Paper Short Abstract:

This paper examines how we relate to our bodies as feminist researchers when doing ethnography on technology-facilitated sexual violence. We explore the embodied discomforts of researching violent digital environments and we expose the practices that we have developed to address the ethical complexities that we have encountered.

Paper Abstract:

By sharing insights from the DiViSAR project, we illustrate how digital fieldwork in the context of technology-facilitated sexual violence "hurts" researchers and challenges traditional boundaries of ethnographic work. Thus, we explore how fieldwork in violent environments reshapes our relationship with both social research. Specifically, we focus on how consistent exposure to violence impacts us on an embodied level. Moving away from the traditional view of the researcher as a distant, unaffected observer, we argue that ethnographies of TFSV reveal the vulnerability of researchers, profoundly altering our connection to the field. The complexities of this type of research challenge key ethical principles that guide us, such as fostering collaborative relationships with participants, developing ethics of care, and managing the restitution of knowledge. Our DiViSAR experience underscores how exposure to violence leads to the dehumanization, desensitization, and epistemic pessimism of researchers. Drawing on Moeller’s concept of ‘compassion fatigue’ (2002), we reflect on how we strive to transform academia by practicing empathy with our participants—and the tensions that arise from doing so. We confront feelings of guilt and discomfort associated with caring for participants who perpetrate violence against women. To counter the potential for epistemic pessimism, we emphasize the importance of collective strategies—coordinating working schedules, sharing physical spaces, engaging in co-writing—to foster hope and mutual support. In doing so, we reconsider corporeal impacts of ethnographic research in digital violent and traumatic environments, engaging in the "unwriting" of the disconnection between the embodied experiences of TFSV and the social recognition of harm (Brydolf-Horwitz, 2018).