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QUALITATIVE RESEARCHER
VULNERABILITY
Negotiating, Experiencing and
Embracing

Edited by Bryan C. Clift, Ioannis Costas Batlle,

Sheree Bekker and Katharina Chudzikowski
Designed cover image: Photo by marianna armata / Getty Images
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Title: Qualitative researcher vulnerability : negotiating, experiencing and
embracing / edited by Bryan C. Clift, Ioannis Costas Batlle, Sheree
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DOI: 10.4324/9781003349266
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CONTENTS

List of Illustrations vii

List of Contributors viii
Acknowledgements xv

Introduction: The Relevance and Importance of

Researcher Vulnerability in Qualitative Research 1
Bryan C. Clift, Ioannis Costas Batlle, Kia Banks, Josie Rodohan,
Sheree Bekker, and Katharina Chudzikowski

1 Vulnerability, the Pursuit of Knowledge, and the Humanity

of Doing Research 26
Milli Lake and Alexandra C. Hartman

SECTION I
Strategies for Negotiating Researcher Vulnerability 41

2 Research Journaling to Deal with Vulnerabilities in Research 43

Nicole Brown

3 Qualitative Analysis in Online Research: Protecting against

Researcher Vulnerabilities 58
Olivia Brown, Julie Gore, and Adam Joinson

4 Supporting Emotionally Demanding Research: Developing

Guidance for a University Research Centre 77
Susie Smillie and Julie Riddell
vi Contents

5 Addressing Researcher Vulnerability with the Trauma and

Resilience Informed Research Principles and Practices
Framework 94
Natalie Edelman

SECTION II
Experiences of Researcher Vulnerability 121

6 Sticking Your Head above the Parapet: On the Importance

of Researcher Resilience in Auto/Biographical Writing 123
Kate Woodthorpe

7 Affecting Accounts: Autobiographical Memoirs and the

Vulnerable Researcher 134
Cassie Lowe

8 Researcher, Fighter, Cunt: Vulnerability and Violence in

the MMA Field 149
Zoe John

9 Ethnographic Vulnerabilities: Power, Politics, and Possibility 165

Devra Waldman, Michael Dao, Hugo Ceron-Anaya, and
Michael D. Giardina

SECTION III
Embracing Researcher Vulnerability 187

10 Femme Praxis: Using Femme Theory to Foster

Vulnerability within Research Design and Institutions 189
Rhea Ashley Hoskin and Lilith A. Whiley

11 Framing Transdisciplinary Research as an Assemblage:

A Case Study from a Mental Health Setting 206
Mark Batterham and Aled Singleton

12 ‘Please Explain to Me How I’m Vulnerable’: Learning

How to Rework Experiences of Researcher Vulnerability
by Listening Carefully to Care-Experienced Young People 222
Dawn Mannay

Index 238
ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures
2.1 Two Parts of a Whole 49
2.2 Two Parts of a Whole 2 49
3.1 Overview of the Framework to Protect against Research Vulnerabilities
in Online Research 63
8.1 Fighting Phallusy 155
10.1 Gendered Mentoring 198

Table
5.1 Principles Nine and Ten of the Trauma and Resilience
Informed Research Principles and Practices Framework 102
CONTRIBUTORS

Kia Banks is a Research Assistant at the Centre for Qualitative Research and a
student on the BA (Hons) Education with Psychology course at the University
of Bath. Her current primary interests lie in epistemic injustices, climate justice,
and curricula analysis each understood through an educational and sociocultural
anthropological lens. Kia hopes to contribute to research and policy analysis in
education post university.

Mark Batterham is a Registered Nurse and currently works in a specialist com-

munity mental health service in the south of England. He has a background of
working with young people with complex needs, as well as their families and car-
ers. Mark has studied Housing Policy and Urban Planning at the master’s level and
volunteers for a neighbourhood planning group. He is also a keen amateur housing
historian and leads local group walks focusing on this topic. Mark is interested
in how mental health services can broaden and enhance their understanding and
treatment provision by utilising and adapting knowledge and methods from other
disciplines, specifically human geography and urban studies.

