Written by We are delighted to announce our online series of Feminist Methods Labs for Early Career Researchers.
Leah Molyneux, University of Liverpool
First up Leah Molyneux will be speaking on ‘Masking the inner-Killjoy: A Critical Feminist Perspective on Police Research’ on February 07 2024. Her research examines the influence police sergeants have over their constables’ understandings and operationalisations of discretion.
Drawing on her ethnographic doctoral research, Leah will reflect on the challenges of employing a feminist methodology when observing the police. We will discuss the fraught process of gaining trust and sustaining fragile access by betraying the self. She will use the feminist killjoy (Ahmed, 2017; 2023) as a lens to examine her response to the political and ethical dilemmas she encountered during observational fieldwork. This discussion will offer new tools for dealing with the emotional complexities of ethnographic research and will make a strong case for the possibilities and importance of conducting feminist research about the police.
Allysa Czerwinsky, University of Manchester
On March 13 2024 Allysa Czerwinsky will be speaking on ‘Balancing himpathy and critical empathy in research on male supremacist communities.’ Her research traces the narratives present in stories posted to several high-profile forums for self-identified incels, with the aim of uncovering how these stories help legitimise identity-based harm and provide additional knowledge about pathways into – and out of – inceldom.
Drawing on over six years of netnographic research in misogynist incel spaces, this session explores the tensions inherent in adopting an intersectional feminist perspective when trying to understand men who belong to unsavoury communities. Specifically, Allysa will discuss toeing the line between Manne’s (2017) concept of himpathy, or providing undue sympathy to and empathising with community members, and de Coning’s (2021) critical empathy, which affords researchers the space to empathise with – but remain critical of – users’ experiences and actions.
Nadine Shanahan, University of Liverpool
Next up Nadine Shanahan will be speaking on ‘Insta-Ethnography: Negotiating the meanings of images’ on April 17 2024. Her research explores how women navigate the standards of ‘ideal womanhood’, and how they utilise Instagram as a tool to construct their personal version of femininity.
Exploring methods of visual analysis, this session will draw upon perspectives from cultural studies, media theory, and sociology. Nadine’s methodology adopts a digital ethnographic approach, which examines 13 months of Instagram data. She will illustrate the steps taken in the analysis of this visual content. She has utilised a combination of semiotic and discourse analysis to negotiate the meanings of the imagery within the social context of ideal womanhood. Additionally, she will discuss how her position as a feminist researcher has impacted her methodology and analysis.
Malika Ben Kahla, University of Liverpool
To conclude the series Malika Ben Kahla will be speaking on ‘A mystery of iniquity… exploring career experiences of women in Universities’ on May 15 2024. Her research explores the maternal body at work, exploring the (in)equity of women in Academia through understanding career experiences.
Malika will discuss the use of semi structured, qualitative interviews, reflecting upon the methodological journey in her doctoral research. The session will explore how she approaches feminist research and attempts to embrace decolonised approaches whilst navigating research expectations within ethical boundaries. Furthermore, she will discuss how she has embraced reflexivity and highlight the impact of her positionality.
We look forward to seeing many of you there!!