If you are visiting this blog for the first time – Hello! And a very warm welcome back to the regular reader. A warning before diving in here: this post is a break from my usual content that celebrates the myriad ways bicycles create positive social and environmental change. My current bicycles-for-education research puts to work feminist New Materialisms, which is a posthumanist approach that encourages creative and disruptive research methodologies. This post shares one of my recent NM experti-ments in discontinous writing. If you are not into that, maybe check out some of my other work, like Cycling for a better brain and happiness …or another good one is Dr. Kat Jungnickel’s Bikes and Bloomers. If you are feeling brave and up for something different – read on! NG.
Funny how when you try not to think of something, it ends up being all you can think about.
This week, I’ve been noticing researchers’ bodies…. and wondering.
Most academics and researchers don’t talk about, or acknowledge their bodies. Many don’t care for their bodies – literally and metaphorically. As a wholely embodied researcher, I think denying the sensorial is weird and unnatural and borderline unethical. As part of my posthumanist methodology to research-write differently, I set myself a task today to free write discontinously without punctuation, intent, or censorship. I allowed myself parenthesis. Obviously, thoughts about bodies were bubbling close to the surface because this is what I wrote:
Today I m thing-ing without punctuation s cultish and restrictive directionality
whilst yonder canine h/barks
haloed by sunshines thaws
next to that barista who is the second most important person in John s life
after flexible nights roll on
amidst majestic ironbark eucalyptus and mycelium running
drumming
strumming
humming
and thrumming
sexy relationality turned on
Don t speak of it
Don t write of it
But(t) right on it
sexy relationality turned on
sexy relationality (re)turn(ed) on
turn
turned
turning
return
returned
returning
differences between sensuality and sexuality
Bronwyn Davies (w)rites of Hollyoak intensities
It s (not) a graphic of a body (a)part
Researchers turned on
60
researcHER(s)
WeSEARCHers
the participant is turned on
the topic is topographical
and six of them say it s okay
but (what) happens
what happens when bodies are turned on in the middle of a site visit or walking through a field or during a meeting
Don t speak of it
Don t write of it
But(t) right on it
We know it happens but its a private personal world
and not for (the) writing on the screen
or in online writing forums
as people look down at their pages
the cum face of writers as they write
I say this in a meeting
I have said this twice in meetings now
just to gauge reactions
they hear it
but no one acknowledges it
oddly (in)appropriate
just like us
but its out there now
just like us
now they are all thinking about it
sensual
intimate
steamy
delicious
using all the senses
feeling all the time
being open
being responsive
being up and on and over and in and against and beside and into
blurring the lines
awkward teenagers excited by theories that seduce adult researchers
careful and protective
how far
how far to go
how far can I go
how far can I push
how far to push
push through
push into
push on
push up
ever p(l)ushy
what of consent when I am researching bicycles
there is a moment where I wonder if it is okay
like surfing Rebecca Olive
and how to make waves and move oceans
or riding Nina Ginsberg
and how to be gold and meet pink flamingos
these are bodies that are moving
thrusting and wrestling and pulling and stretching
exerting
sweating
flexing
rubbing together
rubbing on
rubbing with
other bodies and objects
being sexualised and watched and commented on
it s not just me
but the REsearcHER
a body to move with
there is no separation
this (body) is a/part of m(y)our reSEARCH
this body I move with
I go to academic meetings with my supervisors with this body
I sat in six theory conferences with this body
Don t speak of it
Don t write of it
WEsearcHERs turned on