From La Monjita to La Hormiga: Reflections on Gender, Body and Power in Fieldwork

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2021

Publisher

Taylor & Francis (Routledge)

Source Publication

Geopolitics

Source ISSN

1465-0045

Abstract

Ethnography is widely accepted to be an embodied and experiential form of knowledge production. Gender, in particular, shapes fieldwork, influencing relationships between participants and researchers, access, and observation, and intersecting with race, class, nationality, sexuality, and other identity categories. Building on a rich tradition of reflexive feminist scholarship that explores this intersectionality, this article discusses how my own corporeal transformation to a muscular powerlifter changed both the nature of my fieldwork relationships and my research strategies over the course of a decade of local engagement in El Salvador. Ultimately, I argue that the embodied consequences of fieldwork and their challenge to patriarchy must be undertaken alongside research participants. Together we are collectively re-imagining gender.

Comments

Geopolitics, Vol. 26, No. 1 (2021): 118-138. DOI.

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