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History of the Human Sciences
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Inventing Iris: negotiating the unexpected spatialities of intimacy

Bronwyn C. Parry

Department of Geography, Queen Mary, University of London, London, UK, b.parry{at}qmul.ac.uk

This article explores a number of questions about the relationship between intimacy and research that were bought into sharp focus for me by a disturbing event: my unexpected encounter with Iris Murdoch's archived brain. In considering how very intimate experiences such as these are both constructed and narrated to wider audiences, I begin by exploring the nature of intimacy itself. Here I argue that intimacy is the product of not only social but spatial relations, relations that may, in contrast to popular conceptions, be `stretched out' to create what I call here `distributed spaces of intimacy'. In exploring the role that material artefacts can play as objects that create essential points of interface between individuals and communities that are geographically and socially distant, I also draw attention to the necessarily partial and relational nature of intimacy. In the final section of the article I turn to consider the impact that intensely personal experiences may have on research methodologies and the vexatious question of how, if at all, it is possible to speak of, or report them, without transgressing important social, moral and ethical conventions.

Key Words: body parts • brain banking • distributed spaces of intimacy • materiality • research ethics

History of the Human Sciences, Vol. 21, No. 4, 34-48 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0952695108095510
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