Doing Embodied Mapping/s: Becoming-With in Qualitative Inquiry

Abstract

Qualitative research often involves the collection of data from multiple sources, inclusive of the embodied and multisensorial. These differing data sources, that are not language based, pose difficulties for researchers. Often this multimodal data is collected alongside interviews, field notes and other language-based data and then translated into language. In the process of this translation, the embodied, relational, and multisensorial aspects of this data is often lost. To address this issue, we created E mbodied Mapping/s (EM) as an approach for collecting, analyzing and becoming-with non-language-based data. This doing of embodied mapping/s is not about fixing lines and encounters in order to produce a two-dimensional cartography, plan or model; on the contrary it is about exploring differing embodiments and material relations among people and things to create a new inquiry in embodied and multisensorial research and methodologies. Embodied mapping/s suggests a need for a more holistic exploration of qualitative methodologies beyond language and visual communication. Through centralising embodiment, not only as an analytical method but also as something that informs innovative methodologies and methods, these doings of embodied mapping/s offer something novel to qualitative inquiry and embodied methodologies. To evidence the doing of embodied mapping/s, two multi-sited case studies in Canada will be explored—the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa; and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, to advance methodological insights in relation to multimodal and multisensorial research.