227
Who's
Hurting Who? The Ethics of Engaging the Marked Body
SAGE Publications, Inc.200510.1191/0967550705ab022oa
KayInckle
Trinity College Dublin, Ireland, incklek@tcd.ie
Address
for correspondence: Kay Inckle, Department of Sociology, Trinity College Dublin,
Ireland; Email: incklek@tcd.ie
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.
INTRODUCTION
This paper explores my journey through the issues that have been central to
my research practices, the ways in which I am located within them, and how
this relationship contextualizes both the research and the knowledges in this
field. My work focuses on women's experiences of “self-injury” and “body modification”,1 which I locate within the negotiation
of gendered, embodied subjectivity, and for which I use the generic term `body
marking'. In its sequential narrative this paper traces the path through the
ethical dilemmas which have shaped my empirical and theoretical processes
and my critique of conventional applications of primary and secondary research
material. I suggest that the issues of researcher location and the context-bound
nature of knowledge impact upon representation whether this is intended and
acknowledged or not. I reflect upon the possibilities of shifting these borders
through the use of ethnographic fictions and
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poetry,
and consider the implications of these forms in terms of ethics and representation.
My research began as a feminist project in which ethics – in particular
where sensitivity around, and avoidance of harm to the participants – were primary concerns. This focus has transformed and evolved in conjunction
with my research practices and this paper is offered as a reflection of this
process. As such there are two possible readings. First, as a straight text,
which describes the development of my research in a reflexive account of my
practices. The second interpretation invites an `active reader' (Sparkes,
2003: 71) to engage with some of the complexities, connections and discomforts
of my relationship with the research and to consider, alongside the direct
narrative, the clues, gaps and spaces which litter the text. It was never
my intention to work within the autoethnographic form. However, my contention
that the author/researcher/theorists autobio- graphy is intrinsic to and inseparable
from the knowledge produced, is ultimately confirmed within my own research
practice. Thus, my pursuit of ethics which led me through primary and secondary
methodologies, and notions of reflexivity, ultimately results in a `messy
text' (Denzin, 1997; Smith, 2002) where the borders of truth and knowledge,
fact and fiction, self and other are blurred. METHODOLOGIES: PRIMARY My current
research is influenced by my life experiences and previous work (particularly
residential social work, and conducting feminist research) as much as by sociological
conventions. These experiences have shaped my subject interests and choices,
the knowledge and ethical considerations I bring to them, and have also re-enforced
my scepticism of concepts such as objectivity, rationality, and “the
truth”. I am also particularly uncomfortable with the ways in which
professionals and academics appropriate and interpret experiences of others
in order to universalize “fact”, policy and “knowledge”,
without reflecting on their own values and assumptions, or, the integrity
of the individuals whom they discuss. For me, as someone who has always been
implicated in multiple ways – both direct and indirect – with
the work with which I am involved this not only questions the ethics but also
the validity of the knowledge produced. For these reasons, and as I was acutely
aware during my research with women clients of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre,
primary “interview”-based research can be extremely problematic.
Issues of power, safety and confi- dentiality, are huge concerns alongside
the privileging of the researcher's needs and interests over the needs and
well being of the participant.
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Roberts
(1989), in her research with survivors of rape, described the problems of
the research relationship in such a way that implications have never ceased
to impact upon me. She said: Rape is the turning of a woman into an object
for the rapist's use only. There is no relationship, but an empty function
between the rapist and the raped. It seemed untenable then to take on research
methods which reflected such a process, for the process of objectification
itself seemed as objectionable as victimisation. (Roberts, 1989: 46) And if,
as feminist research (Inckle, 1997; Lees, 1996) has highlighted, the questioning
of women throughout the legal system is experienced as equivalent to a repeat
victimization then the research interaction may be potentially very damaging
indeed. In terms of the specific subject matter I am currently working with,
the mis-use of “primary data” is a common occurrence especially
within psychiatric theorisations of women's experience of “self-injury”.
Psychiatrists, both feminist (Miller, 1994; Babiker and Arnold, 1997) and
otherwise (Favazza, 1996; Levenkron, 1998), unrepentantly use their interactions
with their clients – which would be bound by agreements of confidentiality – to support their own theoretical constructions. There is no negotiation or
reciprocity in this process. The women have no oppor- tunity to control the
use of their experiences, to explain or qualify the way they are being interpreted,
or, to present their own understanding of them. Further, the knowledge which
results can be so antithetical to the needs and interests of the women themselves,
that, to modify Roberts' analogy, one could legitimately question who, in
fact, is hurting who. A number of studies … portray the typical wrist
slasher as `an attractive, intelligent, unmarried young woman, who is either
promiscuous or overtly afraid of sex, easily addicted and unable to relate
to others. … She slashes her wrists indiscriminately and repeatedly
at the slightest provocation, but she does not commit suicide. She feels release
with the commission of her act.' … Most self-cutters [are considered]
diagnostically to be schizophrenic or borderline. (Favazza, 1996: 167) Primary
research interactions in which the purpose of the interaction is defined and
constructed by the academic or professional are then fraught with issues.
