing with my hand that she should go first, we climbed the stairs. I followed her up the staircase with photos of babies that belong to the multiple families who are part of this “home” including mine. I don’t look. I show Sara where her file is kept and walk her towards the bathroom. “Here’s the basket with the wipes and dip sticks.” Her eyes cut up and hold mine. I remember the first time I did this. How empowered I felt to be holding my own chart in my own hands, recording my own results. How terrified I felt, what if I got it wrong? How do you hold a urine stick without getting urine on your hands? After several tries, I determined the best angle. Grabbing the stick from the basket in the closet, but being careful not to unwrap the sterile packaging, I put the stick on my hand to demonstrate. “If you hold the stick perpendicular to your body and down, it doesn’t make such a mess.” If I hadn’t done it, I wouldn’t have even thought to have said it. I can see her nod slightly, taking in the insights I can offer because my body knows what her body has yet to know. “How did you choose to give birth at the center?” she asks me and our conversation takes off.
“Let me introduce Paaige, she had her baby with us and is now conducting research about birth with midwives.” I scoot forward in my chair to explain my project and do the IRB chant (rhythm that suggests routine, serious but slightly annoyed tone). I am careful to not get too far into the space their bodies form. If my body enters that space, the midwife and client dyad will disappear and that is what I want to observe. Too late. As the midwife explains about the birth center, the client cuts her eyes to me. I smile back…what else can I do? If I don’t smile it could be perceived that I don’t like the birth center. I try to give a polite, researcher smile and nod that doesn’t condone or condemn her choice to use a birth center. Too late again, the midwife tells my story to the client, rotating her body towards me.
It doesn’t taste bad, but stings a little. I wonder if I look silly, like I’m trying too hard to be cool with a bulge under my lip. He smiles at me and a couple of others laugh. I have a flashback to the last time I had “dipped.” Another instance of trying to fit in. I was 14 and I vomited in my parents’ yard. I feel a panic—what if that happens again? Then, more panic as I picture myself spitting into a cup while explaining my research. How unprofessional is that? I decide to just go with it, though, and almost immediately I feel a difference in the atmosphere. It is as if my partaking of the tobacco is symbolic of a commitment to the group or maybe a sign that I am not as typical as they took me to be.
“Paaige, considered a midwife supported birth at the hospital but chose to have her baby at the Center.” I recall my first productive contraction. I really thought I was going to need to go to the hospital for some serious drugs but the midwives supported me through the next and the next and I never transported. This woman should know that! Both women turn their bodies towards me, bringing me into the dyad and I say “Yes” as I lean forward and share the story of my birth.
“Paaige, they weighed Jessica after I breastfed her and she only gained 2 ounces. I am not producing enough milk so we are going to switch to formula.” “Really?” I think, glad that I’m on the phone and she cannot read my expression. “They weighed the baby to determine your milk production?” I wonder how much milk my breast held. I can recall the feeling of my breast swelling over the tops of the bra prior to feeding. How much milk would it take to swell a cup size? Two sizes? And that is just the starter. The breast continues to produce as the baby feeds. So if I swell over the top of a bra (let’s say two bra sizes) and the milk keeps being produced, what is the relationship of milk stored in the breast to that produced during the feeding time period? What would happen if you stopped breastfeeding the baby once you feel that the breast has reverted back to a size that fits into the bra cup rather than continuing to the point where the breast is cradled in the bottom of the bra cup? The anti-Wonder Bra phenomenon. The breast provides the decorative overlay while the bra pushes up from underneath, but take away the push up and leave the same bra size. At what point do you weigh the baby? Given my experiences, this would have to be a multi-point data collection process and the weighing of a child at single point in time seems to be one more way to negate the bodies of women as a means of knowing and authority. I am disappointed that this mother has accepted the proclamation without asking the questions my body has presented. I think about the need to investigate the use of technology to justify the commercialization of breastfeeding, lactation consultants, formula companies, weigh-ins. What I don’t think about is the mother, how does she feel? What does this mean to her? Maybe the mother needs the assurance that she is taking good care of her daughter, making good choices, not failing her…at least not entirely. Let’s be honest, there is a great deal of pressure on mothers to breastfeed…if you are white, able-bodied, middle or upper class, or expected to act as such.
