Work

Dis-comfort as method in queer migration research

Year: 2026

Type: article

Abstract: This article reflects on unresolved affective tensions in the field, not as failures or impasses but as analytical tools for (un)doing research. Shifting from a distant and detached analysis of my interlocutors’ narratives towards a decentred account of myself, I trace my disorientations, discomforts and troubles in encounters with queer refugees and asylum seekers. Through this ephemeral self-accounting, I approach the self as an aporetic, political and theoretical space of (un)becoming, examining how (non-)normativities emerged in my PhD research and how I navigated them while oscillating between affirmation and resistance. From this autotheoretical standpoint, and in confronting the inescapability of discursivity, I write through uncertainties, ambivalences and affective conflicts, approaching writing not as closure or as a constraint to ‘write what we already know’ but as an invitation to relate and (un)learn through the performative act of writing itself.

Source: Feminist Theory

DOI: 10.1177/14647001261479056

Author: Sophia Zisakou

Institution: Lund University

Language: English

Topic: Qualitative Research Methods and Ethics

Subfield: Sociology and Political Science

Field: Social Sciences

Domain: Social Sciences

SDG: Reduced inequalities

Open Access status: hybrid

Estimated APC paid: $3,650