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As this volume testifies, emotions are currently an important focus of research in several social science disciplines. And yet, as Rebekah Widdowfield (2000) has recently noted, there remains considerable reluctance to discuss the emotional impact of research on researchers themselves, at least in print. There are, of course, exceptions (see for example Hunt 1989; Meth with Malaza 2003; Parr 1998; Laurier and Parr 2000; Wilkins 1993; Young and Lee 1996), but it is probably fair to say that researchers’ emotions are spoken about in numerous informal conversations, such as those that follow seminars and conference papers, to a disproportionately greater extent than is acknowledged in published accounts of research. Moreover, in so far as researchers’ emotions are explored in print, discussion tends to be limited in terms of both the kinds of research and the range of feelings included.1 With respect to the former, Rebekah Widdowfield (2000, 201) is typical in linking the relevance of consideration of researchers’ emotions to the use of qualitative research methods, which bring ‘researchers into direct contact with their research subjects through for example, interviews, ethnographies, and life histories’. With respect to the latter, Elizabeth Young and Raymond Lee (1996, 111) argue that ‘the emotions expressed in fieldwork accounts tend to be negatively cast, or they express difficulties which are finally managed’, while Eric Laurier and Hester Parr (2000, 99) assert that anxiety is ‘the classic interviewer’s emotion’. Anxiety certainly exudes from several published accounts (not only those that discuss interviews), such as Ruth Wilkins’ (1993) discussion of researchers’ emotions as sensitising and interpretive resources, Kim England’s (1994) reflections on abandoning a research project, and Hester Parr’s (1998) exploration of methodological aspects of research about psychiatric service users.
Liz Bondi (Sat,) studied this question.