Who's Hurting Who? The Ethics of Engaging the Marked Body

Kay Inckle (Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, incklek at tcd.ie)


DOI: 10.1191/0967550705ab022oa

Abstract

This paper outlines, and forms a part of, my journey through the issues, ethics and discomforts that are enmeshed in my relationship with my research. My work, which focuses on women's experiences of body marking and which began as a feminist project, has evolved into a complex and messy narrative from which I am unable to separate myself. My negotiation of the issues of ethics and representation ultimately dissolves the borders of fact and fiction, truth and representation, self and other. And while this confirms my initial premise that a separated and objective researcher is an impossibility, this increases rather than resolves the dilemmas that I face in seeking to engage the marked body.

References

  1. Angrosino, M.V. 1998. Opportunity house: ethnographic studies of mental retardation. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  2. Ahmed, S., Stacey, J. 2001. Thinking through skin. LondonNew York: Routledge.
  3. Ellis, C., Bochner, A. Austin, D.A. 1996. Kaleidoscope: the same and different pp. 206-30. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  4. Babiker, G., Arnold, L. 1997. The language of injury. LeicesterBritish Psychological Society Publications.
  5. Banks, A., Banks, S. 1998. Fiction and social research: by ice or fire. London: AltaMira Press.
  6. Bedelow, G., Williams, S.J. 1998. Emotions in social life: critical themes and contemporary issues. London: Routledge.
  7. Bradby, B. 2001. Between denial & by-passing: accounts of exclusion & of incorporation of traditional midwives by official health systems. Belgium: International Centre for Reproductive. Health.
  8. Bowles, G., Duelli Klien, R. 1983. Theories of women's studies. London: Routledge.
  9. Butler, J. 1993. Bodies that matter. London: Routledge.
  10. Byrne, A., Lentin, R. Byrne, A. 2000. Researching one an-other pp. 140-66. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.
  11. Byrne, A., Lentin, R. 2000. (Re)Searching women: feminist research methods in the social sciences in Ireland. Dublin: Institute of Public Administration.
  12. Davis, K. 1995. Reshaping the female body: the dilemma of cosmetic surgery. London: Routledge.
  13. Denzin, N.K. 1997. Interpretive ethnography: ethnographic practices for the 21st century. London: Sage.
  14. ——— Bedelow, G., Williams, S.J. 1998. In search of the inner child: co-dependency and gender in a cyber space community pp. 97-119. London: Routledge.
  15. Dorcey, M. 1997. Biography of desire. Dublin: Poolbeg.
  16. C., Flaherty, M.G. Ellis, C., Bochner, A. 1992. Telling and performing personal stories: the constraints of choice in abortion pp. 79-101. EllisLondon: Sage.
  17. ——— 1996. Composing ethnography: alternative forms of qualitative writing. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  18. Ellis, C., Flaherty, M.G. 1992. Investigating subjectivity: research on lived experience. London: Sage.
  19. Favazza, A.R. 1996. Bodies under siege. BaltimoreJohns Hopkins University Press.
  20. Fine, M. 1992. Disruptive voices: the possibilities of feminist research. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
  21. ——— Fine, M. 1992. Coping with rape: critical perspectives on consciousness pp. 61-76. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.
  22. Ellis, C., Bochner, A. Fox, K.V. 1996. Silent voices: a subversive reading of child sexual abuse pp. 330-56. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  23. Gray, R. 2004. No longer a man: using ethnographic fiction to represent life history research. Auto/Biography vol. 12 pp. 44-61.
  24. Harding, S. 1987. Feminism and methodology: social science issues. Milton KeynesOpen University Press.
  25. Harrison, D. 1994. Understanding self harm. PeterboroughMIND Publications.
  26. ——— 1995. Vicious circles. London: Good Practices in Mental Health Publications.
  27. Huck, V. 1998. The adorned and the ambivalent. StaffordshireKeele University Press.