Two hours pass and I realize I still have the tobacco in my mouth. I am nauseated and thirsty. Finally, I am asked to explain my study. I do. Someone asks, “How did you get interested in the topic?” I admit that I have no personal connection to it, but a scholarly interest. Next, “How do you feel about people who are trans?” I’m caught off guard. I swallow and feel the nausea again as the juice runs down my throat (I have not spit once in the entire time, out of professionalism or fear of looking stupid, or both). I pause for what seems like too long. Someone fills the silence: “Do you consider yourself an ally?” Several thoughts run through my mind, as I try earnestly to figure out the answer to a question that I had overlooked to this point. I collect myself, face the group, and I say, “Yes, I consider myself an ally” and I know it’s true as it comes out, even if I still don’t know exactly how that identity will manifest for me. By declaring myself an ally I know I am probably stepping outside of the traditional researcher role for which I’ve been trained, but I also know at this point that in researching this topic my body, my self, my convictions are relevant—if not to journal reviewers or colleagues, certainly to my participants.
We assume so much. Folks in the support group, I believe, assumed I would look differently than I did and be a different kind of person than I am. I assumed that once I told them that my interest in the research did not stem from personal connection, but a scholarly interest in the ways gender and sex organize our identities and relationships that would be the extent of their questioning my identity. We were all wrong!
I always knew that I felt no prejudice toward people who are trans and saw them as legitimate persons, but to that point I had really only considered myself a researcher interested in a topic. Of course, I knew that the role of qualitative researcher was not objective, but at the same time I had not considered that it would be one in which I would be asked to declare my body/self on one side or another of a social and political issue. Up to this point, my research has been more geared toward theory than activism (though, ideally I want it to matter to those outside of academia), and yet, this experience showed me that once a researcher places him or herself into such a community there is no way to keep the body/self out of it. A qualitative researcher cannot be objective, nor can she be perceived as a neutral collector of information, at least with regard to research that focuses on issues and identities where personhood and rights are restricted or denied. If you are not declared as an ally or the opposite, you will, most likely be assumed to be one or the other.
Once I did declared myself an ally 1 I knew that it was never really a question for me. I could never not support a person or group persecuted simply for not conforming to our culture’s system of gender. And yet, at another point in the research process, being an ally became somewhat dilemmatic.
In the 37 interviews I conducted, only two participants outwardly pronounced that they did not accept their relative’s trans-identity. These were the mother and father of a female-to-male trans person who was still living in their home, but whom they refused to acknowledge as male. The father, “Chuck,” told me that he loved his “daughter,” but would not support “her” decisions and actions (e.g., name change, hormone therapy), attributing them to peer-pressure and poor judgment. Chuck was angry several times during our discussion and said things about trans persons and even gay and lesbian persons that were derogatory (interestingly, he seemed to assume that I was not trans or lesbian). In those moments, I was grateful that we were talking via telephone and that I did not have to monitor my facial expressions. I could let my eyes widen while I stayed quiet and listened, inserting the occasional “mm hmm.”
At the beginning of the conversation Chuck said something like, Now, you might not like what I have to say about this, and I’m sorry, but it’s how I feel, which told me that he assumed I would judge him negatively for his beliefs (interestingly, he seemed to assume I was an ally). Although I did at times squirm in my chair in response to his words at times, I kept my voice steady and tried to convey openness as I reassured Chuck that I wanted to hear what he had to say and that his experiences were as valid as anyone else’s. I knew that Chuck’s story was an important one. He was as close as I got to family members who wholly reject their trans-identified relatives, a situation that is imperative to understand.
