To See Space

Abstract

The following paper provides a critical and storied account of how my literal and literary encounters with Eastern Tent Caterpillars invites me to re-encounter space as a concept and a living reality that shapes my research, my perception of myself as a researcher, and my perception of myself as a body. More specifically, observing caterpillars’ spatial relations challenges me to embrace space(s) as lively and packed with non-uniform potentials for world-building; accepting space as alive demands that the body-in-space (in my case, a white, settler, woman, and former anorexic body) be marked as a non-neutral world-building agent alongside other spatial bodies. This paper ponders some of the discomforts, tensions, and promises of embracing embodied research as an always-creative and potentially intrusive spatial act, and it explains how my research has helped me shift my focus from how much space my body inhibits—where less is always good, more is always bad— to what relationships I am building through and in my embodied research.