Pluriversal bodies: Researching care through embodied ethnography

Abstract

In this research note, I outline an approach to embodied experiences of care and caregiving in ethnographic scholarship on care. I describe how ethnographers of care and caregiving can use embodied methodologies, particularly through attending also to the cross-cultural differences in embodied experiences. In this research note, I bring together care research and cross-cultural embodied ethnography with my own work in Asia Pacific to outline an approach to researching care in the pluriverse – the multiple, overlapping realities of ontology, culture and experience that underpin all our lives. I draw on Annemarie Mol's conceptualisation of the body multiple (2002), Anna Tsing's understanding of awkward engagement (2005), Gibson-Graham's reading for difference (2020) and Sean Hsiang-lin Lei's research on hygiene (2014) to consider how researcher bodies might be useful in detecting pluriversal encounters in caregiving.