Researching the urban reflexively
Feminist methodological issues
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.64166/detgrj64Abstract
This article offers a critically reflexive approach to conducting feminist geographical research on and with feminist activists and activism in Milan. It addresses embodied methodologies in geographical research and draws on reflexivity as a specifically feminist methodology for explaining the kind of relation which exists among the "objects" of research. Researching reflexively means acknowledging that the bodily presence of the researcher, her/his subjectivity, identity and knowledge influence, interact with and modify the field of study, helping discard the notion of "objective research." It is well known that women have been depicted as the "other", trapped in their bodily experience, by mainstream scientific knowledge. Feminist epistemologies, such as politics of location, embodied knowledges and positionality, put forward a way to reappropriate the body as a primary tool of inquiry in order to conduct reflexive research. In Italian feminism, separatist practices and consciousness raising have been a poignant example of the use of the body as a vector of knowledge. The materiality of researching using intercorporeal embodied methodologies is addressed by drawing on both methods and objects of research that use embodied methodologies in order to mobilize knowledge when researching feminist spatial practices in Milan.
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