Postcards from Hidden Worlds: Secrecy, Refusal, and Radical Hospitality in Researching Childhood Multispecies Secret Places

This methodologically focused article traces the development and implementation of an anonymous-postcards method for gathering data on childhood multispecies secret places while attuning to their constitutive secrecy. Grounded in postqualitative inquiry and research creation and shaped by the enabling constraints of anonymity, age, and materiality, the method invites memories of secret places to be shared anonymously via postcards. Yet, as the research unfolded, unexpected (non)arrivals redirected the focus. In response, the article discusses (radical) hospitality as a methodological and ethical response that (un)conditionally welcomes refusals and their silent, excessive, and ghostly modes of participation, data, and knowledge.