Pub Date : 2024-01-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.05
Joanna Chojnicka
The use of social media in qualitative research has become extremely popular. YouTube, in particular, has attracted attention from scholars working on (self-)representation of minority groups, including the transgender community (e.g., Dame 2013; Horak 2014). Most academic disciplines, however, have been slow in responding to the increasingly challenging nature of social media in terms of their ethics and methodologies. For example, there is a common misconception that any publicly available YouTube videos can be freely used for research. Many studies openly reference the YouTube channels they discuss (Wotanis and McMillan 2014) or anonymize data, but do not seek informed consent from creators (Raun 2020). What is more, researchers rarely reflect on how their work could impact the communities under study or the way creators use social media (Leonelli et al. 2021). At the same time, researchers wishing to protect vulnerable communities may find themselves falling short of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable) research principles required by funders. In this contribution, I discuss these and other challenges using, as a case study, my project, which investigates gender transition narratives on Polish social media. I wish to show that there is no one-fits-all approach to the ethics of social media studies—as the very nature of social media is in constant flux—and call for attentiveness and reflexivity as an inextricable component of qualitative social media research methodology.
{"title":"Transitioning (on the) Internet: Shifting Challenges and Contradictions of Ethics of Studying Online Gender Transition Narratives","authors":"Joanna Chojnicka","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.05","url":null,"abstract":"The use of social media in qualitative research has become extremely popular. YouTube, in particular, has attracted attention from scholars working on (self-)representation of minority groups, including the transgender community (e.g., Dame 2013; Horak 2014). Most academic disciplines, however, have been slow in responding to the increasingly challenging nature of social media in terms of their ethics and methodologies. For example, there is a common misconception that any publicly available YouTube videos can be freely used for research. Many studies openly reference the YouTube channels they discuss (Wotanis and McMillan 2014) or anonymize data, but do not seek informed consent from creators (Raun 2020). What is more, researchers rarely reflect on how their work could impact the communities under study or the way creators use social media (Leonelli et al. 2021). At the same time, researchers wishing to protect vulnerable communities may find themselves falling short of FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, and re-usable) research principles required by funders. In this contribution, I discuss these and other challenges using, as a case study, my project, which investigates gender transition narratives on Polish social media. I wish to show that there is no one-fits-all approach to the ethics of social media studies—as the very nature of social media is in constant flux—and call for attentiveness and reflexivity as an inextricable component of qualitative social media research methodology.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"138 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140472679","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.06
Weronika Kamińska
This article concerns the situations experienced by the researcher in one of the sensitive research groups—hospice patients. The article is based on the author’s experiences in three studies in Poland—94 in-depth interviews and observations in inpatient and home care hospices. Through the seven presented categories the author faced during the interviews, she analyzes the dilemmas of conducting qualitative research from a practical perspective. During studies, we learn about our preferences, sometimes defining ourselves on one of the sides—becoming a quantitative or qualitative researcher, thus deciding further scientific paths. Conducting qualitative research requires specific activities, including knowledge of the literature, selection of the proper method, and analysis of the research group (Silverman 2012). These principles turn out to be only the beginning of the process in which we intuitively, through trial and error, pave the way to deal with demanding situations, previously inexperienced emotions, coordination, and technical and ethical problems. Some studies require special preparation, particularly considering the specificity of certain research groups, such as hospice patients, who will face the dying process soon.