The predicament, of course, was that in this situation I was in some way reverting back to acting as a neutral instrument. Would an ally choose not to defend trans persons when their character is attacked? I wondered toward whom I was supposed to show allegiance in that moment, my immediate participant or the (trans) person I asked that participant to discuss. In the moment, I revisited the goal of my research, which was to hear stories of family members trying to makes sense of trans-identity and transition. Even if it were the case that I felt his attitude was morally deficient, I could and would not tell Chuck he was wrong about his own experiences and emotions. As an outsider, I may be uniquely positioned to hear experiences that are in some way critical of the marginalized identity I am asking about. Yet, as an ally, I may be susceptible to the same challenge that Turner (2011) identifies, to recognize others’ experiences as valid when they differ from your own—though, in this case it was my beliefs not experiences that diverged. However, as an interpretive researcher, I cannot deny a participant’s reality. What I learned from these experiences is that although my body/self can never be a dispassionate, unbiased instrument (even if I wanted it to be) I believe that I have an obligation to all participants to represent their experiences without letting my own negate their validity.
As a woman who has given birth, breastfed and researches those issues, I may be uniquely positioned to hear experiences that are supportive of the identities I am asking about. Yet even when our demographics and experiences are the same, the embodied knowing differs, leaving tension between demographic similarities and the knowing of the experience. I always feel an absence or presence in my body as I listen to the stories of others. This absence or presence of feeling is always a presence of knowing. I move from their stories to my body for validation, questions, and inconsistencies. My body is the ground against which I examine the figure of their stories. It is. It is simultaneously latent and present as I move through the purposeful action that is my research and my life. I must struggle against the belief that its inclusion is a form of dys-appearance (Leder, 1990). According to Leder, individuals strive toward a corporeal absence to stay grounded in the social world. At times the body reappears and takes us out of the social world. At those moments we experience dys-appearance, the dysfunctional appearance of the body, dysfunctional because it disrupts our normal, bodiless engagement with the world. For example, pain takes us into our bodies as we attempt to identify, eliminate and, eventually, restore our command of the body so that we can attend to the things we do and not the body with which we do them. If we release the need to restore our lives to their bodiless engagement with the world, then it becomes more likely that the inclusion of the body can meld both the corporeal and social self into a body/self rather than become an all consuming dysfunctional appearance. My body re-appears and, by holding both body and self in relation, dis-appears the absence of the body in our social world and our social world in the body. When I meditate, thoughts emerge about my children, work, dinner, or bills and I ask myself, “Who is thinking this thought?” and answer it “I am” as I feel the floor under my head, hands, back, and legs. Neither my body nor my life is dys-appearing but rather both appear and dis-appear the absence of each.
Though the body/self is the instrument for research in qualitative inquiry, it is not always one that makes things easier. In fact, at times it can serve as a barrier in one way or another. In the next section, we share stories to illustrate how our bodies/selves have served as impediments to our research.
Body as Impediment
I call “Kellie” at our scheduled interview time. After the Institutional Review Board chant (rhythm that suggests routine, serious but slightly annoyed tone), I ask if she has any questions for me (I know what’s coming). Now becoming a routine, I explain how the topic of trans-identity in families brings together several of my interests. The voice on the line says, “So, you’re not trans?” “No, I’m not trans,” I say, feeling the usual frustration over the sense that this is a huge disadvantage. I was starting to tire of feeling illegitimate in my research. It might have shown in my tone. After a pause, she says, “So, you’re female-bodied, cisgendered?” (translation: you were born a woman and identify as a woman?). “Yes.” I say. “Are you at least lesbian?” she asks, as if it’s her last shot at finding something she’s looking for. I am unprepared for this one. Not that I don’t know the answer, but I can’t see how this is relevant and am surprised to be asked. As I start to answer, I worry, “What if she won’t talk to me anymore when I say ‘no’?” Part of me wonders if any researcher has ever lied about some aspect of identity or experience to get access to participants, to build rapport, to get at certain information. I know I would never do it, but I can’t help but think how easy it would be. Another part of me feels a perturbed at the connection she seemed to be making between trans-identity and sexual orientation and I consider explaining to her that they are separate matters. And admittedly, I also feel a sense of indignation in response to such a personal and seemingly irrelevant question (who’s being interviewed here?). I feel my body temperature rise as I answer “no, I’m not lesbian.” She draws out the word Okay, seemingly puzzled or dissatisfied, making for an awkward transition into the interview conversation in which I feel like she’s talking to me as if I’m not just an outsider, but possibly the enemy.
