Serious Emotions: On Some Emotions in Working on Men's Violences and Violences to Women

Both more immediate and longer-term forms of emotion are highly relevant to researching on violence. This chapter discusses: how emotions can be important in organising research on violence; emotions in doing research the field, and in interviewing men on violence; the relations between the emotions of interviewees and the emotions of researchers; as well as emotions between men, and emotions in analysis and writing up research material. In addition, emotion can work in a more muted, longer-term way, and can be linked with: first, the very practice of doing direct research on violence itself; second, less immediate, more distanced violence or the use of more distanced research methods on violence; and, third, managerial, administrative and educational tasks on and around violence. I call these the emotions of gravity.