This is exacerbated when the subject matter is of a sensitive or personal
nature, where there are negative connotations associated with the experience
or behaviour, and where the power imbalance is such that the participant is
at risk of experiencing damage as a result of the research interaction or
the uses to which it is subsequently applied.
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I adopted
a range of practices in order to try and address these issues in my research.
My participants are self-selecting, and enter the research through a negotiated
process from which they may withdraw entirely, or revoke any of their “data” at any point. I use participant consent and researcher commitment forms2 to
ensure that the purposes, the degree of confidentiality, and each participant's
desired level of involvement are clear, and that I adhere to her wishes at
all times. I also encourage as much participant control over the research
as possible, in everything from enabling her to choose the time and location
of the work to selecting the pseudonym by which she will be known. I see my
role in these interactions as to facilitate telling, rather than attempting
to achieve “comparable data” through interview techniques. I believe
in honouring the integrity of those who participate in my research, and acknowledging
that such sharing of information is a special gift which must be treated with
the utmost care, respect and responsibility. METHODOLOGIES: SECONDARY Issues
of power, however, remain contentious especially in that the giving of personal
information is guided by the researcher and tends not to be reciprocated.
Some researchers have used secondary sources as a means of overcoming the
issues of directly extracting personal narratives in an unequal setting and
it was something I considered myself. This approach seems – and certainly
as I considered it – to be based upon an assumption that once material
is already in the public domain, the responsibilities and ethical issues surrounding
the use of this material are abated. The use of secondary sources has become
increasingly popular with the availability of internet discussion sites on
which researchers anonymously `lurk' (see Denzin, 1998; Markham, 1998) to
collect `insider' information3 and is especially common in theorizations of “body
modification” and “self-injury”. This kind of `insider'
information is also taken from interest group or `self-help' publications
to which the researcher may subscribe despite not identifying with that particular
group. (See Huck, 1998; Jeffreys, 2000; Kilby, 2001, below.) Thus, despite
resolving some of the “direct contact” power issues, this kind
of approach does not create any less researcher dominated knowl- edge. Rather,
it closes down opportunities for reciprocation and active participation and
results in increased appropriation and objectification of participants and
their experiences. The following examples illustrate this point. Sheila Jeffreys
has written about sexuality, power (1990; 2002), and what she calls `self-mutilation'
(2000) from a radical feminist perspective. Making selective use of secondary
sources Jeffreys argues that all bodily
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interventions
are a form of `self-mutilation' that results from patriarchy.4 They are `a
savage embrace of the most grave attacks [women] can make on their bodies'
(Jeffreys, 1994 in Sullivan, 2001: 80), and are `practiced overwhelmingly
by groups in society with unequal access to power or influence as a result
of their sex, sexuality, or disability' (Jeffreys, 2000: 414). When Jeffreys
is confronted with a self-analysis of these practices that contradict her
position, she uses the marginalized social catego- rization of the individual
to explain their inability to know “the truth” of their actions
as she is able to. Here, she uses the testimony of a young man (taken from
an Internet site) who relates his engagement with “body modification” to his aesthetic sensibilities, his specific physi- cality, and to challenging
the social constructions of disablement: `I have pierced and tattooed myself,
my body, to compliment my disability. … With piercing and tattooing
I make the choice of what happens to my body. This way I reclaim my body
as my own' (in Jeffreys, 2000: 424–5). For Jeffreys this statement
merely demonstrates how this man's oppression makes him unable to recognize
the “reality” of his circumstances and practices. Th[is] intellectualising
post-modern determination to avoid the recognition of real pain and oppression
enables [people] to celebrate even the mutilation of the disabled, [who] chose
the path of self-mutilation to deal with the effects of chronic degenerative
disease. (Jeffreys, 2000: 424) Thus, Jeffreys recognizes and then re-iterates
the obliteration of the self-definition of those within marginalized social
categories. Clearly then, secondary sources can be used in order to manipulate
information to suit the author's political agenda, primarily because the research
is used exactly for this purpose rather than to engage with the experiences
of the particular individuals. These problems can also occur in the use of
second- ary sources even where the agenda is less pre-defined. Not only because
the participants cannot speak on their own terms, and have no opportunity
to respond to the author's analysis, but also because when the author fails
to reflect upon her own relationship to the subject matter, she reconstructs – unintentionally, but nevertheless clearly (to an active/critical reader) – her own autobiography of values and judgements, motivations and influences
within the text. Two examples illustrate this. They are both feminist accounts
which intend to highlight the links between gender and firstly “body
modification”, and secondly “self-injury”. Verity Huck (1998)
researched women's experiences of `body modifi- cation' in order to challenge
the radical feminist pathologization of women's bodily interventions. Huck
argues that agency, empowerment,
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and self-definition
are at the heart of women's engagements with their bodies through tattooing
and piercing which are at the same time inseparable from gendered power differentials.
