This article traces my journey into embodied methodologies as I endeavoured to accurately and ethically research and represent experiences of body-marking practices (i.e. body modification and self-injury). Because of the fundamentally embodied nature of body-marking, I sought methodologies which were equally embodied and able to contain and represent the complex, emotive, fluid and dynamic nature of these experiences. It was also essential to me that the knowledge forms I produced, in empirical and epistemological terms, avoided the dualism and hierarchy which pervade our logocentric norms. Both the form and practice of my research, then, required an ethic which was specifically embodied and which grew out of corporeal experience. Here, I describe the research journey which drew me into the strategy of ‘ethnographic fiction’, and how this practice answered many of the issues and dilemmas posed by the specific and bodily nature of my work, and my own relationship with it.
Angrossino, Mike V. ( 1998) Opportunity House: Ethnographic Studies of Mental Retardation . Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press .
2.
Appignanesi, Lisa ( 2007) Mad, Bad and Sad: Women and the Mind Doctors. New York and London: W.W. Norton and Company.
3.
Bordo, Susan ( 1986) ‘The Cartesian Masculinisation of Thought’ , Signs11(3): 450-62.
4.
Brain, Robert ( 1977) Kolonialagent: A Novel with an Appendix. London: Faber.
5.
Brain, Robert ( 1979) The Decorated Body. London: Hutchinson.
6.
Butler, Judith ( 2004) Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence . London and New York: Verso.
7.
Byrne, Anne ( 2000) ‘Researching One An-Other’, in Anne Byrne and Ronit Lentin (eds) (Re)Searching Women: Feminist Research Methods in the Social Sciences in Ireland, pp. 140-66. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.
8.
Byrne, Anne and Lentin, Ronit (eds) (2000) (Re)Searching Women: Feminist Research Methods in the Social Sciences in Ireland. Dublin : Institute of Public Administration.
9.
Csordas, Thomas. J. ( 1994) ‘Introduction: The Body as Representation and Being-in-the-world’ , in Thomas J. Csordas (ed.) Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self, pp. 1-24. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
10.
Davis, Kathy ( 1997) Embodied Practices: Feminist Perspectives on the Body . London: Sage.
11.
Denzin, Norman. K. ( 2003) Performance Ethnography Critical Pedagogy and the Cultural Politics of Culture. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
12.
Edelman, Lee ( 2004) No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive. Durham, MD and London: Duke University Press.
13.
Ellis, Carolyn and Bochner, Art P. ( 2000) ‘Autoethnography, Personal Narrative, Reflexivity’ , in Norman K. Denzin and Yvonne S. Lincoln (eds) Handbook of Qualitative Research (2nd Edition), pp. 733-65. London : Sage.
14.
Favazza, Armando R. ( 1996) Bodies Under Siege: Self-Mutilation and Body Modification in Culture and Psychiatry (2nd Edition). Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
15.
Fine, Michelle ( 1992) ‘Coping with Rape: Critical Perspectives on Consciousness’ , in Michelle Fine Disruptive Voices: The Possibilities of Feminist Research, pp. 61-76. Ann Arbor, MI : University of Michigan Press.
16.
Frank, Arthur ( 1991) ‘For a Sociology of the Body: An Analytical Review’ , in Mike Featherstone, Mike Hepworth, and Bryan S. Turner (eds) The Body: Social Processes and Cultural Theory, pp. 36-102. London: Sage.
17.
Frank, Arthur ( 1995) The Wounded Storyteller: Body, Illness and Ethics . Chicago, IL and London: University of Chicago Press.
18.
Frost, Liz ( 2000) Young Women and The Body: A Feminist Sociology . Hampshire: Palgrave.
19.
Glassner, Barry and Hertz, Roseanna (eds) (1999) Qualitative Sociology and Everyday Life. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
20.
Holland, Janet and Blair, Maud ( 1995) Debates and Issues in Feminist Research and Pedagogy . Clevedon: Multilingual Matters .
21.
Inckle, Kay ( 2007a) Writing on the Body? Thinking Through Gendered Embodiment and Marked Flesh. Newcastle-Upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
22.
Inckle, Kay ( 2007b) ‘In The I of The Beholder? Paranoia, Reparation and Queer Ethics in the Work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’, Irish Feminist Review3: 42-60.
23.
Jeffreys, Sheila ( 2000) ‘"Body Art" and Social Status: Cutting, Tattooing and Piercing from a Feminist Perspective’, Feminism and Psychology10(4): 409-29.
24.
Jeffreys, Sheila ( 2005) Beauty and Misogyny: Harmful Cultural Practices in the West. London: Routledge.
25.
Kenrick, Joanna ( 2007) Red Tears. London: Faber.
26.
Lather, Patty ( 1991) Getting Smart. New York and London: Routledge.
27.
Letherby, Gayle ( 2000) ‘Dangerous Liaisons: Auto/biography in Research and Research Writing’, in Geraldine Lee-Treweek and Stephanie Linkogle (eds) Danger in the Field, pp. 91-113. London and New York: Routledge.
28.
Levenkron, Steve ( 1998) Cutting: Understanding and Overcoming Self-Mutilation . London: WW Norton and Co.
29.
McCormack, Patricia ( 2006) ‘Becomings-Queer: Towards a Queer Ethics’ , paper presented at Future*Queer International Conference, University College Dublin, July.
30.
