w.nking as ethnographic field method

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Bird on a Fire
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w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:57 pm

Absolute car crash of a paper https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 ... 1221096600
I wanted to understand how my research participants experience sexual pleasure when reading shota, a Japanese genre of self-published erotic comics that features young boy characters. I therefore started reading the comics in the same way as my research participants had told me that they did it: while m.st.rbating. In this research note, I will recount how I set up an experimental method of m.st.rbating to shota comics, and how this participant observation of my own desire not only gave me a more embodied understanding of the topic for my research but also made me think about loneliness and ways to combat it as driving forces of the culture of self-published erotic comics.
Creepy and unpleasant. The paper is extremely NSFW btw.
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by bjn » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:16 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:57 pm
Absolute car crash of a paper https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/1 ... 1221096600
I wanted to understand how my research participants experience sexual pleasure when reading shota, a Japanese genre of self-published erotic comics that features young boy characters. I therefore started reading the comics in the same way as my research participants had told me that they did it: while m.st.rbating. In this research note, I will recount how I set up an experimental method of m.st.rbating to shota comics, and how this participant observation of my own desire not only gave me a more embodied understanding of the topic for my research but also made me think about loneliness and ways to combat it as driving forces of the culture of self-published erotic comics.
Creepy and unpleasant. The paper is extremely NSFW btw.
Jebus! I can't even. WTF???? Argh. (plus other strangled noises of incomprehension).

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:33 pm

w.nking as a research method is unorthodox.

But waking to sexualized images of young children is way beyond any thing that should be acceptable in academia. I have no idea how it could have got through peer review.

According to Twitter its not a hoax, and apparently the author made a YouTube video in which he complained that he had not received ethical approval.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by causan_dux » Wed Aug 10, 2022 3:29 pm

I wouldn't diss it so readily. He's got Foucault in his references, so he must be a serious scholar.

I'm wondering if he didn't just mishear Grounded Theory as Pounded Theory somewhere along the line.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by EACLucifer » Wed Aug 10, 2022 3:39 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 2:33 pm
w.nking as a research method is unorthodox.

But waking to sexualized images of young children is way beyond any thing that should be acceptable in academia. I have no idea how it could have got through peer review.

According to Twitter its not a hoax, and apparently the author made a YouTube video in which he complained that he had not received ethical approval.
IIRC such material is illegal in the UK.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by monkey » Wed Aug 10, 2022 4:31 pm

Manchester University and the Journal are rightly doing investigations into this.

I suspect no one at Manchester knew what this guy was up to - seems a bit odd to me to have a student get a paper published without their supervisor as an author, though I do not know the norms of the field. That might mean the supervisor wasn't involved, and I hope that's the case.

The Journal and it's reviewers should have noticed the wrongness of it though. The only excuse they could have is if they weren't doing their jobs by not reading it before publishing.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Woodchopper » Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:36 pm

Yes, if it’s correct that he didn’t get ethical approval from the University then he may have decided to just go ahead anyway and not mention the university research programme in the article. But someone can’t (or shouldn’t) get away with that.

As for the supervisor, as far as I know in anthropology it wouldn’t be normal for a supervisor to be a coauthor.

It’s possible that in the journal none of the editors or reviewers actually read the article. If so they must be desperate for submissions. That’s nicer to think about than the alternative.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by causan_dux » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:13 pm

Woodchopper wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 6:36 pm

It’s possible that in the journal none of the editors or reviewers actually read the article.
They wouldn't have had to read far. Just the title alone encapsulates the problem.

Mumsnet has a rigorous response to the entire issue: "The whole university should be shut down. Obviously not an academic institution.".

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by insignificant » Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:20 pm

@DrPetra wrote a good (twitter) thread on this - link

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by geejaytee » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:08 pm

insignificant wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 7:20 pm
@DrPetra wrote a good (twitter) thread on this - link
For those whose view of the thread is:
Untitled.png
Untitled.png (32.03 KiB) Viewed 1272 times
can it be summarised, please?

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by egbert26 » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:24 pm

A little background on Mr. Andersson's other activities regarding shota.

https://thecritic.co.uk/oh-the-humanities/

I wonder where he conducts his research. He'd better not be w.nking at work, that's all I'm saying. :roll:
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by insignificant » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:25 pm

geejaytee wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:08 pm
For those whose view of the thread is:

Untitled.png

can it be summarised, please?
have attached a long screenshot

Spoiler:

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Grumble » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:26 pm

“don’t let your scramble to be part of an exciting drama mean you amplify problems or act unethically yourself.”
“What is an unethical response to the discovery of unethical research?”
Are two key quotes.
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by bob sterman » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:31 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:57 pm
Creepy and unpleasant.
Absolutely! And what did the author think he would achieve by publishing this??? Aside from creeping everyone out.