In this context `body modification' can offer women a means of `control, stability
and empow- erment' and allow women `to overcome the oppressive potentialities
that the female has through her own body' (Huck, 1998: 3). However, Huck
seems unable to avoid universalizing from her specific beliefs around which
practices construe agency and empowerment, and which cannot. She asks: `Can
body modification be seen as a means of personal survival when it closely
resembles (or even substitutes) acts of self-mutilation?' (Huck, 1998: 12).
The second example is Kilby (2001), who sets out to `bear witness to self
harm' and to de-stigmatize and empathize with those whom she writes about,
again from secondary sources. However, she too is unable to avoid generalizing
from her own view of, and responses to “self-injury”. Perhaps
this is precisely because she has never engaged in a direct discus- sion with
the women she whom speaks of and for. Thus, and seemingly without reflection
she projects her subjective responses as universal truths. There is something
particularly hard to witness here. … The act of harming one's own skin
by cutting it up and tearing it apart speaks with a `voice' so sheer that
it is virtually impossible for anyone to bear witness to it. (Kilby, 2001:
124) [my emphasis] In this statement she obliterates the vast range of contexts – published and otherwise – in which women `witness' and support each
other in their experiences alongside discussing the broader medical and social
responses to them.5 At the same time Kilby believes that “self-injury” is a behaviour whose meaning and practice relies upon being witnessed and
responded to by another (presumably who does not “self-injure”):
`The cut-skin testimony of self-harm is a bloody means of seeking the affirma-
tion of an existence denied' (Kilby, 2001: 132). Thus, despite intending to
construct an empathetic analysis of women's bodily practices, the researcher's
distance from the subject, which is re-enforced through the use of secondary
sources, means that both Huck and Kilby ultimately simply reiterate their
own preconceived position reformulated as empirically validated knowledge.
I made vigorous attempts to avoid these problems in my research and to include
the participants at all stages of analysis and theoretical devel- opment.6
I also used a reflexive narrative to make my location within the research
apparent. However, I continued to feel that on a deeper and more fundamental
level there remained contentious and problematic issues with my authoring
of this knowledge.
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BORDERS
OF “TRUTH” AND “KNOWLEDGE” So far then it is apparent
that the location and perspective of the researcher is both inseparable from,
and integral to, the knowledge produced. Davis (1995) has argued that in
order to research women's engagements with their embodied subjectivity (in
her work through cosmetic surgery), a particular ethical and moral orientation
is required to avoid the appro- priation and objectification of individuals
and their experiences. This includes an `empathic understanding' and a `conception
of morality that is self-reflexive' in which `learning to endure ambivalence,
discomfort and doubt is a pre-requisite for understanding. … [It also]
prevents the premature theoretical closure which is antithetical to responsible
scholar- ship' (Davis, 1995: 169–81). In this way reflexivity operates
as both an ethical and empirical tool. This dual notion of reflexivity impacts
upon the process of knowledge con- struction within both my theoretical and
methodological frameworks and recognizes the multiple ways in which I am implicated
in my work. Reflexivity is crucial in terms of making these processes transparent
and enabling a range of interpretations rather than attempting to provide
a `single objective truth … [from] acts of observation and states of
knowing' (Steedman, 1991: 55). Thus, I conceptualize my research as a reflexive
process of knowledge production in which the empirical and theoretical dimensions
evolve in a mutual and ongoing process, rather than as an attempt to produce “facts” or evidence for an already formulated argument. I invite the reader to engage
with both the process and the individuals who have been integral to my understanding
of and relationship to these issues. The recognition of the centrality of
the reflexive researcher/author in the construction of knowledge also begins
to challenge some of the established boundaries between “science” and “art”. Much literary criticism explicitly encourages constitutive
reflexivity, the fact that the author constitutes and forms part of the `reality'
she creates is axiomatic to the analytic style … tension thus arises
because social science is attracted by the constructivist undertones of constitutive
reflexivity in it's literary mood, but repelled by the implications for it's
own pretensions to produce `scientific' social study. (Woolgar, 1988: 23)
This tension has become increasingly apparent within my research, par- ticularly
as I negotiate issues of appropriation, representation, power, empathy and
equality within primary research methods. Likewise, the recognition of the
centrality of (my)self (as researcher and author) within this process, further
questions the borders between social science and fic- tion. It is the interrogation
of these boundaries and its relevance to issues
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of ethics
and representation which have been central to the development of “creative” sociological methods. Angrosino7 (1998) who spent 10 years working as an ethnographer
and a volunteer in a residential project for developmentally disabled men
became increasingly frustrated with inability of conventional methods of social
science writing to communicate the complex and multi-layered realities of
the people and environment he experienced. In order to enable his audience
to engage with his work on an experiential level, analytically and emotionally,
he adopted a “creative” approach and wrote the key events and
issues as `ethnographic fictions'. He suggests that `a story doesn't have
to be factual in order to be true' (Angrosino, 1998: 34). “Fictionalising” his research enabled him to vividly recreate the context, key events, issues
and characters, and at the same time avoid imposing a reading or interpretation
upon the events. The act of reading a fictionalised ethnography enables the
reader to enter not only another community, but also the consciousness of
the ethnographer … you lose the authoritative voice of omniscient science.