{"title":"“Am I Going to Die?” Considering the Preparation for Research on an Example of Hospice Patients","authors":"Weronika Kamińska","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.06","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.06","url":null,"abstract":"This article concerns the situations experienced by the researcher in one of the sensitive research groups—hospice patients. The article is based on the author’s experiences in three studies in Poland—94 in-depth interviews and observations in inpatient and home care hospices. Through the seven presented categories the author faced during the interviews, she analyzes the dilemmas of conducting qualitative research from a practical perspective. During studies, we learn about our preferences, sometimes defining ourselves on one of the sides—becoming a quantitative or qualitative researcher, thus deciding further scientific paths. Conducting qualitative research requires specific activities, including knowledge of the literature, selection of the proper method, and analysis of the research group (Silverman 2012). These principles turn out to be only the beginning of the process in which we intuitively, through trial and error, pave the way to deal with demanding situations, previously inexperienced emotions, coordination, and technical and ethical problems. Some studies require special preparation, particularly considering the specificity of certain research groups, such as hospice patients, who will face the dying process soon.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"365 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140472158","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.01
Małgorzata Bieńkowska, Urszula Kluczyńska, A. Kłonkowska
{"title":"Ethical and Methodological Dilemmas in Qualitative Research Conducted among Vulnerable Groups—Guest Editors’ Introduction","authors":"Małgorzata Bieńkowska, Urszula Kluczyńska, A. Kłonkowska","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.01","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.01","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"426 12","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140472956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.03
Maria Flis, Karol Piotrowski
Attention to metaphor as a tool for cognition and action has already been called by the classic work by Georg Lakoff and Mark Johnson—Metaphors We Live By (1980). However, some four decades after this publication’s first edition, the role of metaphor as a useful instrument in empirical research seems to have been forgotten. Therefore, the first step taken in the text at hand is to highlight that codes of ethics neither resolve nor befit the dynamically shifting circumstances of research conducted in the field. Ethical codes are often insufficient. Hence, an objective here will be to critically assess the broad application of such codes in general. The second step will be to turn to metaphor as a tool in developing the sociological imagination as understood by C. Wright Mills. The metaphor can also assist in finding oneself when confronted with difficult, ambiguous circumstances that may arise during fieldwork. Metaphor as a tool, as an ethical kaleidoscope coherently links the field research experience precisely with the sociological imagination.
格奥尔格-拉科夫（Georg Lakoff）和马克-约翰逊（Mark Johnson-Metaphors We Live By）的经典著作《我们赖以生存的隐喻》（1980 年）已经唤起了人们对隐喻作为认知和行动工具的关注。然而，在这本著作第一版问世约 40 年后，隐喻作为实证研究的有用工具的作用似乎已被遗忘。因此，手头这篇文章迈出的第一步就是要强调，道德规范既不能解决也不适合实地研究中不断变化的情况。伦理准则往往是不够的。因此，这里的一个目标是批判性地评估这些准则在一般情况下的广泛应用。第二步是将隐喻作为发展 C. Wright Mills 所理解的社会学想象力的工具。隐喻还可以帮助我们在实地工作中遇到困难和模糊不清的情况时找到自我。隐喻作为一种工具，作为一种伦理万花筒，将实地研究经验与社会学想象力紧密联系在一起。
{"title":"The Conceptual Metaphor as an Ethical Kaleidoscope in Field Research","authors":"Maria Flis, Karol Piotrowski","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.03","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.03","url":null,"abstract":"Attention to metaphor as a tool for cognition and action has already been called by the classic work by Georg Lakoff and Mark Johnson—Metaphors We Live By (1980). However, some four decades after this publication’s first edition, the role of metaphor as a useful instrument in empirical research seems to have been forgotten. Therefore, the first step taken in the text at hand is to highlight that codes of ethics neither resolve nor befit the dynamically shifting circumstances of research conducted in the field. Ethical codes are often insufficient. Hence, an objective here will be to critically assess the broad application of such codes in general. The second step will be to turn to metaphor as a tool in developing the sociological imagination as understood by C. Wright Mills. The metaphor can also assist in finding oneself when confronted with difficult, ambiguous circumstances that may arise during fieldwork. Metaphor as a tool, as an ethical kaleidoscope coherently links the field research experience precisely with the sociological imagination.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"523 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140474230","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.02
Urszula Kluczyńska, A. Kłonkowska, Małgorzata Bieńkowska
The article aims to describe vulnerable groups in the context of qualitative research in social science with special attention to ethical and methodological dilemmas. This is a theoretical study, which does not aspire to offer solutions or guidelines, but rather show elements worth taking notice of and analyzing when research is planned and carried out. We argue that in the social sciences, vulnerability is relational and crucial. However, social science researchers perceive the category of vulnerability as ambiguous and nuanced. This article shows that ascribing research participants univocally to a vulnerable group may lead not only to them being stereotyped and deprived of individuality but also to a situation where the research act itself disempowers them. We also argue that apart from issues often raised concerning the protection of participants from vulnerable groups, the researcher and their protection are also pivotal, particularly when the researcher, due to their involvement, abandons the out-group perspective or when they belong to the vulnerable group.
