Beyond positionality: the role and impact of researcher emotion in the research process

Workshop summary

The workshop has been designed to explore and reflect on the role and impact of researcher emotion on the research process.  While it is now commonplace in publications to report care-full research designs that take into consideration participant needs and reflect on researcher positionality, researcher emotion is often left out of this. Similarly, research ethics processes focus on participant safety and wellbeing while the emotional impact on the researcher tends not to be addressed.  However, many sociological research topics (arguably all sociological topics) deal with sensitive and emotive issues such as health and illness, death and dying, migration, sexuality, bodies, and kinship to name just a few. 

Engagement with such topics can and does have an emotional impact on the researcher whether positive negative or somewhere in between.  It is this emotional affect and the consequent impact on the research process that we are interested in exploring in this workshop.  Our speakers will discuss current sociological literature addressing researcher emotion, will draw on their own experiences, will offer a way forward and will encourage you to do the same. Building on momentum from the workshop we hope to develop a researcher emotions network to support researchers and encourage delegates to be involved in the co-production of this.

The workshop will open with an introduction and overview of the sociological literature to address researcher emotion.  This will be delivered by the workshop convenors (Victoria Cluley, Pru Hobson-West, Kat Salter, Elisabetta Zontini and Elena Genova – all based at The School of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Nottingham)

This workshop is funded by Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness, and supported by three of the School of Sociology and Social Policy's research centres: Wellbeing, Health and Social Care Research (WHSCR) Centre, Identities, Citizenship, Equalities and Migration Centre, and Institute for Science and Society.

Speakers

• Dr Elisabetta Zontini and Dr Elena Genova
• Dr Hazel Marzetti
• Professor Kate Reed, Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield
• Dr Laura Towers, Sheffield Methods Institute, University of Sheffield

Programme

The first session of the day will be delivered by Dr Elisabetta Zontini (University of Florence) and Dr Elena Genova (University of Nottingham), who will talk about how migration scholarship can become more equitable, inclusive, and attuned to the power dynamics inherent in research processes, with similar debates taking place across the social sciences. The presentation is entitled 'Why emotional reflexivity matters for knowledge production: lessons from migration studies'.

Before lunch, Professor Kate Reed and Dr Laura Towers will talk about the experiences of two academics at different career stages conducting research on sensitive topics (baby loss and post-mortem and sibling bereavement) to explore the role of emotions in research. It considers experiences of ‘managing’ diverse emotions in research (from pride to heartbreak) across the entire research journey (from participant recruitment through to dissemination and impact).

After lunch Dr Hazel Marzetti will deliver a creative session where delegates will be encouraged to reflect on their own emotions and how they are implicated in the research process.

The workshop will close with an open discussion focused on the co-production of a researcher emotion network. Below is a draft programme for the event: