Being in the Field: Doing Research

In 2010, I was involved in making a film, A Bloody Canvas, about art and boxing. I was not only a consultant on the film but also appeared in several scenes, including one where I am interviewed in the gym where I had carried out some of my research, interviewing and observing those who boxed and trained boxers. Boxing has been the empirical focus of a large part of my work over the last ten years and I also contributed to the Art and Sport project prior to the 2012 Olympics.1 Although I had already reflected upon the position of the researcher in relation to the field in some of my work on methodologies, actually seeing myself in the field in the film was a bit of a shock. As such, it generated a whole range of thoughts about being both inside the field, as someone firmly included and part of this film which was shown to the public, and yet also quite outside the social world and culture of boxing. In that viewing the film made me aware of my embodied presence within the film and its narrative, it also made me newly conscious of my outsider status as a middle class, white older woman.