{"title":"Researching Vulnerable Groups: Definitions, Controversies, Dilemmas, and the Researcher’s Personal Entanglement","authors":"Urszula Kluczyńska, A. Kłonkowska, Małgorzata Bieńkowska","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.02","url":null,"abstract":"The article aims to describe vulnerable groups in the context of qualitative research in social science with special attention to ethical and methodological dilemmas. This is a theoretical study, which does not aspire to offer solutions or guidelines, but rather show elements worth taking notice of and analyzing when research is planned and carried out. We argue that in the social sciences, vulnerability is relational and crucial. However, social science researchers perceive the category of vulnerability as ambiguous and nuanced. This article shows that ascribing research participants univocally to a vulnerable group may lead not only to them being stereotyped and deprived of individuality but also to a situation where the research act itself disempowers them. We also argue that apart from issues often raised concerning the protection of participants from vulnerable groups, the researcher and their protection are also pivotal, particularly when the researcher, due to their involvement, abandons the out-group perspective or when they belong to the vulnerable group.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"120 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140476873","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-01-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.04
Katarzyna Gajek
This paper aims to reconstruct the biographical work (Corbin and Strauss) undertaken by parents of non-normative people. The initiating event of biographical work is the disclosure of a non-normative sexual orientation and/or gender identity by the child. For many parents, this is an event that causes a breakdown of previous schemes of action, a gradual loss of control, and suffering. The empirical data consist of autobiographical narratives of parents of people with non-normative sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The study involved mothers and fathers residing throughout Poland, who were selected according to the snowball procedure. The data were collected through the narrative interview technique and compiled according to the analytical procedure proposed by Fritz Schütze, which is part of the interpretative research paradigm. In the course of four parallel biographical processes (contextualizing, coming to terms, reconstituting identity, and recasting biography), the new experience is integrated into the biography, its consequences are understood and accepted, a coherent identity is reconstituted and a new course for one’s life are charted. The analysis of the narrators’ biographical work has made it possible to identify three categories that organize the course of the parents’ lives and identities—stigma, normalization, and activism.
{"title":"Biographical Work of Parents of Children with Non-Normative Sexual Orientation and/or Gender Identity","authors":"Katarzyna Gajek","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.20.1.04","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to reconstruct the biographical work (Corbin and Strauss) undertaken by parents of non-normative people. The initiating event of biographical work is the disclosure of a non-normative sexual orientation and/or gender identity by the child. For many parents, this is an event that causes a breakdown of previous schemes of action, a gradual loss of control, and suffering. \u0000The empirical data consist of autobiographical narratives of parents of people with non-normative sexual orientation and/or gender identity. The study involved mothers and fathers residing throughout Poland, who were selected according to the snowball procedure. The data were collected through the narrative interview technique and compiled according to the analytical procedure proposed by Fritz Schütze, which is part of the interpretative research paradigm. \u0000In the course of four parallel biographical processes (contextualizing, coming to terms, reconstituting identity, and recasting biography), the new experience is integrated into the biography, its consequences are understood and accepted, a coherent identity is reconstituted and a new course for one’s life are charted. The analysis of the narrators’ biographical work has made it possible to identify three categories that organize the course of the parents’ lives and identities—stigma, normalization, and activism.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"135 ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-01-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140479029","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.04
Angela Delli Paoli, Giuseppe Masullo
This paper aims to understand the individual factors sustaining the migratory flow of Catholic priests to Italy. Priests’ migration cannot be seen as the mere result of lack of vocations and shortage of priests in the host country since their agency, belief, aspirations, and motivations affect their religious identity and, consequently, their integration and participation in the host country. Drawing on qualitative research, this paper collects the voices and the narratives of selected international priests living in Italy. Priests’ interviews led to broad-range questions about the nature of migration decisions and their integration into the host society and churches that originate from differences in religiosity, vocations, and missions. That resulted in a typology of 4 types of migrant priests: careerist priests, highly educated and integrated into the host country, driven by career and salary aspiration, and showing a highly politicized vision of religion; servant priests, with a strong missionary impulse to serve the Church as a universal institution transcending abstract and real boarders; evangelist priests who feel the moral obligation to evangelize secularized countries to bring them back to the origins of Catholicism; rebel priests who feel second-class priests, discriminated both within and outside the Church, in a country where they were forced to move, for this reason questioning their sense of clear vocational directions.