Sheree Bekker is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in the Department for

Health at the University of Bath. She is a member of the Centre for Qualitative
Research, Centre for Health and Injury and Illness Prevention in Sport (CHI2PS),
and UK Collaborating Centre on Injury and Illness Prevention in Sport (UKCCIIS).
Her transdisciplinary research focuses on (feminist) Sport and Exercise Medicine,
with specialisation in sports injury prevention. Her current research is comprised
of two key strands: 1) understanding the influence of gendered environments on
sports injury and 2) conceptualising gender inclusive sport. She takes a translational
approach to this research, with the aim of providing innovative considerations that
are useful in policy and practice. Sheree is an Associate Editor of the British Journal
 Contributors ix

of Sports Medicine, and a Qualitative Research Editor of BMJ Open Sport and
Exercise Medicine. She completed a Prize Research Fellowship in Injury Prevention
at the University of Bath from 2018 to 2020, and received the 2019 British Journal
of Sports Medicine Editors’ Choice Academy Award for her PhD research.

Nicole Brown is a writer, social researcher, and Associate Professor working on the
cusp of research/practice/teaching. She is Director of Social Research & Practice and
Education Ltd and Associate Professor at University College London. Nicole’s creative
and research work relate to physical and material representations of experiences, the
generation of knowledge, the use of metaphors, and more generally, research methods
and approaches to explore identity and body work. Her books include Lived Experiences
of Ableism in Academia: Strategies for Inclusion in Higher Education, Ableism in Academia:
Theorising Experiences of Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses in Higher Education, Embodied
Inquiry: Research Methods, and Making the Most of Your Research Journal. Her next books
are Creativity in Education: International Perspectives and Photovoice, Reimagined. Nicole’s
creative nonfiction has been published in the Journal of Participatory Research Methods,
So Fi Zine and The AutoEthnographer. Nicole shares her work at https://www.nicole-
brown.co.uk and she tweets as @ncjbrown and @AbleismAcademia.

Olivia Brown is Assistant Professor in Organizational Behaviour at the University

of Bath, School of Management. She is a social psychologist, interested in how
intra- and inter-group processes influence individual and group behaviour. Her
award-winning research has two core strands—identifying what supports effective
teamwork and decision-making in uncertain and stressful environments and exam-
ining how online interactions can influence offline behaviour. Olivia serves on the
Editorial Board of the Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology and is a
member of the Bath Beacon, The Value of Data, that considers how the cultural, eco-
nomic, and psychological value of digital traces can deliver positive societal impacts.

Hugo Ceron-Anaya is Associate Professor of Sociology at Lehigh University,

USA. His work focuses on social inequalities and privilege, examining how notion
of whiteness (within a Latin American context), perceptions of masculinity, and
class dynamics impact the behaviour of affluent people. He is particularly interested
in the wide array of ordinary and everyday practices that reproduce privilege. He
is the author of Privilege at Play: Class, Race, Gender, and Golf in Mexico (Oxford
University Press, 2019), which received the 2020 Outstanding Book Award from
the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport. His work has also been
published in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography,
Latin American and Caribbean Ethnic Studies, and Esporte e Sociedade.

Katharina Chudzikowski is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Organisation

Studies at the University of Bath, School of Management. Her research explores
careers in a variety of contexts, including professionals in the area of consultancy
and academia as well as former apprentices in the respective professional context.
x Contributors

Bryan C. Clift is Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) and Director of the Centre
for Qualitative Research (CQR) in the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences
and Department for Health at the University of Bath, UK. His research is oriented
around sport and physical activity in relation to the cultural economy and qualita-
tive inquiry. He recently co-edited with Alan Tomlinson Populism in Sport, Leisure,
and Popular Culture (Routledge, 2021), and with colleagues in the CQR Temporality
in Qualitative Inquiry (Routledge, 2021).

Ioannis Costas Batlle is Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in the Department of

Education at the University of Bath, and a Co-Director of the Centre for Qualitative
Research. His research qualitatively explores the role of non-formal and informal
education in young people’s lives, particularly looking at both structured learning
opportunities and unplanned, spontaneous opportunities outside school environ-
ments. Ioannis’ experience researching young people’s lives focuses primarily on
charities, youth groups, youth sport, and young people not in education, employ-
ment, or training.

