Isabel Crowhurst

Troubling gatekeepers: methodological considerations for social research

In this Special Issue we aim to ‘trouble’ current understandings of ‘the gatekeeper’ in social research, in order to situate gatekeeping as integral to the entire process of conducting research and, therefore, as equally deserving of both methodological and theoretical attention and reflection. Scholarly discussions about the figure of the gatekeeper typically identify them as individuals or institutions who have the power to either grant or withhold access to a research population (De Laine, 2000). Despite acknowledging their role in research practice, social research literature has devoted relatively little attention to gatekeepers. Moreover, there is some recognition in line with the points made by Clarke (2011) and Campbell, Gray, Meletis, Abbott, & Silver (2006), amongst others, that a gap persists between gatekeepers ‘in the books’ and gatekeepers ‘in action’. In other words, accounts and approaches to gatekeepers, mostly found in mainstream social research textbooks (see Crowhurst, this issue), tend to view the latter as monolithic, neutral and static figures in the field, thus obscuring the complex dynamics in which gatekeeping is operationalized in the field, and the multiple ways in which gatekeepers impact upon the research process. Seeking to bridge this epistemological gap is a recent body of scholarship, which has started to develop knowledge on gatekeepers in ways that move beyond a traditional understanding of their role that resembles, as Eldridge (this issue) puts it, the game of snakes and ladders with access viewed as the guarded prize (see, e.g. Campbell et al., 2006; Clark, 2011; Emmel, Hughes, Greenhalgh, & Sales, 2007; Heath, Charles, Crow, & Wiles, 2007; Homan, 2001; Kawulich, 2011; Mandel, 2003; Reeves, 2010; Sanghera & Thapar-Björkert, 2008; Tidmarsh, Carpenter, & Slade, 2003; Wanat, 2008). Informing these contributions is an approach to the research field as constituted by the researcher, who is, therefore, called upon to reflect on the relationships he/she establishes in it, including with gatekeepers (Phillips & Earle, 2010). Such relationships are understood and experienced as often being messy, unpredictable, uncontrollable and everchanging (Campbell et al., 2006; Sanghera & Thapar-Björkert, 2008; Wanat, 2008), and in this context particular emphasis is put on the many different ways in which gatekeepers might interfere with participants’ decisions to consent to take part in research (Emmel et al., 2007; Homan, 2001; Miller & Bell, 2012; Sanghera & Thapar-Björkert, 2008). Overall, this body of scholarship urges the researcher to rethink the personal and political implications of engaging with gatekeepers. In seeking to expand this approach, this Special Issue is particularly concerned, in Campbell et al.’s (2006) words, with moving beyond the ‘gatekeepers as a practical consideration to the gatekeeper as a theoretical consideration’ (p. 117). The contributions included here are a selection (with one exception) of the papers presented at the colloquium ‘Gatekeepers and Social Research: Hindrance International Journal of Social Research Methodology, 2013 Vol. 16, No. 6, 457–462, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13645579.2013.823281

The fallacy of the instrumental gate? Contextualising the process of gaining access through gatekeepers

Drawing on ethnographic research concerned with the phenomenon of migrant prostitution in Italy, this article problematises the mechanistic model in social research that reduces the gatekeeper to a static and instrumental figure to be gotten past and the passage through the metaphorical gate as a matter of course. Moving beyond this, it suggests approaching gatekeepers as social actors embedded, participating in and influencing relations of power, and gaining access through gatekeepers as a dynamic process that is shaped by transformative encounters in the field.

Living Apart Relationships in Contemporary Europe: Accounts of Togetherness and Apartness

Drawing on a European cross-national biographical-narrative study of intimate life, this article discusses the complexity of experiences of ‘togetherness’ and ‘apartness’ amongst people in living apart relationships. We explore the five main ways in which interviewees spoke about and understood their current living apart relationships (as: chosen; temporary; transitional; undecided; and unrecognisable), which we argue shows the need for a broader conceptualisation of this form of intimate relationship than is suggested by the established notion of ‘living apart together’. The article points to interviewees’ varying experiences of receiving or being denied recognition and acceptance by others as belonging to a couple, as well as to their differing degrees of desire for, or rebellion against, expectations that living apart relationships should ‘progress’ towards cohabitation.

Remaking intimate citizenship in multicultural Europe: experiences outside the conventional family

How can we understand the ways in which, and the extent to which, movements for gender and sexual equality and change have contributed to remaking intimate citizenship?1 The thorny question of the role of women’s movements in transforming citizenship in Europe is at the heart of this book, and this chapter extends this focus to encompass lesbian and gay movements, casting its gaze on a dimension of citizenship that owes its very conceptualization to these movements. In this, we are contributing to two theoretically and normatively significant moves within recent scholarship on citizenship: the feminist extension of the concept beyond its classical roots, its republican revolutionary reworkings and its traditional usage in political theory; and the sociological turn which has seen increasing emphasis on practices, meanings and lived experiences of citizenship.2

Caught in the victim/criminal paradigm: female migrant prostitution in contemporary Italy

This article offers a critical exploration of exclusionary practices enacted in Italy towards migrant prostitute women. It identifies the double construction of migrant prostitute women as victims of sex trafficking and as illegal/criminal migrants as a dominant paradigm that informs policy approaches aimed at addressing their presence in the country. It explores how this paradigm has emerged in the specific context of contemporary Italy, how it has been sustained, by whom and with what consequences. By drawing on the exploration of a specific incident, the article shows how gendered and racialised constructions of dangerous migrant sexualities can inform decisions over what determines the slippery and unstable demarcation between those who are identified as victims and those who are identified as criminals. Finally, the article suggests that, caught within the restrictive victim/criminal paradigm, migrant prostitutes fail to be recognised and treated as subjects.

Close encounters: researching intimate lives in Europe

This research note aims to extend the discussion on the methodological implications of doing research on intimacy and personal life. Drawing on a comparative study concerned with the intimate lives of those who live outside the conventional, modern western nuclear family, it reflects on the processes of gaining access to often hard-to-reach populations which informed and influenced the empirical work that we carried out in four European countries.

Introduction: The politics of sexuality in contemporary Italy

Sex is always political. But there are historical periods in which sexuality is more sharply contested and more overtly politicized. In such periods, the domain of erotic life is, in effect, renegotiated. (Rubin 1999, 143)

International comparative explorations of prostitution policies: lessons from two European projects

In this contribution we reflect on our experiences of co-designing and coordinating two comparative projects on prostitution policies in Europe by focusing in particular on the epistemological workings underpinning their design and execution. We set out two main goals. The first is to shed light on what the epistemological and methodological issues we encountered reveal about the field of prostitution policy studies, an endeavor which can contribute to better comparative research in the field. The second goal is to relate the scope, developments, outcomes and expectations of the two projects to recent attempts to identify a “one-size-fits-all” model of prostitution regulation, and to interrogate whether transplanting it across Europe is a desirable outcome. Building on the lessons learned from the projects, we propose an approach to prostitution policy development that is reflective of the specific contexts within which the policies are meant to be applied.

Minority Groups and Reproductive Rights

Examining reproductive rights historically reveals that women’s bodies are critically contested sites of governance and regulation by the state and other societal forces. However, key issues of access to reproductive rights and vulnerability to abuse are even more contested in the experiences of minority women, many of whom face the twin realities of their rights being denied, and therefore their agency being thwarted.