{"title":"Migration and Integration of Foreign Priests. Aspirations, Religiosity, and Tensions in the Narratives of Foreign Priests in Italy","authors":"Angela Delli Paoli, Giuseppe Masullo","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.04","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.04","url":null,"abstract":"This paper aims to understand the individual factors sustaining the migratory flow of Catholic priests to Italy. Priests’ migration cannot be seen as the mere result of lack of vocations and shortage of priests in the host country since their agency, belief, aspirations, and motivations affect their religious identity and, consequently, their integration and participation in the host country. Drawing on qualitative research, this paper collects the voices and the narratives of selected international priests living in Italy. Priests’ interviews led to broad-range questions about the nature of migration decisions and their integration into the host society and churches that originate from differences in religiosity, vocations, and missions. That resulted in a typology of 4 types of migrant priests: careerist priests, highly educated and integrated into the host country, driven by career and salary aspiration, and showing a highly politicized vision of religion; servant priests, with a strong missionary impulse to serve the Church as a universal institution transcending abstract and real boarders; evangelist priests who feel the moral obligation to evangelize secularized countries to bring them back to the origins of Catholicism; rebel priests who feel second-class priests, discriminated both within and outside the Church, in a country where they were forced to move, for this reason questioning their sense of clear vocational directions.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"65 3","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135976458","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.05
Joanna Wygnańska
The article concerns the users’ experiences of interacting with well-being chatbots. The text shows how chatbots can act as virtual companions and, to some extent, therapists for people in their daily reality. It also reflects on why individuals choose such a form of support for their well-being, concerning, among others, the stigmatization aspect of mental health problems. The article discusses and compares various dimensions of users’ interactions with three popular chatbots: Wysa, Woebot, and Replika. The text both refers to the results of research on the well-being chatbots and, analytically, engages in a dialogue with the results discussed in the form of sociological (and philosophical) reflection. The issues taken up in the paper include an in-depth reflection on the aspects of the relationship between humans and chatbots that allow users to establish an emotional bond with their virtual companions. In addition, the consideration addresses the issue of a user’s sense of alienation when interacting with a virtual companion, as well as the problem of anxieties and dilemmas people may experience therein. In the context of alienation, the article also attempts to conceptualize that theme concerning available conceptual resources.