But you create a world in which the reader can interact people and come to
his or her own conclusion about what's going on. The reader can do what the
ethnographer does, immerse him or herself in the particulars and try and figure
out what it all means. (Angrosino, 1998: 95) These fictionalized accounts
provided valuable resources in terms of policy development and at the same
time addressed ethical issues around appropriation and confidentiality. Further,
fictionalized accounts may also facilitate progressive knowledge and analysis.
`Using stories to represent research can also resist premature closure on
understanding, conveying complexity and ambiguity and making space for alternative
interpreta- tions' (Gray, 2004: 45). Fictionalizing ethnographic work is also
advantageous in conveying subject matter which is unusual or contentious within
academia, in that `the process allows the … [reader] to think about
data in new, unpre- dictable ways' (Gray, 2004: 45). Gray's (2004) fictionalized
representa- tion of his encounter with his research participant, a `eunuch',
enables the reader clear access to the agenda, motivations and experiences
of the par- ticipant and the researcher, to reflect critically on their own
position, and to self-consciously analyse the layers of meaning and relationships
within the work, including their own. Finally, fictionalized or `messy texts'
can deepen levels of insight and communication through facilitating the sharing
and experience of an `embodied tale' (Smith, 2002: 114). Developing ethnographic
fiction as an empirical tool has enabled me to include in my research women's
experiences that had been crucial to the
235
development
of my analysis but which were ethically contentious because they resulted
from interactions and relationships that occurred outside of clearly defined
research parameters.8 Thus, I have been able to incorpo- rate material that
would be impossible for me to re-access, and ethically problematic to refer
to directly, in a way that honours the safety and con- fidentiality of the “sources” while allowing me to clearly describe the par- ticulars of the women's lives
that have been integral to my analysis. Finally, using fictions can also allow
the author to write in, or make use of, her own experiences with a degree
of anonymity and safety which are foregone within autoethnographic or highly
reflexive texts. The following piece is taken from a larger series of connected “ethno-
graphies”, and demonstrates how I have fictionalized characters and
their experiences and relocated them in a “real” setting in which
I was also present as both “participant” and “ethnographer”.
I use this particular extract here for three reasons. First, the story requires
active readership; pertinent silences invite the reader to create meanings
from, and enable multiple possible interpretations of the text. These readings
are enmeshed in the reader's relationship with the issues themselves, and
their responses to my formulation of them in the preceding sections of this
paper. Secondly, each of the main characters is narrated through the position
of her companion. This strategy is intended to highlight the ways in which
the articulation of, and making of meaning from, what is both seen and unseen
is contentious and context-dependent, enmeshed in subjectivity and projection
and can never be ultimately validated as finite or objective knowledge forms.
Finally, my presence as the ethnographer is conspicuous and apparently disconnected,
subject to the gaze of the reader and the characters around me. I reposition
myself in this way in order to highlight and to some extent rework the traditional
direction of the ethnographer's knowing gaze. THE THIRD ANNUAL DUBLIN TATTOO
CONVENTION Leopardstown Racecourse, November 21st–23rd 2003 Siobhan
& Niamh Siobhan looks anxiously around her. This is not quite what she
was expecting, and she scan's Niamh's face for equal signs of disappointment.
Niamh is wriggling out of her coat despite the fact it is not very warm and
that all she has on underneath is a sleeveless and backless halter neck dress.
The dress of course was picked to display her tattoos to full advantage, which
have progressed in the space of less than twelve months from a single emblem
on the back of her neck to full sleeves down each arm, a full back piece and
a design across the upper part of her chest. Siobhan always
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experiences
a mixture of jealousy and fear when she looks at what Niamh has had done to
her body. Her jealously perhaps more to do with the fact that Niamh's boyfriend
both adores and encourages her tattoos and treats her like she is some kind
of ornate and exotic goddess. Although, Siobhan could see that same beauty
clear as daylight when Niamh was still in her grungy purple sweaters and jeans.
