Researching from Home, Inside, and the Online: Methodological Lessons from the Pandemic

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented challenges across many areas of work, including research. As adaptations arose in relation to the inaccessibility of sites, international travel, and other in-person dependent avenues of research, there has been opportunity for geographers to allow these pandemic-based adjustments to evolve general practice. In this article, I propose three frameworks stemming from feminist geographic methods and the dedication of the street artists I was researching to continuing their own work. I introduce researching from home to challenge and reimagine the geographer’s relationship to the field and consider the home as the spatial context of lockdown measures. I put these online methods in conversation with researching the online to highlight the plethora of material for social scientists to turn to when access to the field is interrupted. This article challenges what it means to do geographic research by presenting inclusive participation options for marginalized voices of researchers and participants to be incorporated into the discipline. In doing so, the article questions how to define the research field and how to define the home as the field.

新冠疫情给科研等许多工作领域带来了挑战。疫情期间, 由于缺乏实地考察、国际旅行等需要亲身体验的研究途径, 地理学出现了适应。地理学家有望将疫情期间的这些适应, 发展成为一般性方法。基于女权主义地理学方法和我研究的街头艺术家继续工作的奉献精神, 我提出了三个框架。引入了“居家研究”, 以挑战和重新想象地理学家与领域的关系, 将家视为封锁措施的空间背景。结合了在线方法和在线研究, 突出了社会科学家在访问中断时可以采用的大量材料。为了使研究人员和参与者的边缘化声音参与到学科中, 我展示了包容性的参与方式, 从而挑战了地理学研究的意义。由此, 本文质疑了如何定义研究领域、如何将家定义为研究领域。

La pandemia del COVID-19 ha planteado una serie de retos en muchas áreas de trabajo, incluida la investigación. En la medida de la aparición de adaptaciones con relación a la inaccesibilidad de los lugares, el viaje internacional y otras avenidas de investigación dependientes de la presencialidad, para los geógrafos surge la oportunidad de incorporar esos ajustes promovidos por la pandemia a la práctica general. En este artículo propongo tres marcos derivados de los métodos de las geografías feministas y de la dedicación de los artistas de calle, que estaba investigando, a continuar con su propio trabajo. Presento el hacer investigación desde la casa para retar y reimaginar la relación del geógrafo con el campo y considerar el hogar como el contexto espacial de las medidas del confinamiento. Pongo estos métodos en línea en conversación con la investigación en línea para relievar la plétora de materiales a los que pueden acudir los científicos sociales, cuando el acceso al campo se interrumpe. Este artículo pone en tela de juicio lo que significa hacer investigación geográfica, presentando opciones de participación inclusiva a las voces marginadas de investigadores y participantes para ser incorporados en la disciplina. Al hacerlo, el artículo cuestiona el modo de definir el campo de investigación y cómo definir al hogar como el campo.

Key Words:

• feminist methods
• interview sites
• online methods
• researching from home
• social media

关键词:

• 女权主义方法
• 访谈地点
• 在线方法
• 居家研究
• 社交媒体

Palabras clave:

• medios sociales
• métodos en línea
• métodos feministas
• investigar desde la casa
• sitios de entrevistas

Acknowledgments

I thank my graduate community at the University of Washington for guidance in moving this article into its current iteration, as well as the graduate community at the George Washington University for their support and collaboration in adapting our research during the pandemic.

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

Notes

1 Throughout this text I use colleuse(s) to reference this group. The term translates rather clunkily in English to female gluers. I use this term as the movement itself does not have a consistent defined name, and reflexively chose how interviewees referred to themselves and one another. Stylistically I have left this term unitalicized because I treat colleuses as a proper noun, a name, and I would not italicize another artist’s name such as Leonardo da Vinci. I locate colleuses as a transnational movement throughout languages, including English, and thus do not wish to make distinct nor romanticize the term as French.

2 Research on why social groups prefer certain social media platforms or content medium has yet to be published.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Madalena Monnier-Reyna

MADALENA MONNIER-REYNA is a PhD Student in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include the intersections of place, feminist movements, art, identity construction and performance, and social media.