“How long did you breastfeed?” (direct eye contact, anticipation)
“I breastfed each of my children for about 2 years.” (relax face, smile, lean back in chair, do not appear judgmental)
“Oh, I was only able to breastfeed for (2 weeks, 3 months, 9 months, 1 year). I couldn’t (produce enough milk, find time to pump, get enough sleep, convince my husband).”(direct eye contact, challenge)
“Well, I am sure that (you tried, gave your baby what he/she needed, did your best).” (relax face, smile, lean back in chair, do not appear judgmental)
I cannot count the number of times I have had this conversation over the past 15 years and the fumbles I have made in response. My body becomes a physical critique of theirs. I think what it is that gets me the most is the “only able” phrase. In that moment, I know that the rest of the conversation will focus upon the challenges the mother faced, the efforts she went to, and reasons it wasn’t a problem that she didn’t breastfed for X number of months or years. The other two strands that may emerge are; 1) asking me, as the expert (both in body and scholarship), if it really matters, or 2) questioning the social appropriateness of breastfeeding a two-year old. In all the conversations, I can hear them wanting reassurance, either by assuaging their guilt or by imposing it upon me, that they didn’t shortchange their child and that they are still good mothers. Part of me wonders if I should withhold information about my body’s experiences. Not exactly lie to get access, build rapport, or get at certain information, just not be as forthcoming with the details. I could justify it by saying to myself, “It really is an irrelevant question. How long I breastfed has nothing to do with their own experiences.” Simultaneously, I wonder how I could withhold my body’s experiences when they present themselves in ways I cannot control. When I was visibly pregnant or my breasts were full of milk and I had to excuse myself, my body presented itself and all I could do was negotiate that presentation. If it is acceptable for my body to physically insert itself (which it often does), can’t I, shouldn’t I also insert it?
From the start of the recruitment process, I realized that my body/self was acting as an impediment to successfully recruiting participants and likely to building rapport with the ones that did agree to be interviewed. My recruitment statement did not start with “I am a trans-identified student looking for participants . . . ” I knew of other researchers whose materials could and did start this way and to me it seemed that they would be more persuasive than I ever could be. My inability to give a personal reason for why I was doing the research probably dissuaded some from participating, and for others brought on questions, awkward silences and, at times, skepticism about my motives and intentions. One trans-identified daughter interrogated me via email before granting her mother permission to speak to me. Another insisted she be on the phone to listen in on my interview with her mother. I can only assume that she would not have felt the need to be on the line if I had been an insider. I experienced this as an impediment, as she repeatedly revised her mother’s narrative, and it was the mother’s story I was trying to get. Upon reflection, though, I see that I got a different kind of story and one worth getting.
This constant screening was a little trying, because I knew that my motives were good, but the point is that these people could not know that and were worried that they would somehow be burned by an outsider. And I was about as much of an outsider one could be. The question, “Are you at least lesbian?” at first irked me. I know that being a lesbian woman and being trans-identified is not the same thing; one is about gender identity, the other sexual orientation, a matter of who you are versus to whom you are attracted. On reflection, though, I came to understand that it was not an irrelevant question because what this participant wanted to know was if my body/self was queer in any way. She wondered if, and hoped, maybe, I were someone who could at least understand what it was like to be persecuted or dismissed for not conforming to a heteronormative life. I believe that she thought that any queer experience would give me capacity and compassion to understand and honor her sibling’s experience.
In a way, having to admit that I was not part of the lesbian/gay/bisexual/transgender/intersex/questioning (LGBTIQ) community made me feel not just like an outsider, but like someone who did not have the right to do conduct this research. At times, I have to admit that I even felt that this disadvantage was unfair to me. Therein was a very valuable lesson. First, the resistance and wariness of participants helped me understand how very vulnerable they felt under the purview of research, and perhaps particularly under the purview of a nonqueer researcher. Seeing this firsthand made me feel a great responsibility to take care in collecting, interpreting, and representing the stories that they shared with me. Furthermore, it was valuable for my body/self to have the experience of even this slight instance marginalization because being marginalized (i.e., outsiders to heteronormative culture) is central to the experiences of the persons I was asking about and interviewing (obviously, theirs is much more significant and problematic).
