Undermining the Sanitized Account. Violence and Emotionality in the Field in Northern Ireland
Posted: 16 Jul 2008
Date Written: 2001
Abstract
The experience of researching violence is underpinned by experiences of emotionality. Yet such emotionality is considered at best peripheral to the substance of our research or even our 'confessional tales'. This paper is interested in the ways emotionality has been so easily ignored in most criminological work and the ways it was impossible to ignore during a study of women, policing and resistance in Northern Ireland. Examining the impact of emotionality on the experience of researching violence offers a way to challenge traditional distinctions between reason and emotion and suggests that there are serious theoretical and epistemological consequences in ignoring the many roles of emotion in our research. In this paper I identify the ways emotionality is central to understanding the experience of researching violence.
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