RESEARCH IN PROGRESS SEMINAR SERIES
AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE
Friday 11 December, 4.30 pm
A Feeling for Water: Rethinking the role of affective geographies in lessening the emotional burden of research participation
Dr Natalie Djohari, Visiting Research Fellow, Goldsmiths, University of London
This event is free, but places must be booked. To book tickets please go to: http://nataliedjohari.eventbrite.co.uk
The phenomenological turn and shift towards non-representational theory emphasise space as something intimately mingled in and through people’s being and knowing of the world (Merlau-Ponty 1945; Heidegger 1953; Ingold 2000, Thrift 2007, Deleuze and Guttari 2008). But what does such an understanding of space mean for ‘emplaced methodologies’ in research with children and young people? This paper draws on two years ethnographic research with angling-based intervention programs working with ‘disaffected’ young people aged 13-18 in the UK. I consider how young people use angling, as an embodied practice intimately formed within and through the environment, to forge ‘safe’ emotional spaces. These young anglers proactively use the affective geography of lakes, ponds and rivers mapped across the local landscape to regulate their ‘feelings’ and respond to stressful experiences. By situating fieldwork interviews at the waterfront, young people are able to make use of this affective landscape to negotiate their emotional engagement with the research and deal with the anxieties and troubled recollections that emerge. The paper consequently raises ethical and methodological questions by asking if we can do more to locate research in those spaces that facilitate young people’s own coping mechanisms when doing research on potentially distressing topics.