Michael Dao is Assistant Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of

Kinesiology at San José State University, USA. His research interests are rooted in
sport as tool for development internationally, and sport studies in Vietnam and the
Vietnamese diaspora. He is an advocate for equitable and diverse practices in sport and
physical activity, and aims to build bridges between the Department of Kinesiology
and communities around San José to address social barriers that may prohibit mar-
ginalized from participating in sporting spaces. His work has been published in a
variety of journals, including Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise, & Health, Journal
of Sport Development, Journal of Global Sport Management, and Third World Thematics.

Natalie Edelman is an Independent Consultant in Trauma-informed Research,

Service Support & Training and Principal Research Fellow at the University of
Brighton. Natalie’s training is primarily epidemiological and as a mixed methods
researcher she has explored the application of criticality to quantitative methods,
and augmentations to research ethics conventions that aim to improve inclusivity
and participant experience. During her career, she has researched community-based
syphilis and HIV testing, the sexual health needs of women with problematic drug
use and care experienced young people, integration of hepatitis care within drug
treatment services, and psychosocial predictors of sexual and reproductive health.
Her current interests and expertise focus on clinical prediction modelling, the
interface between the population and the individual and the application of trauma
and resilience informed approaches to sexual health research and care.

Michael D. Giardina is Professor of Physical Culture and Qualitative Inquiry in

the Department of Sport Management at Florida State University, USA. He is the
author or editor of 24 books, including The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Research
(6th ed.; with Norman K. Denzin, Yvonna S. Lincoln, and Gaile S. Cannella, 2023),
 Contributors xi

Qualitative Inquiry—Past, Present, & Future (with Norman K. Denzin; Routledge,

2015), and the award-winning Sport, Spectacle, and NASCAR Nation: Consumption
and the Cultural Politics of Neoliberalism (with Joshua Newman; Palgrave Macmillan,
2011). He is a two-time recipient of the North American Society for the Sociology
of Sport (NASSS) ‘Outstanding Book Award’ (2006, 2012), and a 2017 inductee as
a NASSS Research Fellow. He is the co-editor of three SAGE journals—Qualitative
Inquiry, Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies, and International Review of Qualitative
Research—past-editor of the Sociology of Sport Journal, co-editor of three book series
on qualitative inquiry for Routledge, and Director of the International Congress of
Qualitative Inquiry (ICQI).

Julie Gore is Professor of Organizational Psychology in the Department of

Organizational Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London. Previously, she was
Director of the Centre for Qualitative Research (CRR), University of Bath, UK,
and now an external affiliate. A Chartered Psychologist and Fellow of the British
Psychological Society, her research focus is on the psychology of expertise and
naturalistic decision-making (NDM) across a range of professions working under
uncertainty. An expert in cognitive task analysis, Prof. Gore is Editor for Journal of
Occupational and Organizational Psychology, Associate Editor of the Journal of Cognitive
Engineering and Decision Making, and serves on the board of the British Journal of
Management. Prof. Gore holds a PhD in applied cognitive psychology (one of the
world’s first in the field of NDM) from Oxford Brookes University, UK. For her
most influential work see—The Oxford Handbook of Expertise.

Alexandra C. Hartman is Associate Professor in the Department of Political

Science at UCL in London. She completed her PhD in Political Science at Yale
University in 2015, and her research and writing explore local property rights, the
causes and consequences of forced displacement, and methodology.

Rhea Ashley Hoskin is an AMTD Global Talent Postdoctoral Fellow at the University
of Waterloo and St. Jerome’s, where she is cross-appointed to the departments of
Sociology & Legal Studies, and Sexuality, Marriage, & Family Studies. Hoskin’s
work focuses on Critical Femininities, Femme Theory, and femmephobia. More
specifically, her work examines perceptions of femininity and sources of preju-
dice rooted in the devaluation or regulation of femininity, as well as strategies for
revaluing and rethinking femininity. Hoskin completed her MA in Gender Studies
and her PhD in Sociology from Queen’s University. In 2019, she was awarded the
Governor General’s Academic Gold Medal at Queen’s University for her work on
Femme Theory. Dr. Hoskin is an associate editor of Psychology & Sexuality, and
co-founder of LGBTQ Psychology Canada.