McRuer, Robert ( 2006) Crip Theory: Cultural Signs of Queerness and Disability . New York and London: New York University Press.
31.
Miller, Dusty ( 1994) Women Who Hurt Themselves. New York : Basic Books.
32.
Orbach, Susie ( 1978) Fat is a Feminist Issue. London : Arrow.
33.
Orbach, Susie ( 1986) Hunger Strike: The Anorectics Struggle as a Metaphor for Our Times. London: Karnac Books .
34.
Orbach, Susie ( 1999) The Impossibility of Sex: Stories of the Intimate Relationship Between Therapist and Patient. London: Penguin.
35.
Pelias, Ronald. J. ( 2004) A Methodology of the Heart: Evoking Academic and Daily Life. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.
36.
Pembroke, Louse. R. ( 1996) Self-Harm: Perspectives from Personal Experience (2nd Edition). London: Survivors Speak Out.
37.
Pitts, Victoria ( 1999) ‘Body Modification, Self-Mutilation and Agency in Media Accounts of a Subculture’, Body & Society5(2-3): 291-303.
38.
Renzetti, Carol M. and Lee, Raymond M. ( 1993) ‘The Problems of Researching Sensitive Topics’ , in Carol M. Renzetti and Lee, Raymond M. Lee (eds) Researching Sensitive Topics, pp. 3-13. London: Sage.
39.
Ribbens, Jane and Edwards, Rosalind ( 1998) Feminist Dilemmas in Qualitative Research. London: Sage.
40.
Reinharz, Shulamit ( 1992) Feminist Methods in Social Research. New York: Oxford University Press.
41.
Roberts, Helen (ed.) (1981) Doing Feminist Research. London: Routledge.
42.
Rubin, Arnold ( 1988) ‘General Introduction’, in Arnold Rubin (ed.) Marks of Civilisation: Artistic Transformations of the Human Body, pp. 13-18. Los Angeles, CA : University of California Press.
43.
Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky ( 1997) ‘Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading: or You’re So Paranoid, You Probably Think This Introduction Is About You’, in Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick (ed.) Novel Gazing: Queer Readings in Fiction, pp. 1-37. Durham, MD: Duke University Press.
44.
Shapiro, Sherry B. ( 1999) ‘The Body and Knowledge: Towards a Relational Understanding’ , in Sherry B. Shapiro , Pedagogy and the Politics of the Body: A Critical Praxis , pp. 31-52. New York: Garland Publishing Inc.
45.
Shaw, Clare and Shaw, Terri ( 2007) ‘A Dialogue of Hope and Survival’, in Helen Spandler and S. Warner (eds) Beyond fear and Control: Working with Young People Who Self-Harm, pp. 1-12. Ross-on-Wye: PCCS books.
46.
Smith, Brett ( 2002) ‘The (In)visible Wound: Body Stories and Concentric Circles of Witness’, Auto/Biography10(1): 113-21.
47.
Spandler, Helen ( 1996) Who’s Hurting Who? Young People, Self-Harm, and Suicide. Manchester: 42nd Street.
48.
Sparkes, Andrew C. ( 2002) ‘Fictional Representations: On Difference, Choice and Risk’, Sociology of Sport Journal19: 1-24.
49.
Sparkes, Andrew C. ( 2003) ‘Bodies, Identities, Selves: Autoethnographic Fragments and Reflections’, in J. Denison and P. Markula (eds) Moving Writing: Crafting Writing in Sports Research, pp. 51-76. New York: Peter Lang.
50.
Sparkes, Andrew C. ( 2007) ‘Embodiment, Academics, and the Audit Culture: A Story Seeking Consideration’, Qualitative Research7(4): 521-50.
51.
Strong, Marlee ( 2000) A Bright Red Scream: Self- Mutilation and the Language of Pain. London: Virago.
Synott, Anthony ( 1993) The Body Social: Self, Society and Symbolism. London: Routledge.
54.
Taylor, Yvette ( 2007) Working Class Lesbian Life: Classed Outsiders. Hampshire: Palgrave.
55.
Tillman-Healy, Lisa ( 1996) ‘A Secret Life in the Culture of Thinness: Reflections on Body, Food, and Bulimia’, in Carolyn Ellis and Art P. Bochner (eds) Composing Ethnography: Alternative Forms of Qualitative Writing, pp. 76-108. Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira Press.
56.
Tolle, Eckhart ( 1999) The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment . London: Hodder Mobius.
57.
Ussher, Jane ( 1992) Women’s Madness: Misogyny or Mental Illness?Amherst, MA: The University of Massachusetts Press .
58.
Vogel, Susan ( 1988) ‘Baule Scarification: The Mark of Civilisation’ , in Arnold Rubin (ed.) Marks of Civilisation: Artistic Transformations of the Human Body, pp. 97-106. Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press.
59.
Walsh, Barrett and Rosen, Paul ( 1988) Self-Mutilation: Theory, Research and Treatment . New York: Guilford Books.
60.
Williams, Simon J. and Bendelow, Gillian ( 1998) The Lived Body: Sociological Themes, Embodied Issues . London: Routledge.
61.
Wilton, Tasmin ( 2004) Sexual (Dis)Orientation: Gender, Sex, Desire and Self-Fashioning . Hampshire: Palgrave .
62.
Yalom, Irvin D. ( 1991) Love’s Executioner and Other Tales of Psychotherapy . Harmondsworth: Penguin.
