Beyond phenomenology: embodiment in qualitative research

Abstract

This chapter looks back at the intellectual traditions within which embodiment is situated, that is, the phenomenological tradition on the one hand and the overcoming of the phenomenological tradition through Foucauldian understandings of the body on the other. It interrogates embodied research by looking at the embodied positionalities of researcher and research participants during the research process. It discusses affect and the sensory as examples of embodied epistemologies that stem from phenomenology and post-phenomenology, and the specific contribution of feminist research to embodiment theory is highlighted. Attempts at embodying research are becoming more common and the field is expanding in several directions. The chapter engages with the origin of this approach and with its current debates.