Zoe John is Lecturer in Criminology at Swansea University, with a particular inter-

est in ethnography, gender, and sporting violence. Her previous research focussed
on gender, violence, and embodiment in mixed martial arts (MMA), including a
xii Contributors

flexible research role in which she participated in MMA. These outlined areas of
interest were central not just to the sport of MMA but to bodies in everyday life,
including sexual harassment, boundaries of humour, and the liminality of violence
in interaction. Zoe continues to research and teach in these areas.

Adam Joinson is Professor of Management at the University of Bath. His work

focuses on the interaction between human behaviour and technology, with specific
foci on issues of how the design of systems influences behaviour ranging across pri-
vacy and self-disclosure, cyber-security, social relations, and patterns of influence.

Milli Lake is a feminist, a researcher, and Associate Professor at the London School
of Economics’ Department of International Relations. She completed her PhD in
Political Science at the University of Washington in 2014, and her research and
writing focuses on political violence, institutions, and methodology.

Cassie Lowe is Senior Teaching Associate at the University of Cambridge in the

Cambridge Centre for Teaching and Learning. Prior to Cambridge, Cassie was a
Senior Researcher in Learning and Teaching at the University of Winchester, where
she taught on the MA Learning and Teaching in Higher Education and was the lead
Editor for the student research journal Alfred. In the scholarship of Learning and
Teaching, Cassie’s research interests are student engagement, students as partners,
and curriculum development. Cassie’s doctorate research brought together Julia
Kristeva and Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theories to advance the theory of
abjection through exploring repetition compulsion and life writing.

Dawn Mannay is Reader in Social Sciences (Psychology) at Cardiff University,

Wales, UK. Her research interests include class, gender, education, and inequal-
ity, and she employs creative participatory methods in her work with communi-
ties. Dawn’s publications include Visual, Narrative and Creative Research Methods:
Application, Reflection and Ethics (2016), Our Changing Land: Revisiting Gender,
Class and Identity in Contemporary Wales (2016); Emotion and the Researcher: Sites,
Subjectivities, and Relationships (with Tracey Loughran, 2018), Children and Young
People ‘Looked After’? Education, Intervention and the Everyday Culture of Care in
Wales (with Alyson Rees and Louise Roberts, 2019); The SAGE Handbook of
Visual Research Methods (with Luc Pauwels, 2019); and Creative Research Methods
in Education: Principles and Practices (with Helen Kara, Narelle Lemon and Megan
McPherson, 2020). Dawn is committed to moving beyond academic publications
to generate policy and practice impacts and draws on film, artwork, and music to
engage with diverse audiences.

Julie Riddell originally started as a research assistant within Education Services at

Glasgow City Council. She has been a research assistant within the MRC/CSO
Social and Public Health Sciences Unit since 2013 and currently works within
the Social Relationships and Health Improvement Programme. Julie has worked
 Contributors xiii

on a variety of projects within the unit and is particularly interested in menstru-

ation and its impact across the lifecourse. Julie also has an interest in the use of
creativity in research, both in the research process and dissemination. Alongside
Susie Smillie, she coordinates the Emotionally Demanding Research Network in
Scotland.

Josie Rodohan is a Research Assistant at the Centre of Qualitative Research and

also studying BSc (Hons) in Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Bath.
Her research interests include the sociology of work, power relationships, and pen-
sion policy. She aims to pursue a career within policymaking related to work and
pensions.

