Sexualised researchers in ethnographic encounters: towards feminist approaches of fieldwork training and representation

Despite decades of feminist critique on androcentric biases in academia, mainstream academic literature and training of ethnographic research typically neglects the gendered and sexualised dynamics between researchers and interlocutors, in particular the prevalence of sexualised harassment in fieldwork settings. This article outlines why this topic remains overlooked within anthropological training and education and, more importantly, how we can move towards a more inclusive approach to signalling, acknowledging, and processing these experiences as an integral element of ethnography. We contend that this encompasses an epistemological concern, as knowledge production is based upon intersubjective and situated encounters (Haraway, 1988). We identified three dimensions in the discussion of the sexualised and gendered vulnerabilities of research practice – the pedagogical, the institutional and the epistemological – and propose a set of educational opportunities as a response. Drawing upon feminist pedagogies, these include a reconsideration and systemic critique of methodological and epistemological training, more vulnerable approaches to teaching, writing and representing ethnography, and the institutionalisation of a network of support that resists the individual responsibility that the neoliberalisation of education pushes towards.