Camera and catharsis: Handling an open wound in emotionally contaminated research

Abstract

This article examines how cancer shapes not only participants’ lives but also the researchers’ physical and emotional states. Framing cancer as a map inscribed on the body, each wound embodies survival and loss. Using an autoethnographic lens, the study reflects on the project leads’ experiences during extensive fieldwork that included interviews with 34 women, panel events, art workshops, and studio recordings with 14 participants, complemented by seven collaborator interviews. The research methodologically foregrounds sensitivity to participants’ vulnerable health conditions and the researchers’ ethical responsibilities. Central to the work is the interplay between a “single gaze,” the researchers’ embodied perspective, and a “double gaze,” in which the camera becomes an agent of rupture. The article contends that emotional exhaustion is intrinsic to qualitative illness research. It presents mourning ethnography as both care and vulnerability, where negotiating boundaries enables catharsis, blending emotional contamination with release.