Difficult Conversations

Róisín Ryan-Flood is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship (CISC) at the University of Essex. Her research interests include gender, sexuality, kinship, digital intimacies and feminist epistemology. She is the author of Lesbian Motherhood: Gender, Sexuality and Citizenship (2009), and co-editor of Secrecy and Silence in the Research Process (2010), Transnationalising Reproduction: Third Party Conception in a Globalised World (2018), and Queering Methodology: Lessons and Dilemmas from Lesbian Lives (2022). She is also co-editor of the journal Sexualities: Studies in Culture and Society. Isabel Crowhurst is Reader in Sociology at the University of Essex. Her work explores the construction of social norms around sexual practices and intimate lives. Her recent books include The Tenacity of Couple Norm (with Sasha Roseneil, Tone Hellesund, Ana Cristina Santos and Mariya Stoilova), and Third Sector Organizations in Sex Work and Prostitution (with Susan Dewey and Chimaraoke Izugbara). Laurie James-Hawkins is Senior Lecturer in Sociology and Deputy Director of the Centre for Intimate and Sexual Citizenship (CISC) at the University of Essex. She is a sociologist of health and gender, and her research interests include reproductive health, contraception, abortion, gender and sexuality among emerging adults. She has published widely on these topics. In recent years Dr. James-Hawkins has been studying sexual consent among university student populations.

• IntroductionSECTION 1: DIFFICULT KNOWLEDGESECTION 1: DIFFICULT KNOWLEDGE1. The gender wars and difficult conversations about trans: An interview with Meg-John Barker2. Facing uneasiness in feminist research: the case of female genital cutting3. Feminism and race in academia: An interview with Sandya Hewamanne4. But you’re not defending sugar, are you?SECTION 2: GENDER, POWER AND INTIMACY5. Difficult research effects/affects: an intersectional-discursive-material-affective look at racialised sexualisation in public advertising6. Calling out and piling on: deliberation and difficult conversations in feminist digital social space7. Interviewing with intimacy: negotiating vulnerability and trust in difficult conversations8. Coexisting with uncomfortable reflexivity: feminist fieldwork abroad during the pandemicSECTION 3: GENDER, SEXUALITY AND EMBODIMENT9. Sexing in the cities: sex, desire and sexual health of black township women who love women10. Researching sex: gender, taboos and revealing the intimate11. Building a community of trust: participatory applied theatre workshop techniques for difficult conversations on consent12. Women's experiences of marital rape in Turkey: ethics, voice and difficult conversationsSECTION 4: BOUNDED KNOWLEDGE13. Lost for words: difficult conversations about ethics, reflexivity and research governance14. Gender studies, academic purity and political relevance15. The feminist classroom in a neoliberal university16. Focus groups and the ‘insider researcher’; difficult conversations and intersectional complexities17. Queering the academy