Abstract

In this chapter, I discuss sexual emotions erupting during fieldwork and argue that sexualities are situated in time and space. In order to understand these emotions, we need to recognize that sexualities are conceptualized in many ways and that different ways of expressing sexuality coexist and are interlinked. Drawing from experiences from three fieldwork periods, I propose a framework for analyzing researcher emotions with an emphasis on individuals without ignoring structure and context. Building on the life course concept, this entails thinking of affect as divided into a “feeling position” and “feeling experience.” Developing a unique feeling position, closest to an understanding of a mental state, it is deeply individual and dependent on the bodies, structures and contexts as individuals go through in life. Feeling positions both enable and disable feeling experiences in the daily lives, i.e., the expressed emotions at any point of time. However, feeling experiences also feed back to the position and ultimately prompt individual change. The fieldwork experiences discussed in this chapter demonstrate how sexuality and race, albeit from a privileged position, are conceived in different ways depending on time and space. Traveling through these times and spaces means being interpellated in ways, perhaps other than learned, and simultaneously adding yet other ways to be understood. These potentially confusing situations can become tangible through the emotions expressed or felt in the field. Applying the proposed life course concept is one way to made sense of these situations.