That jealousy is something that she finds her self throwing back at Niamh,
in a small spiky ball of resentment, any time Niamh gently teases her about
her reservation about getting any more than the two small tattoos she has
hidden on her body. Then there is the fear. When she looks at Niamh and how
much she has changed in such a small space of time. It's only a year and a
half since they left school where they had both been un-cool and unpopular,
Niamh the more so, subject to constant teasing about her weight and the size
of her breasts. And now, and especially since she had been going out with
Tom – who claims to be ten but Siobhan often thinks probably closer
to twenty years her senior – she has morphed into a tattooed and sparsely
clad, often aggressively self-confident stereotype of `girl power'. Siobhan
can't help worrying about her. Nor is she entirely convinced that beneath
the new tough exterior, and sexually confident and experienced persona that
it is not just the old unconfident and self-hating Niamh more convincingly
disguised under a thicker camouflage. The same Niamh who used to look at her
curves and rolls and cry bitterly, spending hours fantasising about the surgical
remedies she in which she would indulge if only she had the money, and lamenting
the possibility of her ever being loved or desired. Niamh has stuffed her
coat into her bag, and is tugging her dress into place. She looks up at Siobhan,
who is still a couple of inches taller than her despite the spike heels, and
strides down the steps. The setting is industrial. Concrete floors with some
kind of rubber looking covering, and a low ceiling with pipes and girders
exposed, from which the flaking paint reveals dents of rust and dirt. In places
pairs of television sets cluster around the beams where anxious punters would
normally watch their money trotting away upon badly chosen horses. To the
left of a flight of open concrete steps that has been cordoned off with tape
stands the bar: the only vaguely attractive and very out of place feature
in the building. The bar is made of wood which has been painted a kind of
night-sky turquoise and has a matching back drop to it which houses two large
shiny mirrors. Above the glass the wood rises to pointed apex which houses
a nautical style clock. The bar and the semi-circle it occupies looks like
it would more rightly belong in a small rural hotel rather than in the cold
harsh expanse of the racecourse. In front of the bar an open space has been
filled with mis-matched tables and chairs, cluttered with empty bottles, pint
glasses and over flowing ash-trays. It's only mid afternoon and so there are
still plenty of vacant chairs, and
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most
of the tables have only pairs of people sat at them. At one table towards
the far end of the room, where a security man stands guarding an exit to the
track itself a woman sits alone. She (this is me) is bent over an A4 note
pad writing intermittently but furiously, pausing every now and then to drink
from a bottle of water or to spend a few minutes gazing around her surroundings.
She is wearing a long black skirt, and a cropped fur lined nineteen-sixties
style jacket. Her hair is put up in two knots like cat ears on her head, and
even from a distance the glint of silver in her ears and nose is apparent.
At her feet lies a small over stuffed black back-pack, and two discarded crutches
decorated with purple fur. At a table near-by a group of three women have
spread themselves out, they are distinctive by their appearance and the confident
way in which they occupy the space around them. They are chatting animatedly
using broad gestures and laughing with open mouths and bodies rocking. Two
of the women have long, wide hair extensions; one in a black leather mini
skirt and `cyber punk' boots has electric blue streaking the fine black dreadlocks
which are lifted into a high pony tail sprouting from the top of her head.
She has creases around her mouth and her eyes which remain even after her
smile has disappeared, and in places her eye-liner has begun to seep into
them. In contrast to her hair she wears a semi-transparent pink, mesh top
which she has partially covered with a black cut down top not much bigger
than a bra. Close up the tattoos on her arms and legs would be partially visible,
but she wears them with an unselfconscious manner un-needful of showing them
off. To her right is her companion who also has hair extensions, but this
time in blond and red, and worn loosely down her back. The third woman at
the table has short spiky hair streaked with bright pink. She wears a ring
in her bottom lip and her nose, as well as a stud in her tongue. She has a
tight faded black long sleeved t-shirt slashed in places and held together
with safety pins. She has a thick metal belt around her waist over a fishtail
skirt that rises at the front to reveal mesh tights and chunky boots. Siobhan
realises she has been staring at these women with a kind of awe, they look
so confident so sophisticated in a `fuck you' kind of way, she feels a longing
to be part of that group. But there is also something else, she can't take
her eyes of the woman with the short pink hair; her face, the curves of her
body, the way that she moves, and how her nose crinkles when she laughs. Siobhan
feels something knot in her stomach and a warmth spread on her skin. She pulls
her attention away, shocked and ashamed. She presses fingernails of her left
hand into the palm of her right almost puncturing the skin in four neat crescent
moons, and looks quickly at Niamh to see if she has noticed. Niamh, however,
has finished surveying the scene in front of them and is marching through
the chairs and tables towards a booth selling body jewellery. Siobhan trots
after her, and as she passes the table where the
238
women
sit she can't help glancing back at them. Three men have arrived at the table
and the women's attention is diverted to them. They seem bland in comparison,
like a different species, or an ineffective prototype to their exotic looking
companions. Like many of the other men in the arena they all have shaven heads,
loose jeans and tight t-shirts revealing varying degrees of overweightness
in the stomach, and tribal-style tattoos on their arms. Niamh peers into the
glass display cabinets and the treasures they hold. She is not actually that
interested in belly button rings or tongue studs, since she has no particular
desire to have anything more than her ears pierced and then only the twice
that she has already. She does, however, need to ground herself. This place
is not what she was expecting. She had imagined something glossy, all black
and red with lots of outrageous looking people, and neatly separated shop-like
booths, a bit like some of the alternative shopping malls in Madrid. Instead
she finds herself in a dirty warehouse building, with rows of tattoo stalls
built together out of blue plasterboard like a shanty town in a cold grey
tundra. Everyone here apart from those women at the table – who on
close inspection appeared to be quite old and who Niamh subsequently couldn't
help feeling a bit sorry for – looks incredibly ordinary. In fact this
could just be the kind of crowd you would find in a regular Dublin pub any
night of the week. The only slight difference is in the number of tattooed
arms, but if everyone put on their coats they would just be your ordinary,
boring, everyday people. Niamh can't help but be disappointed, and somewhere
in the back of her mind she thinks again about moving to London. If only Tom
would, but he has lived there before and has no intention of leaving Dublin
again. She turns around and looks at Siobhan and can't help feeling a bit
disappointed with her as well. She is dressed unexceptionally in grey combats,
and a white short sleeved tight t-shirt worn over a long sleeved lilac one.
