Putting Emotion and Reflexivity to Work in Researching Migration

Abstract

Recent debates within sociology and feminist theory have identified a need for reflexive research and noted the importance of emotion in the researcher's relationship to the object of research and the research process.This article contributes to these debates by arguing that emotionally mediated apprehensions of the object of study and the practice of critical reflexivity in sociological research cannot be separated. This is because emotional identifications and attachments are central to the (re)framing of the object of study and the politics of knowledge production. Thus, attempts to find more reliable grounds for knowledge claims must be located in the interrelated landscapes of feeling, intellect and politics.