However, when it comes to n=1 self-experimentation without institutional approval - at the one end you've got this sleazy dumpster fire. And at the other end you've got - Barry Marshall.

And there still isn't consensus about the need for institutional ethics committee approval for self-experimentation.

Review of Scientific Self-Experimentation: Ethics History, Regulation, Scenarios, and Views Among Ethics Committees and Prominent Scientists

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/rej.2018.2059

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by bob sterman » Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:42 pm

Grumble wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:26 pm
“don’t let your scramble to be part of an exciting drama mean you amplify problems or act unethically yourself.”
“What is an unethical response to the discovery of unethical research?”
Are two key quotes.
She made lots of good points but the "don't amplify" message was part of a series of 30-40 tweets sent to 18,000+ followers.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:23 pm

bob sterman wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:42 pm
Grumble wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:26 pm
“don’t let your scramble to be part of an exciting drama mean you amplify problems or act unethically yourself.”
“What is an unethical response to the discovery of unethical research?”
Are two key quotes.
She made lots of good points but the "don't amplify" message was part of a series of 30-40 tweets sent to 18,000+ followers.
Although, crucially, without linking to the paper. Though it wasn't hard to find as it's the journal's most read article.
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Bird on a Fire » Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:26 pm

bob sterman wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:31 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 1:57 pm
Creepy and unpleasant.
Absolutely! And what did the author think he would achieve by publishing this??? Aside from creeping everyone out.

However, when it comes to n=1 self-experimentation without institutional approval - at the one end you've got this sleazy dumpster fire. And at the other end you've got - Barry Marshall.

And there still isn't consensus about the need for institutional ethics committee approval for self-experimentation.

Review of Scientific Self-Experimentation: Ethics History, Regulation, Scenarios, and Views Among Ethics Committees and Prominent Scientists

https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/rej.2018.2059
Part of the issue here is that the nature of the imagery relates to child abuse, so while victims weren't directly experimented upon they are still impacted. Which is an argument that probably applies to any erotic genre in such circumstances.

Just bizarre that anybody thought this a good idea to publish.
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by bob sterman » Thu Aug 11, 2022 5:56 am

Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:26 pm
Just bizarre that anybody thought this a good idea to publish.
Indeed - it's unfathomable.

The remit of the journal...
Qualitative Research is a peer-reviewed international journal that has been leading debates about qualitative methods for over 20 years. The journal provides a forum for the discussion and development of qualitative methods across disciplines, publishing high quality articles that contribute to the ways in which we think about and practice the craft of qualitative research.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Woodchopper » Thu Aug 11, 2022 6:58 am

bob sterman wrote:
Thu Aug 11, 2022 5:56 am
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 10:26 pm
Just bizarre that anybody thought this a good idea to publish.
Indeed - it's unfathomable.

The remit of the journal...
Qualitative Research is a peer-reviewed international journal that has been leading debates about qualitative methods for over 20 years. The journal provides a forum for the discussion and development of qualitative methods across disciplines, publishing high quality articles that contribute to the ways in which we think about and practice the craft of qualitative research.
If we assume that the editor did read the article there is an obvious rationale.

Journals are desperate for citations to improve their rankings. So they have an incentive to publish controversial articles that will get a lot of attention. If it doesn’t get retracted this article could become one of the journal’s most highly cited, solely by people criticising it.

However editors can misjudge and get much more controversy than they expect. Which leads to retractions and resignations from the journal. But the editor will probably keep their job.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by bjn » Thu Aug 11, 2022 7:51 am

This will play well with the “universities are full of Marxist academics doing pointless research” crowd.

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Stephanie » Thu Aug 11, 2022 8:22 am

bob sterman wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:42 pm
Grumble wrote:
Wed Aug 10, 2022 9:26 pm
“don’t let your scramble to be part of an exciting drama mean you amplify problems or act unethically yourself.”
“What is an unethical response to the discovery of unethical research?”
Are two key quotes.
She made lots of good points but the "don't amplify" message was part of a series of 30-40 tweets sent to 18,000+ followers.
She didn't QT the paper, or link to it, as is the norm for amplifying content on Twitter. She merely took it as an example for how to deal with such content. That's ok, I think.
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by Holylol » Thu Aug 11, 2022 9:57 am

bjn wrote:
Thu Aug 11, 2022 7:51 am
This will play well with the “universities are full of Marxist academics doing pointless research” crowd.
And even better with the recent trend from far-right c.nts to associate the work done in Humanities departments with "grooming".

