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Who are we ?

BADASSES (Blog d’Auto-Défense contre les Agressions Sexistes et Sexuelle dans l’Enquête en Sciences Sociales – Self-Defense Blog against Sexual and Gender-Based Violence in Social Science Research) is a collective made up of feminist researchers united by the same anger toward the invisibility of the issue of gender-based and sexual violence in fieldwork within academia. We believe it is urgent to fight against this silence and the lack of support, training, listening and consideration that keep this issue on the margins of teaching and research. In order to make this violence a topic of scientific discussion, it seems essential to question the gendered dimension of fieldwork. This is why we propose a space to share, to help each other and to build together the practical and theoretical knowledge necessary to better understand and analyse our fieldworks.

This blog hosts different types of testimonies: these can be written by researchers reporting on sexist and sexual violence in the field, or reporting more generally on the gendered dimension of fieldwork by researchers questioning their teaching and supervision practices, or by people confronted with reports of gender-based and sexual violence in the research relationship. We also offer, for those who wish, workshops to train ourselves and to initiate a scientific discussion on these, too often, invisible issues. Along with this logic, various resources are available online to provide tools that we find helpful in preparing, conducting and analyzing our fieldwork. Finally, we provide (at best) a scientific monitoring to compile references and academic events on these topics.

At the end of this presentation, we feel it is important to specify that this blog does not attempt to report on “the” right way to do fieldwork. We look with suspicion at the ready-made recipes and best practices methodological manuals that define precisely what good fieldwork is. It is rather a question (as others are already doing) of thinking about the tools that can be mobilized at different moments of fieldwork and restitution, and perhaps about the possibility of diversifying them. The blog will then serve to discuss and share these “tricks of the trade” that we will build together.

◊ To contact us, it’s this way: badasses@protonmail.com

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