My outsiderness helped me better understand the population, the issues involved with researching marginalized groups, the dynamics of social power, and the fact that in doing research that focuses on vulnerable bodies, my body matters. My body/self is more than just not a part of the LGBTIQ community, it is a representation of the subjugation they experience; I’m not just an outsider—I’m an oppressor, in a sense, even if I do not intend to be. That is, my body/self/identity/experiences are legitimated at the expense of others, like the participants and their family members. Experiencing resistance to my body/self and realizing that certain rights can be obstructed or denied on the basis of my body/self was a lesson in hardship and humility that I consider important to my research.
I had no idea that my body would act as an impediment to my research. I expected I would have to get up and use the restroom during the last months of pregnancy or schedule interviews around my daughter’s and son’s feeding schedules, but that was a physical reality that I would manage. Reflecting back, I can see now see that I believed because we shared similar bodily experiences, I would be able to elicit a richer, more nuanced explication from my participants. What I did not realize was that because we shared the same experiences, my body became a comparison point for knowing their own experiences. Because I had the experiences that they had, my body became the fixed state of affairs, if you will, by which they sought to evaluate their mental state or representation. Quick glances revealed a questioning attitude and thinking back, probably rightly so. I know what birth/breastfeeding feels like and can feel their comments mirrored in my body. How can you not think that what they say is right or wrong depending upon how your body felt? Or can I open my mind enough to use that moment to further engage their experiences? How did you keep the milk cold while at work? Why did you store milk in the freezer 6-months, a year, 2 years after you stopped breast feeding? What is the point of exhaustion when you decide that your birth plan is no longer a plan but merely advisory? Why should it be different for you than it is for me? My insiderness helped me understand the questions that I should ask (What about breast pads?). My body/self is more than just a part of their community, it is a representation of the possibilities that their body could achieve or exceed, possibilities that exist as part of the expectations that women should engage in intensive mothering, all consuming all the time (Hays, 1996). I am not just an insider—I am an ally, reference point, a judge even if I don’t want or intend to be.
Finding Meaning in Messiness
Separation Anxiety
On conceptualizing the body’s role in qualitative inquiry, we recognized that ours had each served as (assumed) impetus, instrument, and impediment. We thought this to be a fine alliterative organization for our narratives. As we began to write, however, we found it all but impossible to separate our narratives according to these distinctions. The three “I’s” were hardly discrete in our experiences. For me, Kristen, once people found out that my body was not the impetus, it became an impediment, and from there on was particular kind of instrument—an outsider’s instrument. For me, Paaige, my body brought me to the questions, provided a member’s check and narrowed my access/questions. Therefore, as we attempted to maintain separation for parsimony and clarity, we found that to locate our bodies in our research itself is a messy enterprise. And yet, in this messiness we found meaning. Writing these narratives and reflections and reading them in relation to one another has proven to us the value of embodied reflexivity; even though we intended to produce knowledge about qualitative inquiry in this paper, we failed to recognize how the writing of our experiences would produce a new knowing in each of us. We knew that the moments we describe were interesting and possibly significant, yet did not fully appreciate how they had shaped and continue to shape the ways we approach research, topics, and participants until we articulated them through the lens of embodied reflexivity. We find true what Medved and Turner (2011) contend, that Through reflexivity we come to moments of self-discovery, indispensible scholarly insights, as well as new hypotheses and research questions. We grow personally and intellectually when we are willing to make vulnerable our selves in order to work through the unsettling moments that fieldwork undeniably and habitually raises. (England, 1994, p. 109)
Seeing Through Similar/Different Bodies
What we thought at the outset would be contrastive experiences that would demonstrate a point/counterpoint relationship between insiderness and outsiderness showed themselves to have a much more complex relationship. We anticipated that we would provide different perspectives as an insider and outsider that would result in understandings of how the researcher’s body works differently depending on its status as such. However, although our bodies set us up to figure into our research quite differently, there was a surprising correspondence to our narratives. We seemed to experience parallel dilemmas as we functioned as (assumed) impetuses, instruments, and impediments to our endeavors. Where one of us wished at times she could mute her outsiderness, the other wished the same of her insiderness. We both found that our bodies were made vulnerable by participants who interrogated or assessed them for likeness and difference. We both engaged in seemingly atypical activities for researchers, chewing tobacco with participants and instructing them on how to pee on a stick—both improvisations related to our outsider/insiderness. We both experienced moments of discomfort, moments of doubt, moments where we thought things would be easier if we were in different bodies.