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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by egbert26 » Thu Aug 11, 2022 2:50 pm

Holylol wrote:
Thu Aug 11, 2022 9:57 am
bjn wrote:
Thu Aug 11, 2022 7:51 am
This will play well with the “universities are full of Marxist academics doing pointless research” crowd.
And even better with the recent trend from far-right c.nts to associate the work done in Humanities departments with "grooming".
A few academic made idiots of themselves yesterday by pretending that the uproar was just some culture war nonsense. One has since apologised once he actually saw what he had defended.

I did read Tweets from an academic stating that the gentleman in question was self-funding his PhD, but according to his Twitter bio he is funded by his university department. It's a bit odd that some academics immediately assume that this stuff would never get funded or past peer review and that it must be some right-wing ploy to make them look bad.
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by warumich » Fri Aug 12, 2022 2:59 am

I have been thinking for a bit whether I should chime in, I suppose not making a snap judgement is a good call on this issue, unlike some other people's experiences. But I have to admit, when I first saw this, I also genuinely thought the issue is one of the usual culture war bollocks. That MP's tweet talked about an article on m.st.rbation, questioned whether tax payers money should go on this, and concluded that funding to all non STEM disciplines should be cut (or something like that). No mention of the nature of the p.rn being looked at. Given just that an initial reaction of "oh f.ck here we go again" by some academics was warranted. But of course one should look at the text being criticised first before tweeting. But maybe they did - I certainly did. But I must confess the nature of the p.rn didn't immediately jump out at me either - the title iirc, and I'm not going to go back to that piece, only mentioned the genre name, not what it is - maybe I'm naive or culturally uneducated, but I've never heard of this before and assumed it's something fairly innocuous. The abstract and then the text itself mentions young boys, but without giving specifics of the ages, I admit I assumed the word boy was used in the sense of young adult (in the same way that my girlfriend still calls me her boyfriend even though we're both in our 40s). It was only after I read some of the commentary that the penny dropped. Again I was naive, but I'm not the only one who fell for it.
QR is a well respected journal, so maybe an unconscious cue was there that I wouldn't assume that sort of material to be published there (a friend of mine is part of the editorial team, he specialism is something completely different so he wouldn't have been involved in this, but I can imagine that his summer holiday is now completely ruined).
I can well imagine that the review process was similar - editor didn't spot this, reviewers neither. The review would have been blind, so the reviewers would not have been able to benefit from googling the author's past history; the reviewers may have been experts in autoethnography, or sexuality research, but not on Japanese p.rn genres. I frequently get asked to review papers that are relevant to my expertise in one respect, but not in others. Should they have at least googled the genre? Yes of course, but tbh usually I'm lucky if I get to spend more than half a day reviewing a paper, because I've got a full time job and I'm basically doing this sh.t pro bono, so I can well imagine that some corners were cut (I have three on the go at the moment, when I return from AL next week I basically have Monday to do it, the rest of the week I'm booked up already). I also think I have a bit of a right to expect that papers I receive have been vetted by an ethics board first. And so do the editors. The peer review system is close to cracking at the moment, because academic workloads have tripled, editors get sent more papers (because we all have to publish more now) and get more refusals from people they approach for review, because the relevant experts are too busy writing their own papers. I had a paper sitting on the editor's desk recently for more than three months before they could find someone to review it. It's not like people haven't been warning about the collapse of peer review for ages.


So this rush to judgement disquiets me a bit (not the judgement on the author, but on the journal and the initial commentators). Idiotic and naive, yes, but saying people "pretended" it was only about the culture war is unfair. Some people f.ck up, it doesn't have to be with bad intentions. Those that I've seen giving a quick culture war take at first have apologised (certainly more than just one).


NB, I've also once been the reviewer of a paper that became embroiled in culture war bollocks - I stand by it, but the experience wasn't pleasant even though I remained anonymous. A colleague of mine had nasty comments written on her in the Mail because she dared to use taxpayers money on researching the Kardashians as a cultural phenomenon. Similarly for another colleague who writes on disparaging humour (daring to criticise the practice of making any jokes you want also summons the culture war brigade). The Times publishes a front page b.llsh.t story about how us updating our reading lists once in a while is basically leftwing censorship. And this week's education secretary tweets that this means our universities should be in for another round of special measures or something. So yes non-STEM academics are jumpy at the moment.
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Re: w.nking as ethnographic field method

Post by JQH » Fri Aug 12, 2022 8:37 am

Thanks for that perspective Warumich.

I have to admit that were I in the academic loop when the controversy over this paper started. I would have almost certainly thought "culture war bollocks" too.

Just goes to show that reading before defending is every bit as important as reading before criticising.
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