Affective practice in language and sexuality research methodology: Narrative, dissonance, and reflexivity

In this paper I explore affective practices in language and sexuality research from a methodological perspective. The focus is on a narrative inquiry conducted in Cambodia which sought to make discursive sense of the affective relationality of a sexualized social practice in this setting. Knowledges surrounding this practice emerged from ethnographic interviews and observations in the field, from which a narrative was constructed of men from the Global North who find intimacy with local men (and vice versa) through the provision of economic support. On the one hand, this inquiry generated rich empirical data demonstrating how affect may be discursively mobilized as actions that initiate, sustain and justify this intimacy. On the other hand, the inquiry revealed how powerful circulations of affect not only constituted but also disrupted methodological and analytical considerations during the research trajectory. Through a close analysis of field journals, I will thus examine the entextualisation of affect, rendering it narratively and personally legible, and the epistemological insights this afforded me. I will also, however, attend to the disruptions and dissonances, where the workings of affect in this context brought me into an uncomfortable space for reflection. This was a space in which I was forced to confront my own narrative, including sexuality and privilege, but ultimately to confront the illegibility or “limits of the knowable” (Milani 2014). As such, this paper seeks to engage with methodological questions surrounding these issues, but especially with regard to affective practice in the language and sexuality research process itself.