Serious emotions: On some emotions in working on men's violences and violences to women

Both the more immediate, more reactive and the longer-term forms of emotion are highly relevant to researching on violence, with the first linking with specific disturbing events and experiences, for example, threat or worries for safety. Thus, this contribution reflects on the place of emotions in researching, in different ways and over many years, on violence, especially but not only violence to women. This includes discussion of: how emotions can be important in organising research on violence; emotions in doing research the field, and in interviewing men on violence; the relations between the emotions of interviewees and the emotions of researchers; as well as emotions between men, and emotions in analysis and writing up research material. In addition, emotion can also work in a more muted, longer-term way, with less extreme responses and experiences. These latter longer-term emotions can be linked with: first, the very practice of doing direct research on violence itself; second, certain other kinds of less immediate, more distanced violence or the use of more distanced research methods on violence; and, third, a variety of managerial, administrative and educational tasks on and around violence. I call these the emotions of gravity. Emotions are a serious business.