Feeling Gender Speak

Abstract

This article discusses a dimension of fieldwork methodology often overlooked. It concerns the act of feeling (inferences) and how this subjective ability contributes to understanding cultural meanings, which are unspoken or encoded in dialogue, but remain unarticulated. The discovery of this dimension in fieldwork eventually brought several epistemological principles into question pertaining to power and intersubjectivity subscribed to in a feminist or critical anthropology. Simultaneously, the use of this dimension in fieldwork gave insight into the relational construction of gender identity - the author’s own, that of the women and a male assistant. The article illustrates this by reconstructing different ethnographic moments during fieldwork practice. Moreover, it aims to put these theoretical assertions into practice by presenting an ethnographic narrative intended to evoke meanings that contribute to feeling the construction of identity through interaction in fieldwork practice.