This discovery only reinforces what we discussed at the outset—that no matter the experiences and characteristics that constitute it, the researcher’s body will inevitably be part of the research; that is, the researcher cannot see past his or her body, but only through it. Similarly, our participants cannot see around our bodies (even if the ways they perceive them are ever-changing and sometimes unexpected) because they are immutable. This is not, however, a downfall of qualitative research, but an advantage. “The body as the main tool for qualitative research is that which separates it from other forms of inquiry” (Sharma et al., 2009, p. 1649). And we cannot choose the most advantageous tool/self/body for a particular study. Although our selves/bodies are dynamic and socially constructed, they are also particularized. Our selves/bodies define our understandings and interpretations, adding to the reasons our findings are not considered generalizable. But, because knowledge can never not be particularized, each particular piece that we produce is important, as it provides a way of understanding of some phenomenon or identity. As Johnson (2007) says, There is no absolute truth, but there are plenty of human truths . . . Human truth . . . arises in the context of human inquiry relies on embodied meaning, and is relative to our values and interests. Finite and fallible, human truth is all we have, and all we need. (p. 280)
What we can create is a mosaic of particularized pieces of knowledge, from varied ways of knowing, through which we can attempt to understand the experiences of others in a holistic way. We can give that mosaic greater dimension if we appreciate how our bodies add to it. “The researcher, by interrogating and bringing to consciousness his or her embodied experiences, can show how the body interacts with materiality, space, and culture, leading to qualitative research that is more complex, responsible, and robust” (Sharma et al., 2009, p. 1649). This most likely will not be a clean and straightforward task.
Renegotiating the Terms of Research
Embodied qualitative research feels messy because it unsettles what have traditionally been the standard roles of the researcher and the researched. In the United States we share an implicit, and sometimes explicit, acceptance of these roles grounded in Western epistemology. Conventionally, the researcher is detached, objective and separate from what is known, that is, the topic, identity, experience of inquiry. The subject/participant is knowledgeable about the matter—he or she knows what it is to be the parent of a transgender person or to have given birth with a midwife’s help based on the feel, sight, scent, and sounds of personal experience. Therefore, the subject/participant is constructed as an expert-by-body.
The researcher is simultaneously constructed as expert, pseudonovice, and expert-by-proxy. He or she is an expert in research and, traditionally, the subject/participant looks to the researcher to extract and articulate that knowledge. However, the researcher also presents as or is perceived as pseudo-novice, pseudo because researchers need participants to provide them with the knowledge of the experience (“Tell me what it is like to . . . ”) but at the same time possess other types of expertise, not of the body. The researcher has a kind of removed knowledge acquired from literature and other subjects/participants. At some point, then, a researcher becomes expert-by-proxy for his or her chosen topic by way of in-depth referential knowledge.
However, when we consider qualitative research, especially in light of the researcher’s body/self and insider/outsider statuses, these traditional roles become blurry and even problematic. When the researcher’s body has had experiences similar to participants’, and that knowledge is foregrounded, the researcher and participants no longer occupy the traditional roles or relationship in the process of knowing. The researcher is no longer pseudo-novice, but is now expert (“I know how to do research”), expert-by-proxy (“I have talked with others and read the literature”), and expert-by-body (“I have felt my body strain to give birth or have felt grief when a loved one transitioned”). How can there be two experts-by-body? Whose experience is right? Wrong? While I, Paaige, have experienced participants exhibiting feelings of concern about normalcy as they wonder whether the expert-by-proxy has some knowledge that will be used to judge the participant/subject (“I don’t know if others have said similar things, but . . . ”), when I present myself as having a shared bodily experience, the awareness and fear of comparison escalates. With my knowledge of research, others’ experiences, and the experience itself, I am all-knowing and, therefore, I am judging. In a world with “a fixed state of affairs” (Johnson, 1991) there can only be one truth. In this world, a researcher who is an expert-by-body runs the risk of making participants unsure of the right to their own truths.