Aled Singleton is a Research Officer in the Geography Department at Swansea

University. He has a background in managing place-based projects, including com-
munity and urban renewal schemes for local government and arts-led regeneration
in the third sector. His PhD (2021) focuses on the attachments to place that indi-
viduals make as they grow up, through early adulthood and how people nego-
tiate moving home in older age. Aled is committed to developing and teaching
techniques in spatially led conversations and outdoor walking interviews, helping
researchers and individuals to connect with deeply held emotions and memories.
Such approaches were deployed in the case explored within this book, reveal-
ing rich details of everyday organisational practice that may otherwise be hard to
explore. In his wider work, Aled uses creative writing and collaborations with artists
to stage public events and make films. Aled has an ongoing relationship with Mark
and colleagues working in mental health.

Susie Smillie studied medicine, then psychology, going on to work in counselling

and therapeutic settings in the NHS and third sector before joining the MRC/
CSO Social and Public Health Sciences at University of Glasgow in 2010. As a
qualitative research assistant there she worked on evaluations of a range of interven-
tions including those focussed on reducing suicidal behaviour, and on improving
social and emotional wellbeing in primary school pupils. She is now a PhD stu-
dent in sociology at University of Glasgow researching young people’s wellbeing
and creativity during school holidays. Alongside Julie Riddell, she coordinates the
Emotionally Demanding Research Network in Scotland.

Devra Waldman is Assistant Professor in the Department of Sport Management at

Florida State University, USA. She has conducted ethnographic research in India,
Italy, and the UK on questions of sport and urban geographies. Her work has been
published in academic journals such as International Review for the Sociology of Sport,
International Journal of Urban and Regional Research and Geoforum, as well as in books
such as The Palgrave Handbook of Feminisms in Sport, Leisure, and Physical Activity, The
Routledge Handbook of Physical Cultural Studies, and The Routledge Handbook of Sport
and Politics.
xiv Contributors

Lilith A. Whiley is Senior Lecturer and interdisciplinary researcher in Occupational

and Organisational Psychology (Management) at the University of Sussex Business
School. Her work brings together Occupational Psychology, HRM, and Social
Psychology to explore inequalities at work and improve inclusion in the work-
place—and beyond. Lilith is especially interested in ‘otherness’, vulnerabilities, and
the intersection of stigmatising identities.

Kate Woodthorpe is Reader in Sociology in the Department of Social and Policy

Sciences at the University of Bath, where she is Director of the Centre for Death
and Society, the UK’s leading interdisciplinary research centre devoted to under-
standing the social contexts of death, dying, and bereavement. She has undertaken
research and published on funeral practice, costs, and family at the end of life, and
has advised the UK and Scottish governments on funeral policy.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Over the last several years, students, research assistants, and professional and aca-
demic staff have come together to create and develop the Centre for Qualitative
Research (CQR) at the University of Bath. The Centre engages in several activities
within the University and outside of its walls, all of which coalesce around educa-
tion and training, industry collaboration, and research. One of our primary activi-
ties is hosting the Qualitative Research Symposium (QRS), an annual Symposium that
is organised around one common theme. The Symposium is intended to be a space
for qualitative researchers across all disciplines to come together to discuss, debate,
explore, transfer, and translate their knowledge and understanding of qualitative
research across our respective disciplines, institutions, organisations, and contexts.
To date, the Symposium has hosted more than 900 participants across the spectrum
of career stages, and we hope will continue to attract the research voices of multiple,
diverse individuals and groups.
The impetus for this book grows out of the eighth annual QRS hosted at the
University of Bath in February 2022. The theme for the 2022 Symposium was
Researcher Vulnerability. Leading up to, throughout, and after the Symposium, we
reviewed several resources on the topic (many of which are incorporated here). In
reading the diversity of scholarship on vulnerability across disciplines, and in see-
ing the limited exploration of vulnerability in relation to the qualitative researcher
(although this is changing…), this book became a way to focus on how researcher
vulnerability is framed, negotiated, experienced, managed, or embraced. We feel
it is a useful contribution to how qualitative researchers think about themselves in
relation to their work and participants.
We hope that this book becomes a supplementary text for undergraduate,
postgraduate students, and researchers who are utilising qualitative research in
their teaching and research. It will be especially useful for researchers examining
xvi Acknowledgements

