I am very happy in the new communal space I was allocated, especially as my desk is very near the radiator.

While I initially had planned to write a paper on feminist epistemologies for January and another on methodological issues of feminist studies of media and technology,

I changed course (they were too general and I wanted to concentrate on some reading I did not have the time to during the autumn term). One paper I worked on is on intersectionality, especially about its methodological implications. I am looking at how

intersectionality as a theory transforms social research methodology, examining the link between intersectionality as an epistemological strand in feminism and as production of knowledge with the research process (I use Leslie McCall’s typology of studies of intersectionality).

The other paper I have been working on is on queer methodologies- in particular how has ‘queer’ been used (and could be used) in research. This includes an exploration of existing work that uses queer studies-how the researcher emerges from the study, what kinds of methods are actually used and what the limitations are. The paper concentrates in methods and includes mostly studies of sexuality. (I look into Halberstam’s ‘Female Masculinities’, Driver, Susan. Ed. (2008) ‘Queer Youth Cultures’  and Kath Browne’s various papers- and Seidman’s (1996) collection ‘Queer Theory +Sociology’- the paper is not intended to be an overview, just a selective approach about the issues that may arise when doing research). There is short discussion about ‘queering’ and I am in parallel thinking about what ‘queer’ means to me (whose first language is not English), about queer geographies and diasporas-but these are not discussed in depth in the paper.

I am planning to do some work on ‘queering’ (in relation to other studies apart from sexualities) in the spring term. Apart from that, my reading plan is primarily focused on technoscience (Barad, Braidotti, Butler, Deleuze and Guattari, Haraway, McNeil, Annemarie Mol, Sunden, Lykke and others)- also using the Lancaster ‘researching technoscience’ reading list – and the stockholm resources. I am taking a social research course this term -on qualitative methods- so I plan to write my paper in April on methodological issues of feminist technoscience studies.

references

McCall, L. (2005) ‘The Complexity of Intersectionality’, Signs 30(3): 1771–800.

Sociological Research Online, Volume 13, Issue 1, <http://www.socresonline.org.uk/13/1