A Methodology for the Marginalised: Surviving Oppression and Traumatic Fieldwork in the Neoliberal Academy

Abstract

This article proposes that survival may be considered a research method for social researchers, especially if they are undertaking fieldwork within marginalised communities of which they are a part. Drawing on an autoethnographic account of conducting research while trans, it shows how marginalised researchers may encounter both challenges common within the neoliberal university, and troubles specific to the researcher’s social identity, touching on experiences of casualisation, distressing fieldwork, trauma, and suicide. The article concludes that marginalised researchers should not be held individually responsible for their own survival; rather, they require the active support of research communities and institutional frameworks.

TERF wars: An introduction

“…For example, Hendley implicitly questions the fact that trans youth are at high risk for suicide ideations and attempts, describing references to this within trans activism as ‘scare tactics’. To trans activists who have experienced multiple friends dying by suicide in their youth, this might quite reasonably come across as a transphobic question particularly considering empirical evidence regarding trans suicidality more generally (Adams & Vincent, 2019; Pearce, 2020). They might therefore seek to shut down the discussion or avoid future contact with Hendley rather than continue the discussion.…”

Criminologist or criminal? Liminal spaces as the site for auto/biography

“…There are many writings on the 'risk' of emotional research. One 'risk' is that many do not consider such accounts to be sufficiently rigorous (Pearce, 2020). Some scholars argue that auto/biography and/or autoethnography have been associated with narcissism, personal anguish and a lack of academic credibility (Griffin and Griffin, 2019).…”

“…] stories with raw and naked emotion that investigate life's messiness'. Pearce (2020) refers to this as 'evocative autoethnography' that the approach does not necessarily guide the reader through an argument, but rather leaves space open for different kinds of reader engagement with the author's interior life. Emotion in research is important; it is how we explore distressing and complicated concepts (Javaid, 2019).…”

“…By being transparent about my story and using auto/biography as a method, I find myself the victim of an impossible dichotomy. If I choose to disclose my lived experience and how my trauma impacts the way in which I experience criminology, I might be accused of being 'too involved' or lacking the illusive 'objectivity' that androcentric criminology demands (Pearce, 2020). However, if I do not reveal my personal involvement with the conceptualisation of trauma, then I fail to be transparent and could be labelled as disingenuous.…”

“…Reflexive practice has risen up research agendas (Dragomir, 2020;Harding, 2020;Pearce, 2020) and feminist epistemologies have argued that knowledge is contextually specific and the researcher's biography affects what they find out and what we know. Research is not undertaken in a vacuum and researchers cannot claim to be occupying a neutral default position (Hammond and Kingston, 2014).…”