The Loves of Others: Autoethnography and Reflexivity in Researching Distance Relationships

Mary Holmes

doi:10.18778/1733-8077.6.2.04

Authors

Mary Holmes Flinders University, Australia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.6.2.04

Keywords:

Reflexivity, Autoethnography, Relationality, Distance relationships, Interviewing, Transcribing

Abstract

Reflexive accounts of research are important, but they should include attention to a wider range of relations than those between researcher and participant. The researcher’s position in relation to the participants does merit discussion, especially when there is an element of autoethnography involved. However, assistants in the research such as transcribers, can play a role in accounting for the research. The relationships participants have with loved ones also shape how they reflexively account for themselves and their experiences, in this case – of being in a distance relationship.

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Author Biography

Mary Holmes, Flinders University, Australia

Mary Holmes is a Senior Lecturer in sociology at Flinders University in Australia. She has published various articles relating to her empirical work on distance relationships and to her other research interests in the sociology of the body and in social movements and emotions. She has recently published The Representation of Feminists as Political Actors (VDM, 2008) What is Gender? (Sage, 2008) and Gender in Everyday Life (Routledge, 2007).

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