Location as method

Abstract

Purpose

This paper grapples with a number of intersecting predicaments to frame a necropolitical question of who is allowed to inhabit and survive the locations of research, writing and the academy? Drawing on Lorde’s thinking about “historical amnesia” as an example of the mutually constitutive relationship between content and method, the purpose of this paper is to argue that putting a hypervigilant anti-racist remembering to work tells us that there is nothing contemporary about questions of: “why isn’t my professor black? And, why is my curriculum white?”.

Design/methodology/approach

The intersection of diverse theoretical frameworks demonstrate a transgression of disciplinary borders. This paper includes the use of conceptual frameworks such as the impossibility of hospitality, historical amnesia, habitation and location. The design of this piece also has detailed critical deconstructive discourse analysis of extracts from a published co-written chapter.

Findings

An ethic of research methodology must inhabit the aporia of the mutually constitutive relationship between method and content. Location is an intervention and method rather than a place to go or position.

Research limitations/implications

There is a need to inhabit the tension of implicated necropower relations in research and writing practices.

Practical implications

Practical implications include rethinking methodology and applications of black feminist theory to ethical issues of research and writing with specific reference to co-writing.

Social implications

There are social implications in regards to community engagement and political activism with refugees and asylum seekers.

Originality/value

This paper presents an examination of tension as methodology rather than methodology to resolve tensions based on deconstruction of issue of co-writing.

Citation

Nayak, S. (2017), "Location as method", Qualitative Research Journal, Vol. 17 No. 3, pp. 202-216. https://doi.org/10.1108/QRJ-02-2017-0004