The field as a landscape of desire: sex and sexuality in geographical fieldwork

Abstract

This article calls for greater attention to be paid to the way that sex and sexuality impact on geographical fieldwork. By concentrating in particular on cross-cultural fieldwork, the article focuses on the ways in which attention to these questions has the potential to bring about greater self-reflexivity and to expose the contingency of the researcher's sexuality.

Teaching Reflexivity: Undoing or Reinscribing Habits of Gender?

“…However, numerous studies alert to such risks do at least endeavour to deliver more. To give a few examples, Julie Cupples's (2002) account of fieldwork, desire and sexuality might be read as confessional and cathartic but also raises potentially uncomfortable issues about the ubiquitous but rarely acknowledged erotics of fieldwork. For Karen Nairn, Jenny Munro and Anne Smith (2005), discussing a failed interview might also be seen as confessional and cathartic but their reflexive engagement with what went wrong generates important insights into the perspectives of the young people on which their research focuses.…”

“…Examples include the use of non-verbal utterances to convey interest or impatience (whether intentionally or otherwise), the use or intolerance of brief silences to allow or interrupt conversational partners to gather their thoughts, as well as the use of interjections to shape the substance and flow of conversation. Students are asked to prepare set readings each week, which include case studies and broader discussions of reflexivity, organized around themes including self and other, power relations, and emotions and fieldwork (including Oakley, 1981;Finch, 1984;Davidson, 2001;Cupples, 2002;Finlay, 2003;Nairn et al, 2005). Feedback groups are encouraged to think about connections between the audio-recordings to which they listen and the themes of the set readings.…”

Big sister is watching you! Gender interaction and the unwritten rules of the Amsterdam red‐light district

“…As Cupples (2002) argues, researchers must pay attention to the ways in which both the sexuality and the erotic subjectivity of the researcher impact the research project. First of all, "it is impossible to escape our sexuality" in a field in which we are sexualized subjects; secondly, "the field itself can have a seductive quality"; and thirdly, "we do not only position ourselves in the field, we are also positioned by those whom we research" {Cupples.…”

Entre l’art et la géographie, une question (d’)esthétique

“…Le terme de relationalité indique que c'est la sphère des interactions humaines, notamment dans leur dimension intersubjective, qui est investie par la méthode et, partant, que c'est d'elle que dépendent les données et qui se trouvent élaborées in fine dans l'objet (d'art ou scientifique). La relationalité est aujourd'hui reconnue tant à l'art actuel (Bourriaud, 2001 13 ;Biset, 2007) qu'à la « géographie qualitative 14 » (Nast, 1994 ;Duncan, 1996 ;Cupples, 2002 ;Bondi, 2003 ;Bingley, 2003). J'ai montré par ailleurs (Volvey, 2004 ;2012a ; qu'elle fonctionnait sur un principe spatial -une démonstration conduite pour ce qui concerne l'art actuel, à partir de la matrice posée par les manières de faire du Land Art états-unien (cf.…”