She gets frustrated with her as well sometimes, the way that she remains so
conservative despite everything, and especially since she, Niamh, has really
found herself. Siobhan does have her tongue and eyebrow pierced and two tattoos
but they are so rarely visible they are almost not worth having in Niamh's
mind. And Siobhan has such a good body too, she is tall and thin and could
look really amazing if she only put a bit of effort into it, and would have
no trouble getting herself a boyfriend. Maybe even one of Tom's mates, although
she has to agree some of them do seem a bit old. Siobhan continues however,
to wear trousers and long sleeves all year round, day and night, and acts
all weird around men when they are out. Then Niamh feels guilty, she does
love Siobhan, she really is her best and truest friend, and really those irritations
are nothing compared to the bond that there is between them. And Siobhan has
always been there for her, however bad she felt or ugly she seemed to herself
Siobhan never did anything but love and support her. It's not that she doesn't
accept her, she just wants to help her, to make the best
239
of
herself, just to wear something sleeveless and a bit low in the front once
in a while wouldn't kill her for gods-sake! Suitably rallied by her mental
critique, Niamh turns to Siobhan `c'mon lets go and have a look at some of
the tattooists at work' she says `I'm dying to see if any of them are any
good!' As they swing around to walk back across the seating area, a man climbs
onto the makeshift stage by the D.J. box, and announces an immanent performance
by `the most tattooed man in the world'. Niamh and Siobhan look at each other
and without speaking agree to stay and watch. They pull up two chairs and
sit together just to the left of the woman with the note pad, who rolls up
the wad of paper and stuffs it into her bag, takes out a small digital camera
and angles herself in the same direction as the two friends towards the stage.
Kiesinger (1998), in `Portrait of an anorexic life', also experimented with
creative methods of portraying the depth and complexity of women's experiences,
as well as the relationships she developed with them during the course of
her research. She abandoned conventional methods and used poetry to present
evocative, in-depth accounts, rich with the emotion expe- rienced.9 Poetry
has similarly been used to convey the complexities of a range of experiences
including; locations of `race' and `ethnicity' (Austin, 1996: Travisino, 1998),
and unmarried motherhood (Richardson, 1992). The use of this creative form
resonates with me on many levels, and not without some ambiguity and discomforts.
In positive terms, the poetic form recognises and incorporates the emotional
and embodied inter- changes that are present within a research interaction
but which are lost within a transcribed text (however coded).10 Secondly,
in my work outside academia, I noticed how poetry is often favoured both in
the public domain, as well as in private/personal explo- rations, as a means
of articulating the layers and complexities of traumatic experiences such
as sexual abuse, homelessness and violence. Finally, I have had a longstanding
interest in creative writing and have been writing (very bad) poetry for a
number of years. Overall, poetry emphasizes the implications of our own experience
and subjectivity as individuals and researchers for the work we produce, and
the fluidity of the boundaries of that role and the meanings we create. I
believe that all knowledge is produced at the intersection of our subjec-
tivity, our autobiography, repeatable “facts” and the fictions
we make of them, and our own perceptual processes which are inseparable from
emotion, projection and self. For me, poetry is the medium which captures
these elements perfectly: it relies on interpretation, feeling and metaphor
to convey “truth” and meaning. It also enables us to engage on
an experiential level; emotional, intellectual, bodily, with a range of human
experiences (our own and other's) and to explore and connect with them.