{"title":"The Experience of Conversation and Relation with a Well-Being Chabot: Between Proximity and Remoteness","authors":"Joanna Wygnańska","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.05","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.05","url":null,"abstract":"The article concerns the users’ experiences of interacting with well-being chatbots. The text shows how chatbots can act as virtual companions and, to some extent, therapists for people in their daily reality. It also reflects on why individuals choose such a form of support for their well-being, concerning, among others, the stigmatization aspect of mental health problems. The article discusses and compares various dimensions of users’ interactions with three popular chatbots: Wysa, Woebot, and Replika. The text both refers to the results of research on the well-being chatbots and, analytically, engages in a dialogue with the results discussed in the form of sociological (and philosophical) reflection. The issues taken up in the paper include an in-depth reflection on the aspects of the relationship between humans and chatbots that allow users to establish an emotional bond with their virtual companions. In addition, the consideration addresses the issue of a user’s sense of alienation when interacting with a virtual companion, as well as the problem of anxieties and dilemmas people may experience therein. In the context of alienation, the article also attempts to conceptualize that theme concerning available conceptual resources.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"111 ","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135976276","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2023-10-31DOI: 10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.02
Magdalena Wojciechowska
Although the popularity of recreational pole dancing continues to gain momentum, its prevailing association with the erotic sphere and resulting stereotypes shape it as a borderline activity. Notably, the way pole dancing is approached and enacted elucidates how bodies, especially female embodiment, are socially constructed and controlled. Thus, to look at that issue from recreational female polers’ perspectives, this article sheds light on how their understandings of the body evolve with their engagement in the leisure activity at hand. That process is analyzed in the context of how women deal with tensions that arise while they navigate between the internalized societal expectations concerning desired femininity and personal agency. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data from pole dance studios in Poland, I discuss how polers’ perspectives on their bodies change from personal and interactional ‘limitations’ to embracing their bodies as interactional partners with whom to achieve their goals. In the process of learning by doing, women get to know their bodies and develop with them a relationship based on trust. Subsequently, growing to understand the bodies as their substantial selves that functionality allows them to achieve the ‘impossible’ as one empowers women. At the same time, I highlight how the process of espousing alternative perceptions of one’s body unfolds under the umbrella of an internalized frame of meanings concerning female embodiment that lures women to fit societal expectations. The interplay between the two sheds light on how female polers navigate toward reclaiming their self-confidence from the clutches of the critical social gaze while negotiating the notion of their bodies. Compelling in that regard is how relying on erotic associations with recreational pole dancing in terms of inciting empowerment through a sexual agency, as some studios do, plays out and factors into female pole dancers’ experiences concerning their leisure activity.
{"title":"“I was ashamed, and now I am proud as I finally know how to let go.” How Female Polers Perceive, Experience, and Give Meanings to Their Bodies—An Ethnographic Case Study","authors":"Magdalena Wojciechowska","doi":"10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.02","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.18778/1733-8077.19.4.02","url":null,"abstract":"Although the popularity of recreational pole dancing continues to gain momentum, its prevailing association with the erotic sphere and resulting stereotypes shape it as a borderline activity. Notably, the way pole dancing is approached and enacted elucidates how bodies, especially female embodiment, are socially constructed and controlled. Thus, to look at that issue from recreational female polers’ perspectives, this article sheds light on how their understandings of the body evolve with their engagement in the leisure activity at hand. That process is analyzed in the context of how women deal with tensions that arise while they navigate between the internalized societal expectations concerning desired femininity and personal agency. Drawing on ethnographic and interview data from pole dance studios in Poland, I discuss how polers’ perspectives on their bodies change from personal and interactional ‘limitations’ to embracing their bodies as interactional partners with whom to achieve their goals. In the process of learning by doing, women get to know their bodies and develop with them a relationship based on trust. Subsequently, growing to understand the bodies as their substantial selves that functionality allows them to achieve the ‘impossible’ as one empowers women. At the same time, I highlight how the process of espousing alternative perceptions of one’s body unfolds under the umbrella of an internalized frame of meanings concerning female embodiment that lures women to fit societal expectations. The interplay between the two sheds light on how female polers navigate toward reclaiming their self-confidence from the clutches of the critical social gaze while negotiating the notion of their bodies. Compelling in that regard is how relying on erotic associations with recreational pole dancing in terms of inciting empowerment through a sexual agency, as some studios do, plays out and factors into female pole dancers’ experiences concerning their leisure activity.","PeriodicalId":53708,"journal":{"name":"Qualitative Sociology Review","volume":"65 2","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2023-10-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"135976277","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
京公网安备 11010802042870号
京ICP备2023020795号-1
扫码关注我们
求助内容：
应助结果提醒方式：