  28. Inckle, K. 1997. Beyond reasonable belief: rape & the injustice system. The case for legal representation for complainants.
  29. Jeffreys, S. 1990. Anticlimax: a feminist perspective on the sexual revolution. New York: New York University Press.
  30. ——— 2000. `Body art' and social status: cutting, tattooing and piercing from a feminist perspective. Feminism & Psychology vol. 10 pp. 409-29.
  31. ——— 2002. Unpacking queer politics. Cambridge : Polity Press.
  32. Kelly, L. 1988. Surviving sexual violence. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  33. Renzetti, C.M., Lee, R.M. Kennedy Bergen, R. 1993. Interviewing survivors of marital rape pp. 197-211. London: Sage.
  34. Banks, A., Banks, S. Kiesinger, C.E. 1998. Portrait of an anorexic life pp. 115-36. London: AltaMira Press.
  35. Ahmed, S., Stacey, J. Kilby, J. 2001. Carved in skin: bearing witness to self-harm pp. 124-42. LondonNew York: Routledge.
  36. Lees, S. 1996. Carnal knowledge: rape on trial. London: Hamish Hamilton.
  37. Levenkron, S. 1998. Cutting: overcoming and understanding self-mutilation. London: W.W. Norton.
  38. Markham, A.N. 1998. Life on line: researching real experience in virtual space. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  39. Bowles, G., Duelli Klien, R. Mies, M. 1983. Towards a methodology for feminist research pp. 117-39. London: Routledge.
  40. Pembroke, L.R. 1994. Self harm: perspectives from personal experience. London : Survivors Speak Out Publications.
  41. Miller, D. 1994. Women who hurt themselves. New York : Basic Books.
  42. Renzetti, C.M., Lee, R.M. 1993. Researching sensitive topics. London: Sage.
  43. Ribbens, J., Edwards, R. 1998. Feminist dilemmas in qualitative research. London: Sage.
  44. C., Flaherty, M.G. Richardson, L. 1992. The consequences of poetic representation: writing other, rewriting the self pp. 125-37. EllisLondon: Sage.
  45. C., Flaherty, M.G. Ronai, C.R. 1992. The reflexive self though narrative: a night in the life of an erotic dancer/researcher pp. 102-24. EllisLondon: Sage.
  46. ——— Ellis, C., Bochner, A. 1996. My mother is mentally retarded pp. 109-31. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press.
  47. Roberts, C. 1989. Women and rape. London: Harvester Wheatsheaf Press.
  48. Silverman, D. 1997. Qualitative research: theory, method, practice. London : Sage.
  49. Smith, B. 2002. The (in)visible wound: body stories and concentric circles of witness. Auto/Biography vol. 10 pp. 113-21.
  50. ——— 1997. An elite body, illness and the fragmentation of self: A collaborative exploration. Auto/Biography vol. 1 pp. 27-37.
  51. ——— 2002. Fictional representations: on difference, choice and risk. Sociology of Sport Journal vol. 19 pp. 1-24.
  52. ——— Denison, J., Markula, P. 2003. Bodies, identities, selves: autoethnographic fragments and reflections pp. 51-76. New York : Peter Lang.
  53. Standing, K. 1998. Writing voices of the less powerful pp. 186-205. London: Sage.
  54. Bowles, G., Duelli Klien, R. Stanley, L., Wise, S. 1983. Back to the personal: or, our attempt to construct feminist research pp. 192-209. London: Routledge.
  55. ——— Stanley L. 1990. Method, methodology, and epistemology in feminist research processes pp. 20-62. LondonNew York: Routledge.
  56. Stanley, L. 1990. Feminist praxis: research, theory and epistemology in feminist sociology. LondonNew York: Routledge.
  57. Steier, F. Steedman, P.H. 1991. On the relations between seeing, interpreting and knowing pp. 53-62. London: Sage.
  58. Steier, F. 1991. Research and reflexivity. London: Sage.
  59. Strong, M. 2000. A bright red scream: self-mutilation and the language of pain. London: Virago.
  60. Sullivan, N. 2001. Tattooed bodies. Connecticut and. London: Praeger Press.
  61. Ellis, C., Bochner, A. Tilman-Healy, L.M. 1996. A secret life in the culture of thinness: reflections on body, food and bulimia pp. 76-108. California: AltaMira Press.
  62. Travisano, R.V. 1998. On becoming Italian American: an autobiography of an ethnic identity. Qualitative Inquiry vol. 4 pp. 540-63.
  63. Woolgar, S. Woolgar, S. 1988. Reflexivity is the ethnographer of the text pp. 14-34. London: Sage.

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.