240
I have
begun to explore the idea of using poetry within my research, and the following
two poems represent intersections of many of the themes and ambiguities involved
in my work to date. The first poem evolved from a piece I was writing about
my scars, and my experiences of almost con- stant surveillance, questioning
and scrutiny of my body as I become more visibly disabled, and which I am
convinced is related to a broader objec- tification of non-normative corporeal
forms and experiences. To me this is also intrinsically connected with the
objectification of body marking and the kind of knowledge and research I wish
to critique and avoid. Carved in flesh Even when the sun shines upon old scars
and they glisten like streams of perspiration on leather skin they do not
become much sweeter. A map of pain and longing that few can read or follow
to the chest of buried memories No rainbows, treasure troves or sweet surprises
here to meet the crouching shadows and the triptychs that whisper fear No
simple retort or recompense Return these especially secret gifts. Stranger's
eyes carve distant tales that twist and turn hard ridges and cast a shadow
that burns like ice into this fleshy landscape. The next poem arose from a
combination of influences and experiences and I wrote it while I was transcribing
my conversation with `Maeve'. I was incredibly moved when she described how
she sometimes felt about her tattooed, non-normative body, she said, `it's
like painting on a dirty piece of paper'. At this time I had also been feeling
increasingly anxious about the via- bility of the theories of body marking
in which corporeal intervention is seen as a response to, and a result of
sexual abuse (such as the radical fem- inist or psychiatric positions described
above). In conjunction with this, I had not forgotten how unsettling I found
the experience of my most recent tattoo, and the disturbing emotions I experienced
during and immediately after its inscription.11I
241
I originally
entitled this poem `nameless' in order to acknowledge the silences which I
fear remain consistent throughout my work despite – and perhaps even
because of – the presence of my reflexive voice. Not long after I wrote
this poem and during a period of mal-ease with my work, but when I also began
to comprehend the power of the speaking subject (for example through contact
with autoethnographic works), I jokingly sug- gested to a friend that my PhD
may well be rightly called `Biography of denial'.12 However, I have, instead
renamed the nameless poem. Biography of denial (Nameless) There is a man on
my back and I am bleeding. He carefully tears away the surface of my flesh
and impregnates me with something I believe I have chosen. My blood, and my
sweat coat his fingers I am rigid with not showing the pain not feeling the
fear and the humiliation: He is behind me, I bleed. If only the channels of
blood would wash him away erase my flesh of his taint, forever. But I only
repeat, more intricately, every scar he made upon me. I weep alone with my
bandaged flesh and shame, building a barrier of scars and patterns so intricate
he can no longer pass through: From the outside in Or the inside out. There
is a man on my back and I bleed, in the colours of my own making: Blood Red,
and Purple Yellow bruises, Pink keloid scars.
242
Ripe
broken skin seeping puce green bile, a rainbow of a battered heart; shrivelled
to a sour brown fruit. There is a man on my back and I am weeping, tears of
blood and ink. Where broken flesh and ruined bones scab into an armour That
will never wash away. These poems, in different ways, begin to dissolve the
border between self and other, researcher and participants, and, perhaps,
reader and text. These resultant `messy texts' `… can help us to hold
onto the fundamen- tal embodiment of problems and keep us connected to the
needs, pains, joys and desires of socially constructed and socially constructing
bodies' (Smith, 2002: 114). However, I experience each piece quite differently.
I feel mostly at ease with Carved in flesh. I feel distinct, unambiguous
and separate from what takes form on the page. This poem speaks from a dualisti-
cally located mind, with a clear agenda, and I recognize myself within this
piece either in ways with which I feel comfortable, or in meanings which I
do not think would be apparent to the reader. Nameless, however, bothers me.
It is a much more organic piece, and I am not comfortable with what I have
written, it's implications, or how it could be read. I am no longer separate
from the participants, or from the scrutiny of their lives from which I have
tried to protect them. In this messy text I am once again confronted with
the dilemmas of my research. Is it that the inseparability of self and knowledge,
and my desire to protect my participants, is leading me rather alarmingly
to an ethics that require me not to hurt others but to possibly/potentially
hurt myself? Can I be present in my work to the degree that my (self-imposed)
ethics require without cornering myself into some kind of auto- ethnographic
exposure which I did not choose or intend at the outset? And if this is the
unintended outcome, what are the consequences for myself and my work? Overall
then, “creative” sociological methods and the issues they raise
around knowledge, communication, and experience have a unique and inescapable
impact, particularly in terms of how vivid, poignant and memorable they are.
And, if as feminists have argued (Fine, 1992a; Harding, 1987; Kennedy Bergen,
1993; Mies, 1983; Ribbens and Edwards, 1998; Stanley and Wise, 1983; 1990),
the purpose of research is to achieve social change through increased awareness,
empathy and interconnectedness then these methods are perfectly suited to
this end.
243
Further,
the borders of representation and researcher location are shifted so that
the appropriation of experience and objectification of participants is at
least problematized if not wholly avoided. However, these shifting borders
are not without cost and the consequences for the researcher and her career
may be significant. To write in this way may be risking exposure and vulnerability
in an academic context which may be hostile to both the content and form of
this genre (Sparkes, 2002). CONCLUSION Overall then, I believe that researching
human experience in its embodied, emotional and experiential make-up is a
complex and contentious matter. These are issues for which simple guidelines
surrounding procedure, representation and technique are inadequate. Rather,
they require conscious and conscientious ethical awareness on the part of
the researcher. It also seems to me that it is inevitably and inescapably
apparent that knowledge and subjectivity are mutually reflective and constitutive
whether or not this is directly acknowledged and/or intended. In this way,
highlighting the dilemmas of representation and researcher location prob-
lematizes separated and disembodied knowledge within a framework of ethics
that also interrogates the binaries of fact and fiction, art and science,
truth and knowledge. I suggest that it is the very disruption of these borders
that opens up possibilities for research methodologies, which can incorporate
the tensions of subjectivity, ethics and representation within a framework
that can engage with, rather than objectify or appropriate, the complexities
of lived, embodied subjectivity. However, once these borders are shifted,
so too is the protection that is afforded to the author within the norms
of academic representation and distance. To undertake such projects involves
taking exactly the kind of personal risks and exposure from which feminist
ethics seek to protect research participants. Many authors have written autoethno-
graphically about very difficult and sometimes taboo experiences, including
Ellis and Bochner (1992) on abortion; Ronai (1996) and Fox (1996) on sexual
abuse; Ronai (1992) on working in the sex industry; Sparkes (1997; 2003) on
the difficulties of negotiating disablement and masculinity; and Tilman-Healy
(1996) on living with bulimia. While I have nothing but respect for them,
and nor do I have any doubts about the validity of this format, it is not
necessarily the resolution I was hoping my journey through issues of ethics
and representation would lead me to. Ultimately then, in attempting to theoretically
and empirically engage “the” marked body, my question remains:
who is hurting who?
