What’s love got to do with it? Live methods and researching with children who have experienced domestic abuse and social work intervention

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Herbert, Brenda. 2025. What’s love got to do with it? Live methods and researching with children who have experienced domestic abuse and social work intervention. The Sociological Review, ISSN 0038-0261 [Article] (In Press)

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261251335490

Abstract or Description

When Tina Turner sang ‘What’s love got to do with it?’ she could have been singing about live methods. This article reflects on my experience as a reluctant ethnographer with children during COVID-19. I argue that it was ‘love’ for the community I was researching with that led me to use live methods. In this article I reflect on how love is the driving force in live methods. Taking inspiration from bell hooks, Audre Lorde and Linda Tuhiwai Smith, I explore how love does indeed have everything to do with live methods and is not ‘a second-hand emotion’ but can definitely break your heart. My reflections are based on an 18-month multimodal ethnography that I undertook for my PhD studies with children who have experienced domestic abuse and social care intervention. The multimodal ethnography began in March 2020 just as the restrictions for COVID-19 in the UK began. Whilst I had originally planned for in-person methods, the children and I had to quickly navigate and negotiate a way to continue the research. On reflection I can identify elements of Back and Puwar’s manifesto in my methods, but undergirding my research was something I now recognise as love. In this article I reflect how I reluctantly came to my methodology and methods not because of my sociological sensibilities but due to the love for the families I was researching with. I reflect and argue how love needs to underpin live methods.

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Article

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https://doi.org/10.1177/00380261251335490