(potentially) sensitive topics, or for those who wish to develop more responsive,
responsible, ethical, or reciprocal approaches to qualitative research practices.
As with all Symposia, there is a tremendous amount of support and work that
goes into a successful event. That collective effort in turn creates the possibility
for this book. At the University of Bath, several people have provided support for
the 2022 QRS. Institutional support from David Galbreath, former Dean of the
Faculty of Humanity and Social Sciences, and Neil Bannister and Ana Bullock
in the Doctoral College make the event feasible within the institution. In the
Department for Health, Fiona Gillison, former Head of Department, has consist-
ently supported the Symposium in a variety of ways, all of which enabled us to
work on this collective project. Administratively, Michelle Hicks, Stephen Coles,
Krisztina Perecsenyi, and Harriet Fender provide indispensable guidance and assis-
tance in several forms. For the 2022 QRS, a postgraduate team helps organise
and facilitate the event, including: Amber Van Den Akker, Hala Alaouie, Sarra
Boukhari, Katharina Hug, Imene Taibi, and Emrah Yildirim. Each attendee and
presenter created the atmosphere wherein sharing, discussing, and exploring qual-
itative research takes shape. Notable at the event this year was Milli Lake, whose
keynote talk prompted thought-provoking considerations of power within quali-
tative research in relation to vulnerability, and Nicole Brown, whose plenary ses-
sion offered insight into how we all might utilise researcher journaling to monitor,
inspect, and negotiate vulnerability.
To all authors in this text: We are grateful to each of you for working with us on
this interdisciplinary project. The lingering effects of COVID-19 continued around
us all in various ways while working on this book. Your care, insight, and effort
to bring this collaborative project to fruition were both supportive and inspiring.
At Routledge/Taylor & Francis, we continue to enjoy and appreciate the sub-
lime Hannah Shakespeare and Matt Bickerton for their help in numerous ways, and
to Lucy Kennedy for helping us finish this project.
We would also like to particularly recognise two indispensable, wonderful, and
now-missed research assistants with the CQR during the 2021–2022 academic
year, Kia Banks and Josie Rodohan. Additionally, we appreciate the constructive
feedback from Jessica Francombe-Webb on earlier drafts of the introduction.
As another product of the CQR, we are continually inspired by the collective
and conscientious ethos of everyone involved. You can find the CQR on Twitter
@CQRBath or the University of Bath website.
Bryan C. Clift, Ioannis Costas Batlle, Sheree Bekker,
and Katharina Chudzikowski (Editors)
November 2022
INTRODUCTION
The relevance and importance of researcher
vulnerability in qualitative research

Bryan C. Clift, Ioannis Costas Batlle, Kia Banks,

Josie Rodohan, Sheree Bekker, and
Katharina Chudzikowski

Researchers as vulnerable?
Thinking of researchers as vulnerable has received limited attention in the qualita-
tive research process. From the early stages of planning through to the reporting and
lasting presence, qualitative projects more frequently bring considerations of ethics
and risk to the fore more so than vulnerability. Relatedly, risk and vulnerability are
often conflated. Whilst the risk and vulnerability of participants are considered in
some projects, consideration of the vulnerability of the researcher as related to but
distinctive from risk in the process is rarely discussed. Still fewer consider how vul-
nerability can or might be thought of as something more than that which to protect
or guard against, but also as an aspect to embrace, think with, or work with.
Here, we foreground the vulnerability of the qualitative researcher. In doing so,
we suggest that vulnerability is more than a state or condition. Rather, like eth-
ics, risk, or empathy, vulnerability and specifically researcher vulnerability is another
means through which to think about our research, ourselves within it, and where
human participants are involved our relationship with them.
To begin this exploration of vulnerability, we set out to respond to several
questions:

• What is meant by vulnerability and researcher vulnerability?

• What is the difference between risk and vulnerability?
• How is vulnerability related to ethics and risk?
• How do our emotions intertwine with vulnerability?
• Should researchers be vulnerable? How do we plan or prepare for this?
• What do we make of our own vulnerability?
• If we ask participants to be vulnerable in some respects, should we also ask this
of ourselves? Can or should we embrace vulnerability?

DOI: 10.4324/9781003349266-1