244
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Heartfelt thanks to my research participants: Ciara, Mary, Rene, Lucinda,
Maeve and Elaine for your courage, honesty and insight, and for trusting me
with your journeys. Love and thanks to Anne and to Brid. Thanks also to Andrew
for mindful supervision. Finally, thank you to the anonymous referees for
their comments and encouragement.
NOTES
1 Both of these terms are
contentious in definition, and value laden in application, and while within
my analysis I use the term `body marking' to describe the whole range of
such bodily interventions. When I use conventional terminology, in order to
clarify the perspectives I am discussing, I place the terms in quotation
marks (“”) in order to highlight my discomfort with their definition
and application.
2 I developed the use of
these forms following Anne Byrne's (2000) work. The Research Participant
Consent Form is signed by the participant after we have discussed issues
of confidentiality and her desired levels of participation to her satisfaction.
The Researcher Commitment Form includes all my contact details is addressed
to each participant and is signed by me.
3 There is, however a crucial
difference here in that while Markham recognized the ethical and representational
problems of such practices and amended her approach accordingly Denzin did
not.
4 Jeffreys (2000) defines
two distinct but related forms of `self-mutilation'. First, `self-mutilation
by proxy': that is where the `mutilating' act is performed by another person
(and in her definition includes female-to-male transgender surgery, body
modification, cosmetic surgery and sado-masochism). Secondly, `self-mutilation'
in `private' (behaviours which are conventionally understood as “self-injury”,
and also “mainstream” bodily practices including leg shaving
and eyebrow plucking). For Jeffreys all of these acts constitute equivalent
bodily mutilations.
5 There a number of publications
(including Strong, 2000; Harrison, 1994; 1995; Pembroke, 1994), websites
(such as woundedwings), and newsletters (SASH, for example),
which are written by and for women who have been, and are, involved in “self-injury” in which they openly share and discuss their experiences with none of the
difficulties Kilby (2001) experiences and expects. Further, and personally
speaking, nor do I share Kilby's difficulties, and I hope that my work demonstrates
and offers an alternative view of, and response to these practices.
6 To avoid imposing my
perspective on the narrative I openly explain the interpretations and connections
that occur to me during the research interaction. This enables the participants
to respond “on the record”, and to challenge, concur with, or
develop my analysis. Further, all participants receive a copy of the transcript
of our conversation upon which they may comment, clarify, add or remove information.
I offer the participants access to my work, and invite them to discuss my
ideas and analysis. 245Overall, the development of my theoretical position is
influenced, and often led, by my discussions with the participants.
7 Angrosino (1998) notes
that fiction has historically provided a rich source of analysis for social
science since it is seen to be indicative of many aspects of the social world
from which it originated. Further, recent political theorizations, such as
Queer Theory, also maintain a strong relationship with fiction. Butler (1993),
for example, argues that interrogation and re-readings of literary and cultural
texts are essential acts in the subversion of binaries of sex, gender and
sexuality.
8 Fine (1992b) also encountered
the dilemmas of using material which she felt was crucial in terms of policy
development and awareness raising, but which was problematic because she
gained it in the course of her role as a counsellor in a sexual assault unit
rather than as a researcher.
9 Kiesinger (1998), however,
wrote these poetic narratives about her participants using the first-person
voice which for me raises concerns around appropriation and representation.
10 In order to attempt to
convey something of the experience of the research interaction especially
the emotion and the unspoken and embodied meanings that are central to these
conversations I developed a system of transcribing the spoken words. My system
was influenced by Bradby (2001), Kelly (1988), Standing (1998), Silverman
(1997).
11 None of my other tattoos
affected me in this way, or at least as far as I can (or choose to?) recall.
12 This is also a play
on the title of a novel by Mary Dorcey (1997) Biography of desire.
(There is nothing of particular significance to this poem, or my work, in
the content of the novel — I did not even particularly enjoy it — rather, it is the rhythm of the title that has stayed with me.)
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NOTES
ON CONTRIBUTOR KAY INCKLE is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology,
Trinity College Dublin, where she co-teaches a course on Sociology and the
Body. She teaches Gender Studies in the NCAD in Dublin and has a Master's
degree in Women's Studies. She also facilitates training seminars around work
practices and issues related to “self-injury”.