These roles and this relationship also may become untidy when the researcher has not had similar experiences as the participants. Specifically, if participants’ identities and experiences are socially stigmatized then the novice status of the researcher can be a cause for their concern—a potential source of scrutiny, which may cause feelings of vulnerability, and uncertainty. In a situation where stigma is salient, a researcher who is not expert-by-body presents a presence of the normal against which participants are considered deviant. Participants may not trust that such a researcher will show empathy or respect and, therefore, participants may question or monitor the researcher in ways described in the previous sections. For me, Kristen, the participants’ status as expert-by-body made me unsure whether I had a right to seek and interpret their truths. In these moments, my status as expert and expert-by-proxy receded. I felt hesitant to present as an expert of any sort for fear I would be perceived as presumptuous, insensitive, or oppressive.
When conventionally clear-cut roles of the researcher and researched become muddied by issues of embodiment and knowledge, we may find ourselves renegotiating the terms of research. Are we finding knowledge to make some static knowledge claim or are we producing a new way of knowing (Johnson, 1991)? Are we researcher and researched, which are static identities, or are we participants in a process of knowing? We have to renegotiate what it is we are doing and who we are, and these two things are interconnected.
Keeping the Body in Mind (and the Mind in the Body)
If you choose to engage embodied reflexivity, consider the goals of your research alongside your identity and experiences so that you can choose how to acknowledge your body/self. Just as you record in your field notes time and location, reflect on the ways your body/self might affect the process from recruitment to data collection to interpretation. Note when and how you feel your body’s presence in the research either of your own accord or because of your participants. For example, when participants ask questions about you, when you feel at ease or like the odd person out, when you surprise yourself in your own behavior or feel your participant surprised by it—these are important moments to capture and consider as part of your body/self and the process of knowing.
Given the predominance of the mind/body dichotomy in Western culture, consider when your body’s insider/outsider status might make participants more or less at ease. Tussle with moving beyond confessing demographics or experiences as either (a) a justification for insider knowledge claims or (b) an apology for outsider knowledge claims. Account for your body/self as a part of the process that produces a unique way of knowing that results in a significant interpretation and representation of the identity or experience that is the focus of your research. While you may respect multiple forms of expertise and authority, acknowledge that your own experiences, identity, and beliefs may disaffirm those of your participants. Be willing to engage in conversations with participants about the research process and not just the research topic to negotiate those embedded expectations in them and yourself. Be prepared to feel your role as expert affirmed or challenged even as you reject both. We must accept that in dissolving the barriers of more traditional research, we not only get more substantial access to participants, but they to us as well. There is no one-way glass between the qualitative researcher and his or her participant, and so we can become the researched at any point.
Finally, we propose a new form of triangulation in qualitative research, Mixed Bodies Triangulation. This triangulation differs from bringing to bear mixed methods or even multiple investigators to increase the validity of results or the logic of an interpretation. As a particular type of investigator triangulation (Lincoln & Guba, 1985), Mixed Bodies Triangulation is collaborative research in which at least one researcher has a similar body/self to participants and at least one research has a different body/self than participants. Rather than an exercise in validity, this type of triangulation in which divergent bodies of research are brought to bear on a question is meant to unveil different ways of knowing that together can be significant to the literature on the topic and to the literature on embodied reflexivity. We propose that the two bodies/selves interacting with each other and the participants’ bodies/selves can result in an even richer process of knowing, a richer body of research.
While our work has focused on issues of the body we believe the insights we have gained are applicable to research that is less centrally focused on bodies. Ellingson (2006) argues that, “Embodiment is critical to qualitative health research, because the body is the site of knowledge production; the mind is not apart from the body but part of it” (p. 308). We are always in a body and that body always matters to others and the qualitative research process whether we are exploring issues in midwifery, experiences of trans-identity in families, divorce rituals, bullying, or any other topic wherein we as researchers come in contact with the world through our bodies.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.